When interpretations and rules depend on what’s true about the world (so, all the time), judges have to reach conclusions about those truths. But courts are not exactly like administrative agencies or legislatures, and they depend on adversarial parties to contest the truth. The Supreme Court, in particular, has come to rely on an elite bar to organize and present facts and studies. Having been through our usual vetting process of successfully appearing on the Colbert Report, Alli Larsen is ready for the big time and joins us to discuss how courts deal with the problem of factiness (which is the ivory tower version of truthiness). Alli’s appearance on the Colbert Report (01:02). The pronunciation of “amicus” (05:24). The main topic (10:36).

This show’s links:

• Alli Larsen’s faculty profile and writing
• Alli on the Colbert Report discussing amicus briefs and factfinding
• Before you write in, yes, the Dan Quayle story is false, but is that really the point?
• Oral Argument 74: Minimum Curiosity (guest Amanda Frost)
• Rowe v. Gibson
• Alli Orr Lasen, The Amicus Machine
• Alli Orr Larsen, The Trouble with Amicus Facts
• Alli Orr Larsen, Factual Precedents
• Amanda Frost, The Limits of Advocacy
• Brianne Gorod, The Adversarial Myth: Appellate Court Extra-Record Factfinding
• Glossip v. Gross (death penalty)
• Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (violent video games)
• About the Brandeis Brief
• Gonzales v. Carhart
• Reva Siegel, The Right’s Reasons: Constitutional Conflict and the Spread of Woman-Protective Antiabortion Argument
• Gregory Klass and Kathryn Zeiler, Against Endowment Theory: Experimental Economics and Legal Scholarship
• Joseph Kearney and Thomas Merrill, The Influence of Amicus Curiae Briefs on the Supreme Court
• William Eskridge Jr., Politics Without Romance: Implications of Public Choice Theory for Statutory Interpretation