6 ms·

It's worth mentioning that while some parts of law can be really arcane (parents, terms of service, etc.), Supreme Court decisions are generally pretty readable

by i_k_k 2y ago

It's worth mentioning that while some parts of law can be really arcane (parents, terms of service, etc.), Supreme Court decisions are generally pretty readable.

tiahura 2y ago
Mostly agree about Constitutional cases. Some of the less sexy statutory construction cases are written for a smaller audience, and even as a lawyer, if you don’t practice in that field, they can be pretty opaque.
- Matticus_Rex 2y ago
  Ugh, and the range of clarity from judge to judge is another big factor.
  - returningfory2 2y ago
    Interesting! How do you rate the different SCOTUS justices in terms of clarity?
    - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
      I only read the big cases since law school, so take this with a grain of salt -- I've only read one or two KBJ decisions and a handful from Kavanaugh and ACB. In terms of legal clarity alone, Gorsuch and then Kagan are ahead of the pack by some margin, followed at some distance by Roberts and ACB. Sotomayor is great as a writer, but not in terms of legal clarity. I think Thomas is middle-of-the-pack, and I think he gets underrated in this regard because people dislike his opinions. Again, experience of Kavanaugh and KBJ's writing is limited, but they're at least not far behind the pack here. Alito stands alone as the only one I'd say is bad for a Supreme Court justice. And that's relative, so it doesn't mean he's awful, but I do actively avoid his writing. The variance gets way higher the further from SCOTUS you go. At the state level it's basically roulette.
      - dogmayor 2y ago
        I'd agree with this. Kagan is the best overall, Roberts is up there when he wants to be and isn't forcing it, and yes Thomas writes fairly well but what he writes is abysmal. Alito is hands down the worst writer and one of the worst to ever sit on the court. He's not the brightest but thinks he's a savant and writes with a smugness and conceit that drips off the page on top of being as disingenuous as they come. Reading anything he writes is torture.
        Matticus_Rex 2y ago
        > smugness and conceit that drips off the page Yeah, when he's like this his writing goes off a cliff. I feel like it peaks any time Sotomayor wrote whatever he's disagreeing with, but that may just be me.
lelandfe 2y ago
Agreed! And the typography is perfect. I've enjoyed bypassing all the angles and bias of coverage and just reading the majority decision PDFs in full. As a layperson the implications of phrases do escape me, though. SCOTUS can get awfully terse.
- Matticus_Rex 2y ago
  Late in law school, I ended up writing a study guide for a multi-day Constitutional Law seminar for non-lawyers, and found that unpacking all of the legal turns of phrase and items that would carry huge implications when read by lawyers took between 3x and 15x the space of whatever segment I was unpacking, with an average around 7.5x-8x. And according to feedback that still ended up being a bit dense for most readers. Worst volunteer gig I've ever agreed to!
- kashunstva 2y ago
  > just reading the majority decision PDFs in full The dissenting opinions are also quite enlightening because they point out weaknesses in the majority and concurring opinions that might not be apparent to those of us outside the field.
  - psunavy03 2y ago
    Justices deliberately write their dissents in the hope that people will read them, be persuaded, and then those will eventually become established law. Ginsburg and Scalia were masters of this.
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      It's actually fascinating the number of times that the dissent will later become the law after culture changes.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
vundercind 2y ago
Just be sure to double-check any “facts” they cite before taking them as true. Because they, uh, kinda don’t. Check them, that is.
- Matticus_Rex 2y ago
  By the time you see a published SCOTUS decision clerks have definitely checked all citations. The problem is that occasionally the source or interpretation is questionable/contentious.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Clerks have much more limited time than one might think, and research is basically an added-on function that they never staffed for once courts started engaging in it. “Facts” from amicus briefs make it in all the time without an apparent attempt at verification. Perhaps they do check and then ignore their findings, but why bother with that?
  - aaronbrethorst 2y ago
    Except when they haven't: https://newrepublic.com/article/183285/supreme-court-chevron-gorsuch-nitrous-oxide https://newrepublic.com/article/183285/supreme-court-chevron... There's something very funny and simultaneously chilling about a majority opinion authored by Gorsuch[1] who has said “[o]nly the written word is the law” [1] totally mixing up laughing gas and a toxic pollutant emitted by cars. [1] I know the clerks actually write them, HN pedants. [2] https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/06/symposium-the-triumph-of-textualism-only-the-written-word-is-the-law/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/06/symposium-the-triumph-of-...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- throwup238 2y ago
  Double check everything: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/06/28/supreme-court-corrects-epa-opinion-after-gorsuch-confuses-laughing-gas-with-air-pollutant/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/06/28/supreme... The Justices have made some bone headed mistakes, especially this last crop.
senkora 2y ago
I suppose that they are free to focus on readability when they don't have to structure their writing in order to defend their decision-making from anyone, being the highest court of the land.
- cvoss 2y ago
  A few points to the contrary: The primary purpose for their writing of opinions is not to defend the decisions, but to instruct lower courts on how they should reason on similar cases. So it very much matters on a practical level that their reasoning is sound. Second, if the goal is a cogent, defensible argument, readability is in support of that objective, whereas you suggest that readability is somehow (?) at odds with cogency and defensibility. Thirdly, the justices are keenly aware that the interested public consumes their opinions too, and that they are, in fact, ethically and morally bound to defend their decisions to the public.
  - senkora 2y ago
    > you suggest that readability is somehow (?) at odds with cogency and defensibility All I am saying is that writing can be clearer and more concise when you don't have to include asides and digressions to preemptively defend it from criticism. This is a technical point on power dynamics and writing style. When the authors are in a position of power, then they can focus more on readability (and cogency) and less on playing defense, because their court seats are secure for life. By contrast, justices in lower courts are influenced by organizational politics and must focus more on defensibility, which may come at the expense of clarity. So I do not find it surprising that the supreme court is able to produce more readable decisions than lower courts, because they have unique incentives. > The primary purpose for their writing of opinions is not to defend the decisions, but to instruct lower courts on how they should reason on similar cases. Correct. This is different from lower courts, which also explains why they are able to focus on readability.
- hnfong 2y ago
  They actually do have to, in a sense. Being the only non-democratically elected branch of government in a democracy, the courts don't enjoy direct approval from the people. So while the structure of the institutions seem to give them power, their authority ultimately hinges on whether people perceive their decisions fair and just. When courts make unpopular decisions and can't explain why, there's always a risk of some constitutional crisis. If courts keep making decisions that they can't rationally defend, at some point their authority will begin to erode. (And if you followed the USSC rulings in recent years you might start to understand why. Maybe the resentment not yet directly targeted towards the courts, but those decisions did add fuel to the already divisive politics in the US.)

by i_k_k 2y ago

It's worth mentioning that while some parts of law can be really arcane (parents, terms of service, etc.), Supreme Court decisions are generally pretty readable.

tiahura 2y ago

Mostly agree about Constitutional cases. Some of the less sexy statutory construction cases are written for a smaller audience, and even as a lawyer, if you don’t practice in that field, they can be pretty opaque.

Matticus_Rex 2y ago
Ugh, and the range of clarity from judge to judge is another big factor.
- returningfory2 2y ago
  Interesting! How do you rate the different SCOTUS justices in terms of clarity?
  - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
    I only read the big cases since law school, so take this with a grain of salt -- I've only read one or two KBJ decisions and a handful from Kavanaugh and ACB. In terms of legal clarity alone, Gorsuch and then Kagan are ahead of the pack by some margin, followed at some distance by Roberts and ACB. Sotomayor is great as a writer, but not in terms of legal clarity. I think Thomas is middle-of-the-pack, and I think he gets underrated in this regard because people dislike his opinions. Again, experience of Kavanaugh and KBJ's writing is limited, but they're at least not far behind the pack here. Alito stands alone as the only one I'd say is bad for a Supreme Court justice. And that's relative, so it doesn't mean he's awful, but I do actively avoid his writing. The variance gets way higher the further from SCOTUS you go. At the state level it's basically roulette.
    - dogmayor 2y ago
      I'd agree with this. Kagan is the best overall, Roberts is up there when he wants to be and isn't forcing it, and yes Thomas writes fairly well but what he writes is abysmal. Alito is hands down the worst writer and one of the worst to ever sit on the court. He's not the brightest but thinks he's a savant and writes with a smugness and conceit that drips off the page on top of being as disingenuous as they come. Reading anything he writes is torture.
      - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
        > smugness and conceit that drips off the page Yeah, when he's like this his writing goes off a cliff. I feel like it peaks any time Sotomayor wrote whatever he's disagreeing with, but that may just be me.

lelandfe 2y ago

Agreed! And the typography is perfect. I've enjoyed bypassing all the angles and bias of coverage and just reading the majority decision PDFs in full. As a layperson the implications of phrases do escape me, though. SCOTUS can get awfully terse.

Matticus_Rex 2y ago
Late in law school, I ended up writing a study guide for a multi-day Constitutional Law seminar for non-lawyers, and found that unpacking all of the legal turns of phrase and items that would carry huge implications when read by lawyers took between 3x and 15x the space of whatever segment I was unpacking, with an average around 7.5x-8x. And according to feedback that still ended up being a bit dense for most readers. Worst volunteer gig I've ever agreed to!
kashunstva 2y ago
> just reading the majority decision PDFs in full The dissenting opinions are also quite enlightening because they point out weaknesses in the majority and concurring opinions that might not be apparent to those of us outside the field.
- psunavy03 2y ago
  Justices deliberately write their dissents in the hope that people will read them, be persuaded, and then those will eventually become established law. Ginsburg and Scalia were masters of this.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    It's actually fascinating the number of times that the dissent will later become the law after culture changes.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

vundercind 2y ago

Just be sure to double-check any “facts” they cite before taking them as true. Because they, uh, kinda don’t. Check them, that is.

Matticus_Rex 2y ago
By the time you see a published SCOTUS decision clerks have definitely checked all citations. The problem is that occasionally the source or interpretation is questionable/contentious.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Clerks have much more limited time than one might think, and research is basically an added-on function that they never staffed for once courts started engaging in it. “Facts” from amicus briefs make it in all the time without an apparent attempt at verification. Perhaps they do check and then ignore their findings, but why bother with that?
- aaronbrethorst 2y ago
  Except when they haven't: https://newrepublic.com/article/183285/supreme-court-chevron-gorsuch-nitrous-oxide https://newrepublic.com/article/183285/supreme-court-chevron... There's something very funny and simultaneously chilling about a majority opinion authored by Gorsuch[1] who has said “[o]nly the written word is the law” [1] totally mixing up laughing gas and a toxic pollutant emitted by cars. [1] I know the clerks actually write them, HN pedants. [2] https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/06/symposium-the-triumph-of-textualism-only-the-written-word-is-the-law/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/06/symposium-the-triumph-of-...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
throwup238 2y ago
Double check everything: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/06/28/supreme-court-corrects-epa-opinion-after-gorsuch-confuses-laughing-gas-with-air-pollutant/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/06/28/supreme... The Justices have made some bone headed mistakes, especially this last crop.

senkora 2y ago

I suppose that they are free to focus on readability when they don't have to structure their writing in order to defend their decision-making from anyone, being the highest court of the land.

cvoss 2y ago
A few points to the contrary: The primary purpose for their writing of opinions is not to defend the decisions, but to instruct lower courts on how they should reason on similar cases. So it very much matters on a practical level that their reasoning is sound. Second, if the goal is a cogent, defensible argument, readability is in support of that objective, whereas you suggest that readability is somehow (?) at odds with cogency and defensibility. Thirdly, the justices are keenly aware that the interested public consumes their opinions too, and that they are, in fact, ethically and morally bound to defend their decisions to the public.
- senkora 2y ago
  > you suggest that readability is somehow (?) at odds with cogency and defensibility All I am saying is that writing can be clearer and more concise when you don't have to include asides and digressions to preemptively defend it from criticism. This is a technical point on power dynamics and writing style. When the authors are in a position of power, then they can focus more on readability (and cogency) and less on playing defense, because their court seats are secure for life. By contrast, justices in lower courts are influenced by organizational politics and must focus more on defensibility, which may come at the expense of clarity. So I do not find it surprising that the supreme court is able to produce more readable decisions than lower courts, because they have unique incentives. > The primary purpose for their writing of opinions is not to defend the decisions, but to instruct lower courts on how they should reason on similar cases. Correct. This is different from lower courts, which also explains why they are able to focus on readability.
hnfong 2y ago
They actually do have to, in a sense. Being the only non-democratically elected branch of government in a democracy, the courts don't enjoy direct approval from the people. So while the structure of the institutions seem to give them power, their authority ultimately hinges on whether people perceive their decisions fair and just. When courts make unpopular decisions and can't explain why, there's always a risk of some constitutional crisis. If courts keep making decisions that they can't rationally defend, at some point their authority will begin to erode. (And if you followed the USSC rulings in recent years you might start to understand why. Maybe the resentment not yet directly targeted towards the courts, but those decisions did add fuel to the already divisive politics in the US.)