In Nguyen v. U.S., 539 U.S. 69 (2003), the petitioner contended that a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that had affirmed his federal narcotics conviction was unlawfully composed because, contrary to the dictates of Title 28 U.S.C. 292(a), one of the panel judges was not qualified as a judge under Article III of the United States Constitution. The petitioner raised the issue for the first time in his certiorari petition to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the panel's decision, and remanded for a new proceeding. In a 5-4 decision, the Court considered the issue raised by the petitioner "even though the defect was not raised in a timely manner" because the appointment of a non-Article III judge was a direct violation of section 292(a), which "'embodies a strong policy concerning the proper administration of judicial business.'" 539 U.S. at 78. The Court recognized that, ordinarily, the petitioner's assignment of error would not be preserved due to his failure to raise the issue before the Ninth Circuit panel. It held, however, that "to ignore the violation of section 292(a) would incorrectly suggest that some action (or inaction) on petitioners' part could create authority Congress has quite carefully withheld." Id. at 80. The dissent in Nguyen would have applied a plain error analysis, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), which provides for the consideration of an error not objected to at trial when that error "'seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.'" Id. at 84. In Nguyen, the Court set aside the ordinary rules of error preservation to address a purely legal question: the consequence, if any, of a non-Article III judge sitting on a court of appeals panel.