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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Trouble With Amicus Facts, Allison Orr Larsen
The Trouble With Amicus Facts, Allison Orr Larsen
Faculty Publications
The number of amicus curiae briefs filed at the Supreme Court is at an all-time high. Most observers, and even some of the Justices, believe that the best of these briefs are filed to supplement the Court’s understanding of facts. Supreme Court decisions quite often turn on generalized facts about the way the world works (Do violent video games harm children? Is a partial birth abortion ever medically necessary?). To answer these questions, the Justices are hungry for more information than the parties and the record can provide. The consensus is that amicus briefs helpfully add factual expertise to the …
Following Lower-Court Precedent, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Following Lower-Court Precedent, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Faculty Publications
This Article examines the role of lower-court precedent in the US Supreme Court’s decisions. The Supreme Court is rarely the first court to consider a legal question, and therefore the Court has the opportunity to be informed by and perhaps even persuaded by the views of the various lower courts that have previously addressed the issue. This Article considers whether the Court should give weight to lower-court precedent as a matter of normative theory and whether the Court in fact does so as a matter of practice. To answer the normative question, this Article analyzes a variety of potential reasons …