Supreme Court Cases That Have Been Decided on Statistical Evidence---Are There Any? Have there been any Supreme Court cases that have been decided based on statistical evidence? If so, which ones; and what was the evidence presented? In 1897, Oliver Wendell Holmes (before he became a Supreme Court judge) had said in a speech at Boston University: ``For the rational study of the law---the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics. It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.'' However, in the 120+ years which followed Holmes' speech, it has been observed (see, for example, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-court-is-allergic-to-math/) that the Supreme Court has not been very receptive to statistical/quantitative evidence. I would like to know of any counterexamples to that observation. Thank you.
It is far from obvious what would qualify as a “Supreme Court cases decided based on statistical evidence”, actually, it is far from obvious what constitutes “statistical evidence”. At the minimum, I expect that it is evidence which at least counts numbers of examples of something, and uses that number to reach a legal conclusion. For example “Of the two candidates, Smith received 10,000 votes and Jones received 10,001 votes. The wording of the statute declares to be the winner that candidate who receives ‘more than any other candidate’, therefore we hold that Jones won”. People often supplement raw counts with some measure of ‘significance’, which can be a significant (sorry about that) factor in discrimination cases, based on disparate impact theories; and also in evaluating forensic evidence (thus DNA evidence was poorly treated until the lawyers figured how to sell it). Any appeal to statistical hypothesis testing is highly unlikely to ever arise at the level of SCOTUS. That is because (generally-speaking, perhaps there are obscure uses baked into law) the law and the legislature do not mandate particular alphas for acceptance of a statistical hypothesis. Instead, admissibility of testimony is (federally, and for half of the states) determined by the Daubert standard, encoded as FRE 702 which requires that “the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data; the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case”, implicitly subsuming some domain-specific standards of hypothesis testing. To the extent that DNA evidence is admissible in court and the expert can make a compelling, unrebutted argument for identity (“1 chance in 70 billion” as opposed to “49 chances in 100), statistical evidence is routinely accepted (or excluded as inconclusive). SCOTUS does not commonly have original jurisdiction so it is very unlikely that they would have ever been presented with trial-court level disputes involving words like “Bonferroni” or “Pearson's chi-squared test”. This article looks at the role of statistics in disparate impact cases in the US. The ruling in Griggs v. Duke Power does not directly appeal to any statistical reasoning, it indicates simply that an pair of intelligence tests were used as a substitute for a requirement of a high school education, but the tests were not intended “to measure the ability to learn to perform a particular job or category of jobs”. A claim rejected by the lower court was that “these two requirements operated to render ineligible a markedly disproportionate number of Negroes, they were unlawful under Title VII unless shown to be job-related”. The dicta of Griggs provides numerous numeric statements such as “while 34% of white males had completed high school, only 12% of Negro males had done so”, “use of a battery of tests… resulted in 58% of whites passing the tests, as compared with only 6% of the blacks”, “the percentage of white employees who were promoted but who were not high school graduates was nearly identical to the percentage of nongraduates in the entire white workforce”. A striking mention of statistical concepts cited in Griggs is found in CFR § 1607, 35 Fed.Reg. 12333 (Aug. 1, 1970) which is a requirement that employers using tests have available “data demonstrating that the test is predictive of or significantly correlated with important elements of work behavior which comprise or are relevant to the job or jobs for which candidates are being evaluated”. SCOTUS is absolutely silent on the question of actual numbers in this case, that is taken to be a matter of fact determined by the lower court, and SCOTUS’s only job is to decide if employers can be required to show that a particular test is job-related. There is no discussion of what level of asymmetry in numbers is proof of discrimination. Another relevant SCOTUS case is Wards Cove Packing v. Antonio which might be seen as a case of SCOTUS being “unfriendly” to statistics, but the ruling simply holds that proving statistical significant between variables is insufficient. In fact in the holding SCOTUS identifies the Court of Appeals error as being a comparison of the percentage of cannery workers who are nonwhite and the percentage of noncannery workers who are nonwhite makes out a prima facie disparate-impact case. Rather, the proper comparison is generally between the racial composition of the at-issue jobs and the racial composition of the qualified population in the relevant labor market In the above statistical article, other cases are cited where the courts engaged in magnitude inquiries of practical significance. 29 CFR 1607.4 states a “rule” known as the ‘four-fifths” rule that A selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than four-fifths (4/5) (or eighty percent) of the rate for the group with the highest rate will generally be regarded by the Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact, while a greater than four-fifths rate will generally not be regarded by Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact however the Supreme Court in Watson v. Fort Worth Bank &amp; Tr., 487 U.S. 977 finds that this is no more that “a rule of thumb”. Ricci v. Destefano finds that “[A] prima facie case of disparate-impact liability [is] essentially, a threshold showing of a significant statistical disparity . . . and nothing more . . . .”, and a prima facie demonstration does not require a disparity of any particular magnitude. In short, SCOTUS cases frequently have a “statistical” underpinning, any time a scientific question arises. By the nature of expert testimony and the Daubert standard, the court does not rule on what constitutes a technically-correct statistical test, that is a matter for the trier of fact to decide. Disparate impact cases provide the best opportunity for higher courts to be confronted with statistical arguments. If some law were passed that specifically requires a particular p-value on some body of numbers and demographics, the court would have to discern the legislative intent of such a law, and not the majority opinion of some body of scientists as to what is “statistically correct”.
When judges are finder of fact, the standard is one of deference to the trial court, but may be overcome if the trial court made a "clearly erroneous finding". See Concrete v. Const. Laborers, 508 U.S. 602 (1993).
Yes, there is a good chance. Ordinarily, the law as written is what is enforced. On occasion, the wording of the law is actually ambiguous, or vague, which means that the jury will need an instruction as to how to interpret the law. In fact, juries are not literally read the statute, they are given a set of decision-making instructions so that they can decide "If we find X, we must acquit; if we find Y we may convict". Your attorney will, if he is diligent, note the problem and strive for an instruction that favors the client. (The prosecution will of course object). Eventually, on appeal, a court will decide what the law "really means", and that decision might be strictly based on the letter of the law, or it might be based on a supposed spirit of the law, i.e. what the legislature "originally intended". That outcome is determined in part by the jurisprudential ideology of the prevailing justices of the appeals court. Usually, letter of the law prevails until a higher court rules that a particular "spirit" is what was originally intended.
There is no legal requirement that a jury be composed of people demographically like the defendant (or the plaintiff), there is simply a requirement that the selection process give all kinds of people an equal chance at being empaneled. So being a different race or gender from one of the parties is not prima facie evidence of a biased jury. The statement that "The jury asked a question because some invoices were not attached to a statement and wanted to impeach the victim's testimony" is somewhat puzzling, since Georgia is widely cited as a state where jurors are forbidden to ask questions. Let us suppose though that jurors manage to communicate an interest in knowing a fact, such as "Do you have an invoice for X?", then the judge could decide whether that is a proper question. At that point, it moves from being a jury matter to a legal judge matter, and if the question was itself highly prejudicial, the case could be overturned on appeal. Alternatively, the way in which the question was framed by the jury could be proof of bias, e.g. "Please ask that lying %@!^* defendant to prove her ridiculous story". The defense attorney has entered an objection (if you don't object, you can't appeal), and perhaps if the question was legally improper then the verdict could be set aside. If the attorney failed to move for mistrial (if the question proves blatant bias) then that's the end of the matter, except for a possible action against the attorney. The implied questions about attorney conduct are hard to understand. An attorney may refuse to engage in a futile legal act, but this does not preclude an individual from seeking another attorney to file a motion or even attempting to file a motion on one's own (which is probably a futile act). However, I also assume that the victim did not have her own attorney and that this was a case between two insurance companies about individuals – a third party claim. In this case, the attorney represents the insurance company, not the victim, and has to be responsible to the interests of the insurance company. The attorney thus is obligated to not cost the insurance company a packet of money if there is no realistic chance of getting anything in return. The alternative would have been be to engage (and pay) your (her) own attorney.
You can use academic sources when arguing in court if you like, but be aware of the following: Academic texts are not primary sources of law in Jamaica. What is in them may be persuasive but does not bind a court in the same way as statute law or case law. Sometimes, it's appropriate to cite works of legal scholarship to flesh out an argument. If the book contains a succinctly-phrased statement that matches what you want to prove, but prior case law isn't quite as neatly applicable, then you might cite both - subject to points below. Citing the book alone is weaker. At other times, when there is authority on both sides of a point, you might find academic argument tipping the balance, but again not to be used in isolation. Whether a text is persuasive may not be obvious, especially for older works. Sometimes, perhaps often, the law has changed since the book was published. Don't assume that an old book by a famous author will automatically be revered. You can check to see if newer books say something different from the older one, and in general start your search looking backwards from now in order to identify the current state of the law. It is more common these days to see references to current editions of textbooks than comparatively ancient authorities, no matter how illustrious the name of Blackstone might be. If a point of law is not actually contested, then there is no need to argue about it. It can form part of the background material that is agreed on between the parties. Basic principles of the way contracts work don't need elaboration or authority. Judges would prefer to have you limit the number and range of authorities you bring in, because they only have so much time in their day and they don't want to struggle through a lot of unnecessary background reading. In a skeleton argument, the strong preference is for only one principal authority to be mentioned in support of each point of law. You can mention a recent decisive case rather than reciting the entire history of case-law on the topic, and you don't need to include cases where a well-understood precedent was applied without difficulty. It may be that a textbook brings you to the relevant statute or judgement but then that is what you need to cite, not the textbook itself, especially if it simply quotes or restates what is found in the primary material. For filing court documents in general, pay close attention to the Civil Procedure Rules and the Practice Directions, including PD No. 8 of 2020 on the format of the judge's bundle. If the judge is annoyed enough about non-compliance with the court's rules about submissions, then various sanctions are available to them. For example, they can refuse costs on the legal research that led to the preparation of the submission. In correspondence, which I think you allude to, you can be more free than when dealing with the judge's bundle. In a letter to the opposing party you can certainly bring in additional references that you think would be helpful to you as a matter of rhetoric and argumentation. Do note that doesn't mean it is a good idea to make correspondence too aggressive or lengthy. For one thing, a judge can end up reviewing the correspondence and will notice whether or not you are making a good-faith effort to resolve the matter, or at least identify the salient issues to bring to the court.
I don't think there would be such a case. The Supreme Court itself does not allow cameras in its courtroom. Also, when Florida wanted to bring cameras into Florida courtrooms, the Supreme Court said in the 1981 case Chandler v. Florida: Absent a showing of prejudice of constitutional dimensions to these defendants, there is no reason for this Court either to endorse or to invalidate Florida's experiment. It's also worth noting that "the jury may not be filmed" and "The Florida Supreme Court has the right to revise these rules as experience dictates, or indeed to bar all broadcast coverage or photography in courtrooms" were two of the specific rules that the Supreme Court noted Florida had implemented. Although those particular rules were not at issue in this case, the Court made no further mention of them, and thus perhaps tacitly approved of their constitutionality. Given that there does not seem to be a general right to film in a courtroom, it seems unlikely that there would be a right to film jurors in particular. Furthermore, this page lists the courtroom camera rules for several states. In many of them, filming jurors is prohibited. Presumably, if there was a ruling that this was unconstitutional, they wouldn't have those rules.
Basically, the idea of incontrovertable evidence is that the evidence points to one and only one truth, and the fact-finder need not doubt it (metaphysical doubt) unless opposition provides material fact that refutes the claim. That is, the defendant may be innocent until proven guilty, but evidence that shows guilt exists on the defendant's part is not false just because it demonstrates this. Thus, if the person making the claim meets the burden of proof, the person in the defense must refute with new evidence that raises doubt about the new fact. One should not assume it is not factual just because it aids in the claim against a defendant. You cannot doubt the evidence just because you doubt it; there must be a reason.
These questions are typically left to the discretion of the judge in whose courtroom the presentation is happening. It is very common to see these types of devices in trial courts, but they are much less common in appellate courts, and I doubt you'd ever see one in the United States Supreme Court, where the arguments are essentially limited to oral presentations.