Legal Question in Appeals and Writs in California

Re: Length of Time for an appeal to be heard

Ninth Circuit cases can be decided quickly or can take quite a long time. Your question asks how long a decision takes after all "responses" have been submitted; the term "responses" is a bit vague but I will presume you mean briefs.

I once had a Ninth Circuit case in which oral argument was held about a year after the last brief was filed, and the decision was handed down a year after that. It was a relatively complex case but not remarkably so.

Some Ninth Circuit judges work more quickly than others, and if your three-judge panel happens to include one of the slower judges your case may take quite a while to be decided. To my knowledge, though, none of the three judges on my case was particularly slow, so there really is no relaible way to predict which cases will drag on and which will be decided quickly.

I should add that, even after a decision is handed down, parties can still petition for rehearing by the same panel and/or by the entire court. Such petitions are seldom granted but, when they are, the process can continue for a much longer time.