United States v. Banks

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

This case illustrates the critical role that the standard of appellate review can, and must, play in our judicial system. As we explained in United States v. Williams, 81 F.3d 1434 (7th Cir.1996), “[it] is difficult for nonlawyers to understand or accept ... that because the question whether to grant a new trial is committed to the discretion of the district judge, as the defendants rightly concede, United States v. Knox, 68 F.3d 990, 1000 (7th Cir.1995); United States v. Maloney, 71 F.3d 645, 654 (7th Cir.1995), it is possible for two judges, confronted with the identical…