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Clark Memorandum: Spring 2020, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society
Clark Memorandum: Spring 2020, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society
The Clark Memorandum
- Of Rights and Responsibilities: The Social Ecosystem of Religious Freedom
- I am the Woman Who Can
- Flashes of Light: Thoughts on Circumstantial Evidence
- Capital Markets and Human Flourishing
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Reporting Certainty, James A. Macleod
Reporting Certainty, James A. Macleod
BYU Law Review
Legal theorists, judges, and legal writing instructors persistently decry the assertions of certainty—”obviously X,” “undoubtedly Y,” etc.—that litter judicial opinions. According to the conventional view, the rhetoric of certainty that these assertions epitomize is disingenuous. It also reflects, and even encourages, poor judicial decision-making. And as if that were not enough, it is so unpersuasive that it is counter-persuasive: it signals uncertainty, nonobviousness, etc.—the exact opposite of what its author intends. Judges, for these and other reasons, should abstain from needless assertions of certainty and the myopic thinking they evince. That much is certain.
Yet the rhetoric of certainty persists. …