Where do Supreme Court justices get their facts from? Oftentimes, they get their “facts” from amicus curiae legal briefs that are filed by “friends of the court,” i.e. private parties with axes to grind. Now, check out this fascinating report by Adam Liptak of the New York Times summing up Professor Alli Orr Larsen’s 57-page paper “The Trouble with Amicus Facts.” Here are a few egregious examples that appear in Liptak’s report:

In a 2011 decision about the privacy rights of scientists who worked on government space programs, Justice [Samuel] Alito cited an amicus brief to show that more than 88 percent of American companies perform background checks on their workers …

In a 2012 decision allowing strip searches of people arrested for even minor offenses as they are admitted to jail, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy cited an amicus brief to show that there are an “increasing number of gang members” entering the nation’s prisons and jails. The brief itself did little more than assert that “there is no doubt” this was so.

And in a 2013 decision, Justice Stephen G. Breyer cited an amicus brief to establish that American libraries hold 200 million books that were published abroad, a point of some significance in the copyright dispute before the court. The figure in the brief came from a blog post. The blog has been discontinued.

So, if you’re looking for further evidence that the Supreme Court is populated with highly political and dangerous creatures, look to see how some of the justices have resorted to selectively citing only those “facts” that just so happen to support their pre-existing hunches and biases. Is this not one small symptom of the larger problem with the Supreme Court? More importantly, what is the cure? (Cartoon by Jenny Coopes.)

Friends of the Court?