An Odd Way to Do History

Welcome to the new ‘wild, wild west’ of Supreme Court false fact-finding! (WANTED: A Supreme Court that doesn’t abuse the fact-finding process to reach the results it wants.)

In this episode of Making the Case, Senator Whitehouse is joined by Professor Allison Orr Larsen, an expert on judicial fact-finding at the William and Mary Law School. Some of the Supreme Court’s worst decisions, like Citizens United and Shelby County, got to their results by making stuff up. Following Senator Whitehouse’s recent article in the Ohio State Law Review, this episode unpacks how the Supreme Court‘s false fact-finding expeditions broke traditional rules to render decisions agreeable to the Court’s right-wing, special-interest benefactors.  

Follow ⁠@SenWhitehouse⁠ on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for all the latest updates on Making the Case. To read more from Professor Allison Orr Larsen, see the links below. 

Factual Precedents - Pennsylvania Law Review

The Trouble with Amicus Facts - Virginia Law Review