Speaking of the Supreme Court

Scott at LG&M points us to a terrific piece at ProPublica by Ryan Williamson about how important Supreme Court decisions lean heavily on data that is either manifestly wrong or arguably cooked.

[...]

The review found an error in a landmark ruling, Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down part of the Voting Rights Act. [...] In all, ProPublica found seven errors in a modest sampling of Supreme Court opinions written from 2011 through 2015. In some cases, the errors were introduced by individual justices apparently doing their own research. In others, the errors resulted from false or deeply flawed submissions made to the court by people or organizations seeking to persuade the justices to rule one way or the other.

All Shelby County did was gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965, so you can see how this is all just a case of harmless errors.

[...]

In fairness, Williamson illustrates that the reliance on bad data is fairly balanced ideologically; in fact, he shows that Justice Anthony (Weathervane) Kennedy is particularly prone to it.

[...]

Williamson cites a legal scholar named Kenneth Culp Davis who, 30 years ago, called for the Supreme Court to have its own independent research bureau. As the questions coming before the Court become more complicated—and, increasingly, more politically polarized—it's clearly time to look at this again.

  Charles P Pierce

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.