What happens when the opinion of the Court misrepresents the facts of the case?

Question

In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), the Court ruled 6–3 in favor of a high school football coach who had been leading players in prayer and was instructed by the school district to stop. [PDF]

Justice Sotomayor's dissent disputes some of the characterizations in the majority opinion:

To the degree the Court portrays petitioner Joseph Kennedy’s prayers as private and quiet, it misconstrues the facts.

For purposes of this question, let's assume that the above statement is correct that the majority opinion is wrong. What are the effects of substantive factual errors in an opinion? Like, for example:

• I assume that this specific ruling is not affected in any way by the text of the opinion? (Like, I assume that even an opinion of the form "We got high and decided to rule wrongly for fun" wouldn't actually negate the ruling?)
• How does this affect the precedent? Will courts in the future consider the true facts of the case (whatever they perceive them to be), or will they accept as legal fiction that the facts were as the Court describes them?
• Could it be legal for the district to repeat exactly the same set of actions in exactly the same set of true circumstances as before, since those won't be the same circumstances that the Court claimed to rule on?
• In this instance, the Court seems to be reversing the lower court's ruling directly; but sometimes the Court remands a case to a lower court in order to decide it on a different basis than it had. In such a case, is the lower court bound by the Supreme Court's characterization of the facts of the case, or can it use the true facts of the case as long as it obeys the ruling itself?

Answer 1

What are the legal consequences of substantive factual errors in an opinion?

None.

I assume that this specific ruling is not affected in any way by the text of the opinion?

Correct.

I assume that even an opinion of the form "We got high and decided to rule wrongly for fun" wouldn't actually negate the ruling?

Probably not, but it might precipitate a constitutional crisis or lead to an impeachment.

How does this affect the precedent?

It doesn't.

Will courts in the future consider the true facts of the case (whatever they perceive them to be),

No.

will they accept as legal fiction that the facts were as the Court describes them?

Yes.

Could it be legal for the district to repeat exactly the same set of actions in exactly the same set of true circumstances as before, since those won't be the same circumstances that the Court claimed to rule on?

In such a case, is the lower court bound by the Supreme Court's characterization of the facts of the case,

Generally speaking the lower courts are bound by characterizations of the facts made by the appellate court. But, it depends to some extent on the procedural posture of the case.

In most cases, the findings of fact made by the trial court following an evidentiary hearing are binding on appellate courts in the U.S. unless they are not supported by any admissible evidence presented at trial, but there are some exceptions to this rule and there is considerable art as well as science that goes into properly characterizing the evidence presented at trial.

But, for example, many appellate cases are appeals from a dismissal of a case on a motion to dismiss at the outset of a case, in which all allegations of the Plaintiff's complaint in a civil matter are taken as true for sake of argument, and the legal issue presented is whether the Plaintiff can prevail if all of those facts are true.

In a case in that procedural posture, assuming that the appellate court reversed the trial court and found that the facts alleged state a claim upon which relief can be granted, then the remand would be to move forward with discovery and other pre-trial procedures in the case and ultimately a trial, if necessary, to determine the actual facts of the case as opposed to the facts as alleged by the Plaintiff in the complaint or petition.

Not infrequently, when appellate courts are divided over what happened in the trial court, one side of the debate, looking at the raw testimony and exhibits presented at trial, will conclude that the admissible evidence presented at trial did not support the findings of fact in a mixed question of fact and law made by a trial court judge, while another side of the debate will accept the trial court judge's findings of fact uncritically. It often isn't easy to know, from reading an appellate court opinion alone, which side is which in this regard.

can it use the true facts of the case as long as it obeys the ruling itself?

Usually not. Usually, facts relied upon by an appellate court are by definition the correct facts (apart from clerical errors - e.g., an appellate court once misspelled my name in a court opinion, and the lower court wasn't bound by that mistake). This said, as noted above, the precise procedural posture of the case, nature of the court's opinion, and scope of the remand order is highly relevant to what a court can do on remand.

Answer 2

Appellate courts are not finders of fact. Appeals courts are supposed to resolve questions of law. The job of a court of appeals isn’t supposed to be to second-guess whether the witnesses are telling the truth. Sometimes, as you mention, an appellate judge does point out that the factual record they’re presented with does not make sense, but, in theory, that isn’t what they’re reviewing.

The facts of the case are relevant to that one case. What the Supreme Court actually decided was not whether that one person had prayed too loudly or not, but that “The Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance from government reprisal.” That holding doesn’t depend in any way on the actual volume of that one plaintiff’s prayers. (All right, sometimes it can, because someone says, “If even that was legal, this has to be,” but if someone were worried about that, she would have been motivated to emphasize how very very exceptionally quiet this one prayer that’s allowable really was.) Similarly, the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas was widely misreported in 1993 as beginning with a SWATTing of two gay men by a homophobic neighbor, when in fact it was a jealous boyfriend (although I see the opinion itself stuck to the passive voice and thus did not end up repeating it). This didn’t matter to the conclusion that sodomy laws against consenting adults in private violate the Constitution.

This is where the maxim, “Tough cases make bad law,” come from. Lawyers love to hand-pick the most sympathetic petitioners or the most unsympathetic defendants imaginable, so that it will feel like a miscarriage of justice if their side doesn’t win this specific case. But courts of appeals are actually establishing rules for how other cases must be decided in the future. The reasoning they come up with to justify one verdict in an unusual case often turns out to be a bad precedent for other cases.

The Supreme Court isn’t a trial court where people present new evidence. More precisely, the side that lost makes a list of all the errors they claim the judge made that they wnt to be overruled, and the higher court decides whether it will hear the arguments for and against. This is why the Supreme Court only has thirty-minute question periods: both parties to the case already submitted their written briefs where they lay out the case, and now the justices will ask any further questions that they feel were not sufficiently addressed. At this argument, the lawyers never say, “I have new evidence to introduce!” or “I want to call a witness!” It’s not a trial where they do that.

The higher court might rule that the trial judge erred by not allowing one side to present evidence, or it might rule that the trial judge erred by allowing a jury to hear something it should not have. If that happens, it orders there to be a new trial, with a new jury, that gets to hear the new evidence and decide based on that.

There’s no other court to appeal to from a decision by the Supreme Court. (Hence the famous quip, “We’re not last because we’re right; we’re right because we’re last.”) @DavePhD informed me that it can be petitioned to rehear a case it just decided, with a 25-day time limit.

However, it has happened that a case raised an issue of law that made the Supreme Court order a retrial, and in the new trial, a different question of law came up that also was appealed to the Supreme Court, so it heard the same case a second time. Powell v. Alabama, the trial of the Scottsboro Nine, was one such case, establishing two different precedents (on the right to effective assistance of counsel and the unconstitutionality of calling in only White people for jury duty). With the judge in one of these retrials throwing out the jury’s guilty verdict and declaring a mistrial because he was so sure their conviction had been wrongful, some of the nine defendants were tried four times. (On the same evidence, four of them ended up being acquitted, four were convicted, and one died in police custody.)

But, once a trial is over and its appeals are exhausted, the case is done. It cannot be tried again. This is called res judicata, a thing that has been judged. Norma McCorvey, better known as the pseudonymous “Jane Roe” in Roe v. Wade, even sued years afterward to have her own case overturned. (Too soon?) Notably, the holdings of that case were later overruled—in a separate case that raised the same issues and led the justices on today’s Supreme Court to reconsider them. But the original case was not, and could not be, brought a second time to undo it, and someone tried. Similarly, in another example I gave above, the court in Lawrence v. Texas reversed the conclusion it had reached in Bowers v. Hardwick, but without changing the outcome of the previous case (where the prosecutor ended up dropping the sodomy charge anyway).

Answer 3

US Supreme Court rule 44 provides for rehearing of cases.

If, for example, there is an error, a party may request rehearing of the case and if a justice who agreed with the original decision thinks rehearing is appropriate, and a majority of the court agrees, the case will be reheard.

For more information see When U.S. Supreme Court Decisions Are Not Final: An Examination of the Rehearing Rule and the Court’s Application of It in Kennedy v. Louisiana (2010).

In Kennedy v Louisiana a 5-4 major held that it was cruel and unusual to apply the death penalty to a man who raped and sodomized an 8 year old girl and ripped her body from vagina to anus. The decision incorrectly stated that there was no federal legislation to apply the death penalty for rape. After the decision, it was reported in the news media that actually there was a US military law allowing the death penalty for rape of a child.

Rehearing was requested, but only justices Thomas and Alito would agree to rehear the case.

Ambler v. Whipple is cited in the above article as another example of a decision having a factual error.

Answer 4

I generally agree with this answer by ohwilleke. An error, even an egregious error, in the selection or, characterization of the facts in a case by the US Supreme Court has no direct legal consequences. Such an error offers no path to overturning the decision, except through a motion for a rehearing, which I understand rarely succeeds.

A dissent may point out such an error. While the decision is being considered by the court, that may or may not affect the views of other justices. Later, it may make the decision less likely to be followed and become an important precedent. It may lead to the decision being distinguished or simply ignored in later Supreme Court decisions. But there is no guarantee of either effect.

One case where the Court pretty clearly got the facts wrong was Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) In that case, as the Wikipedia article puts it:

the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Despite the changing attitudes in the coming decades regarding sterilization, the Supreme Court has never expressly overturned Buck v. Bell.

Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes famously declared in the opinion "Three generations of imbeciles are enough", referring to Carrie Buck, her mother, and her daughter. But it now seems clear that none of these individuals was in fact an "imbecile" (then a defined medical term), and the evidence purporting to show that they were was laughable even at the time. See "Carrie Buck's Daughter" an essay by Stephan Jay Gould.)

(The Court also failed to note that Carrie Buck's lawyer was affiliated with the other party, and may have intentionally presented a weaker case than he could have done.)

This err, error in finding the facts has not lead to any "legal consequences" in over 90 years, although other developments may have weakened the force of the case as a precedent.

When a Supreme Court decision (say A v B) says that:

The facts in this case show that X was true, and therefore legal doctrine Q applies.

judges in future cases in lower courts may look to see if X is true before applying Q, whether X was actually true in the original case or not. To that extent the incorrect facts stated in the Supreme Court opinion may form a rule of law.

Suppose that in the case the actual facts were Y, while the Court stated that they were X. If in a later case the facts are again Y, it might be argued that:

The rule in A v B is that when X is true, Q applies. But here Y is true, not X, so that case is not relevant.

Sometimes when legal scholars, particularly in law review articles, point out what seems to be an error in legal reasoning, or an error in stating the facts, in a current decision, Justices become uneasy, and more willing to go a different way in similar later cases. But not always, and Justice Alito, in particular, has shown little attention to such criticism of his views or opinions.

Answer 5

Your question seems to be based on the premise that courts' decisions are meant to make sense at all times: if a decision isn't coherent, the court gets ashamed about it and corrects it promptly, or, at least, eventually gets forced to correct it (or a higher court, if there is one, does so).

First of all, the decision in question is delivered by the highest court of the country. The legal status of such decisions is always "in force" unless they get overturned by the court itself, or the legislators pass a law that takes the decisions down. The reasoning which the court used to arrive to the decision (including any [mis]representations of facts) does not matter: the reasoning is given merely as courtesy (pun intended) for those who would need to apply it as case law. Even if the reasoning included pure math errors — rendering the decision objectively wrong, it would still be in force until taken down the usual way.

If the court wasn't the highest one, there could be appellate remedies. Otherwise no difference.

Answer 6

In my estimation, there can be no legal ramification. The Court does not answer to the People, like the Executive, but to the ideals and underpinnings of the Law.

However, one can resort to the Press to put pressure on the Court to revise their opinion or ruling, etc.