Comment by olympus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by olympus | Hacker News Reader

One thing jumps out at me from the article beyond the main point. All of the cases listed have a ruling that was"conservative" except for one. The one exception is Arizona v. US, where the main ruling was "liberal" but left a portion of Arizona's law intact, which was definitely "conservative" friendly and liberals were unhappy that it remained intact.

It is implausible to me that there were no opinions pleasing to liberals that contained errors. Given the makeup of the court, it's possible that there just aren't very many liberal rulings, and none made it into the sample due to random chance. It's also possible that the liberal opinions were not examined and that the "moral force" of ProPublica's journalism is pushing to the left while trying to hide the bias from their reader.

There was a seventh error mentioned that was not covered in the article, and they mentioned that it would be the subject of a future article. Does anybody care to guess what direction the ruling will lean in that case?

Note: I'm making two comments on this thread since this is a completely separate point.

I think the right way to go about this would be to find the "liberal errors". There are plenty of well-financed conservative organizations that could do that work.

I mean, they never claim that there is any kind of political bias, or that the cases they describe is some kind of random sample, they just note that there have been factual errors in the court opinions. My own guess is that the reporter noticed these errors in the process of researching cases for other articles, and thought it was interesting enough to write about.

Instead of completely baseless speculation about liberal conspiracies to suppress the truth, you could demonstrate your claim by finding similar errors in "liberal" rulings. What you find "implausible" is irrelevant.

^^ is making an interesting observation, followed by a plausible hypothesis. This is not “baseless speculation”.

It is completely baseless speculation. It creates an unfounded implication of wrongdoing or subterfuge on the part of Pro Publica without any evidence.

This is a classic FUD tactic.

Absolutely, you could just as easily speculate that Conservative judges are more willing to play fast and loose with facts to fit their purposes.

Either hypothesis is valid given the limited evidence investigated so far. What’s wrong with making a quick observation followed by a hypothesis?

Hypothesis without some evidence are quite literally baseless speculation; if there were evidence, it wouldn't be baseless.

There _was_ preliminary evidence for OP’s hypothesis.

No, there was his judgement of the results as partisan, that is not evidence. Thinking you see bias is not the same thing as finding evidence of bias.

His judgment of the results as partisan wasn’t evidence of anything except perhaps his own bias. That was his hypothesis based on his one observation.

Hypotheses are allowed to be biased as long as they’re tested before becoming anything more.

The evidence (however preliminary) was the fact that nearly all of Pro Publica’s cited rulings were in favor of conservatives.

> The evidence (however preliminary) was the fact that nearly all of Pro Publica’s cited rulings were in favor of conservatives.

I'd still call that opinion, not evidence. A conservative might say those rulings were in favor of reason, not partisan. See, an alternate opinion.

You’re quibbling about words. If we can’t agree that one side favors a particular viewpoint over the other in a given civil case, any further discussion about the presence or absence of political bias in the ruling or selection of the ruling is impossible.

> You’re quibbling about words.

So are you, this whole thread is you quibbling about words.

Without something to back it up, it is baseless speculation.

I offer no comment the GP, but an example springs to mind for where where a "liberal" ruling was based on a factual error - US v Miller (1939)

The majority opinion stated:

> In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

In fact, "trench shotguns" were issued in WW1 and at the time of the ruling, which standard barrel lengths of ~20" - and were often shortened further in the field. Further, shotguns with barrels of <18" were standard issue elsewhere in the world and were used by US cavalry throughout the Civil War and into the Indian Wars in the latter part of the 19th Century.

They really need to rewrite the second amendment in a more precise fashion. How about bazookas or soon laser weapons? Are they ok? I am not trying to be funny. What's an arm?

At the time of the ratification, "arms" basically meant a weapon that could be carried by a soldier. The next larger class of weapons would be "ordnance", to include things like cannon and explosives.

It's also worth noting that the Constitution implicitly recognizes the civilian ownership of ordnance as well, through Article 1 Section 8: "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water" granting letters of marque wouldn't make sense if individuals did not possess suitably armed ships.

A Stinger ground to air missile can easily be carried by a soldier so I assume that's OK. I have also spent considerable time carrying around an anti-tank missile. Heavy but very doable.

The opinion states that there was an absence of evidence (ie, evidence presented in court, not evidence that might exist somewhere in the world.) It's the job of the litigants to produce the evidence, not the justices.

There were no litigants in Miller - the defendants didn't respond to notification and their attorney didn't attend the proceedings in DC. In fact, it's quite possible that they were dead.

Any error that would be found in a HN-comment amount of time, effort, and care, would simply be rebutted by a dozen replies putting in a similar amount of time, effort, and care, viz, nearly none. Even putting aside the grotesquely asymmetrical effort you're calling for here, that wouldn't advance the conversation at all.

Citation: Nearly all the other subconversations going on already in this story's discussion.

It's an interesting point, and seems plausible, but I think actually finding some of those errors (i.e. doing some work) is the only way to settle it.

Many liberal legal scholars will admit that Roe v. Wade is in error, even if they agree with the outcome. Similarly, although many people view marriage equality as required by the equal protection clause, Justice Kennedy's opinion in Obergefell is not the most well-supported and well-researched opinion out there...

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