Comment by gandreani | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gandreani | Hacker News Reader

It's such a little thing but while reading the opinion I see that the court (Kagan in this case?) makes a factual claim it provides SOURCES.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-112_0am4.pdf

"Modern cell phones, we observed a dozen years ago, are “such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.” Riley v. California, 573 U. S. 373, 385 (2014). Since then, the percentage of Americans who own smartphones has only increased. To- day, more than nine in ten Americans own a smartphone. See W. Bishop, Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet (Nov. 20, 2025) (91%); compare A. Smith, Pew Research Center, Smartphone Ownership—2013 Update (June 5, 2013) (56%)."

Most SCOTUS opinions are rigorously sourced. They’re usually also well argued. The recent spate being an exception, in particular anything written by Alito.

They're rigorously sourced in that some set of underpaid clerks is tasked with surfacing their best guess as to what material is most relevant to the court, with optional fact checking competing for their time.

https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-...

So the sources exist, but whether they're quality is another question.

The surprising bit is that 10% of Americans DO NOT own a smartphone. That must be exceedingly difficult. Increasingly everyday activities require them, without fallbacks. I presume those numbers exclude children, and then if you account for the infirm, it wouldn't surprise me if we started to get to universal levels of ownership.

It's people over 65. Cell phone ownership is pretty much universal, but only 78% of people 65+ own a smartphone. I don't think that's really surprising at all. I wouldn't expect an 80 year old to adopt a smartphone when their cognition, fine motor control, and/or vision is going. And who needs one in a nursing home? I bet if they broke it down further you'd find that the non-ownership skews towards people who were already elderly ~15 years ago.

Tbh it feels quite performative, giving an air of rigor to the what often feels like post hoc reasoning and selective application of precidence and case law...

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