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Rethinking The Judicial Reception Of Legislative Facts, Ann Woolhandler

Vanderbilt Law Review

In a recent article, Professor Peggy Davis called for reforms in judicial reception of legislative facts. Her suggestions, which follow an empirical analysis of the use of psychological parent theories in child custody disputes, echo similar proposals by Professor Kenneth Karst in 1960s and by Professors Arthur Miller and Jerome Barron in 1975 for judicial reception of legislative facts in constitutional cases.As originally defined by Kenneth Culp Davis, legislative facts are facts that "inform[] a court's legislative judgment on questions of law and policy." They contrast with adjudicative facts, which are facts about "what the parties did, what the circumstances …