Lawtalk: what should the Supreme Court do if it made a decision on faulty facts?

[DocZaius]

http://volokh.com/2012/05/09/when-shoul ... or-errors/

[TheTodd]

I guess it would depend on how much those erroneous facts were used in making the argument towards the decision. If they were minor then probably not much but if they were important facts then the decision should be set aside and re-argued.

[DocZaius]

The thing is, it's rare enough that no one knows what the Court should do, and the question in this particular case is - who has standing to request that the Court revisit the issue. None of the parties in the original case has asked for it - one of the advocacy groups that wrote a friend-of-the-court brief did. Usually, the Court is not going to grant some relief without an actual controversy in front of it.

[TheTodd]

I guess if you can show that the decision negatively effects you then shouldn't you be able to question the decision in light of erroneous facts and thus argue against it?

[DocZaius]

That's generally not how it works - you actually have to have a disputed claim, not some future issue (even if plausible) that will arise because of the decision.

But that's what the Court will have to address (or decline to address).

I mean, like it or not, the Court's decisions often affect much more than the cases it decides - it is a policy-making body.

[TheTodd]

Is the intent of the court to write policy or are they supposed to rule on the constitutionality of policy?