By that peculiar reasoning, a majority can be held to have decided an issue — and made it law of the circuit — when it never said a word on the subject. The Jeffries V majority had very little to say about law of the circuit, and what it did say totally undermines the majority here: “The dissent seems to acknowledge that [the] law of the circuit doctrine would preclude the Jeffries IV panel from contradicting the Jeffries III opinion, thus reaching the same result as the majority.” Id. at 1493 n. 12. The majority somehow manages to squeeze blood from a turnip. Second, to the extent Washington IV says something different from Jeffries V, it is the most recent en banc opinion and therefore clearly controls. See United States v. Heredia, 483 F.3d 913, 918-19 (9th Cir.2007) (en banc) (<HOLDING>). The majority objects that Washington IV
holding that in the absence of an intervening supreme court decision only the en banc court may overrule a decision by a threejudge panel recognizing that a later en banc court may overrule an earlier en banc opinion holding ajbsent en banc reconsideration we are bound by prior decisions of this circuit holding that only intervening law from the supreme court or this court sitting en banc can overrule a prior panel decision holding that a panel may not reconsider issues decided earlier in the same case by the en banc court