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Okay, I have an admission to make. I read Supreme Court opinions for fun. At least, I did until recently. You see, until recently, Supreme Court opinions tended to be some of the finest examples of pure reasoning available. The best ones - and there were always one or two per case, usually in the majority - would lay out the facts, examine law and precedent, and by pure force of logic reach an inevitable conclusion. You might not like the conclusion - sometimes the writer of the opinion didn't - but if you wanted it changed, it was very clear that it was the law that had to change, or perhaps the Constitution, because there was no arguing with how the decision followed from the law. What was the most fun was when you had some of best writers on opposite sides of a case - as when O'Conner dissented from the sentencing guidelines case, or when Rehnquist and Scalia were on opposite sides in Hamdan. With expert logicians on both sides and everyone taking extra care to make their writing as persuasive as possible, the smallest logical fallacies were seen in high relief, and it became obvious when a justice was allowing his preconceptions color his opinions. With the loss of Rehnquist and O'Conner, though, the quality of the opinions has been sliding. Scalia, formerly one of the more meticulous writers, has been getting sloppy. Most of the other judges no longer bother to include a summary of the facts of the case, making the logic more difficult to follow. Worse, when you do get the facts, say from a well written lower court opinion, it's clear that the logic is sloppier as well, perhaps because the justices are relying on memory rather than actually going through and laying out the facts in writing. The bad thing is, this actually has practical consequences. When the opinions were clear and understandable, the lower courts had a better basis for making their own decisions. Even if a case came up that wasn't exactly the same as one that had been argued in the Supreme Court, it was often clear how the Supreme Court's logic would apply to that different case. This helped keep the rules uniform between the various court circuits and districts, and reduced the need for appeals. With majority opinions getting sloppier, even turgid at times, the lower courts will have less guidance. There will be more temptation for them to insert their own political views into their decisions. Indeed, they may find themselves in the position of having to make law rather than interpreting it - not because they want to, but because there just isn't enough guidance to do a good job of interpretation. |
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