The Impact of Video Footage on Legal Decisions

First case of what, Crystal? You changed the text I suggested only very slightly, but this is one change you made, and I don't understand it. First case to involve the interpretation of video evidence? Not by decades. First case in the Supreme Court? Not true either. What is the firstness here?

Statements at oral argument aren't law. They aren't part of the decision. They don't constitute grounds for analysis of holdings.

This, on the other hand is a quotation from an opinion, without quotation marks, and without a link.

You added the word "indisputable," which isn't anywhere in the opinion. Of course it can be disputed: the plaintiff disputes it. But the Court holds that the record as a whole so "blatantly" discredits the plaintiff's version of events that it overcomes the presumption that disputed facts should be interpreted favorably to the non-moving party in assessing whether summary judgment is proper, finds no material issue of fact in dispute, and grants summary judgment. By slightly distorting the situation here, you begin the process of confusing yourself about what the judgment means.

The majority was so confident in the legitimacy of its fictional reasoning that for the first and only time in the Court's history, it placed a link of the videotape on the Court's website and uncharacteristically invited the public to see for itself. The reasoning process isn’t fictional,

This is shuffling. I asked a question designed to spur reconsideration of the word "fictional," which seems misplaced. You first reassert it, than deny it, then reassert it in a more confusing form. I repeat the question: what's fictional about this reasoning?

but the conclusion justifying summary judgment is fictional in a formalist sense. The videotape does not justify summary judgment since there is an actual dispute as to whether a material issue of fact exists.

All you're saying is that you think the Court is wrong in finding no material issue of fact exists. That doesn't make what they say "fictional" in any sense. It just means you disagree with them.

This dispute is embodied in persons of the majority and the dissent. Of course, as a practical matter the standard must be answered and all judges agree that the conclusion is legitimate.

What? Opinions on summary judgment issues must be unanimous in order for summary judgment to be granted in an appellate court?

Again, I don't want to get into assessing the flaws in this absolutely ridiculous so-called study. It seems to be your purpose to use it to demonstrate that the Court is wrong, that rational fact-finders operating in the context of a trial limited by the rules of evidence, and taking the record as a whole, could not find for the plaintiff on the factual issues he claims are disputed. But the study, even if it weren't ludicrously misconducted, can't shed any light on that question, because that's not what the subjects did. They didn't read the record, see the other evidence, sit through a trial, and come to a different factual conclusion.

Of what?

Scott v. Harris raises doubts as to the impact cameras can have on improving objective fact-finding in the courtroom. Even further still, it justifies criticisms of summary judgment as a tool of justice. The literal standard of summary judgment is directly answered in the negative when rational but variously-composed juries reach different judgments on the evidence evaluated by the appellate court.

No. Now you are copying my language out of context to make it support a proposition it does not address. Summary judgment could be appropriately granted even if real-world juries would ultimately come to different opinions about the facts after trial. You don't state any law for your proposition, you don't deal with the cases the Supreme Court relied upon in coming to its conclusion, and you don't show how this supposed principle of yours works in cases without video evidence. Nor have "variously-composed" juries done anything. A foolish and badly-conducted study showed individual people a fragment of evidence, namely the videotape, and jumped to unfounded conclusions based on what those people said.

In other words, it is highly unlikely that circumstances ever exist in which there is no disputed issue of material fact from a formalist perspective.

You have misstated the law. “[T]he mere existence of some alleged factual dispute between the parties will not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion for summary judgment; the requirement is that there be no genuine issue of material fact.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 247–248 (1986).

When an appellate court engages in fact-finding it assumes that it is not just a fact-finder but all fact-finders.

Again, you have taken my language from my comments out of context to support another proposition entirely.

The effect is the power to dispose of a case entirely by a determination of a factual issue.

But that's true of all summary judgments, no matter which court renders them.

This makes sense for administration and expediency but is inherently unjust.

So that what started out to be a proposition about video evidence has now become an argument against all summary judgment. That should have clued you to the fact that something had gone wrong.

The logical flaw here is the conflation of dispute over whether a genuine material issue of fact exists with genuine dispute over a material issue of fact. When an appellate court finds by a vote of 2-1 that there is no genuine material issue of fact in dispute, and grants a summary judgment denied below, there is a dispute about whether a material issue of fact exists. There may or may not be a dispute about the facts. I can believe that an issue requires trial while being in no dispute with other decision-makers about how I believe, on the record as it exists, the issue will be resolved.

But the actual situation in Scott, which you never adequately describe, is still one more step removed. Here, the defendant policeman seeks summary judgment in a damages action for a constitutional tort on the ground that no constitutional right was violated. Substantively, the issue turns on whether the plaintiff has endangered the public. Because plaintiff is the non-moving party, the Court's summary judgment jurisprudence says the facts necessary to determine whether other facts are in dispute should be viewed favorably to him. So viewed, because the plaintiff says the facts show the chase wasn't dangerous, there is a dispute about whether he was endangering the public, which will in turn require a trial, which means summary judgment cannot be granted on the issue of whether a constitutional right was violated by the means deployed to stop him. But the Court says, hardly for the first time, that if the record as a whole shows that no reasonable fact-finder could believe the non-moving party's version of the facts, they need not be considered favorably to him in deciding whether trial is required on any particular factual issue "in dispute." (This is not only unsurprising law, it's necessary law, in order to avoid the tautological trap into which you fall here, asserting that as long as anyone, including the other litigant, says there's a dispute, summary judgment can't be granted.)

So the question now becomes, does the record as a whole show that the plaintiff's version of the chase is so lacking in credibility that favor to his view need not be shown in deciding whether there are triable issues of fact? The Court says the video of the chase achieves that level of "blatantly" discrediting his version. (If Justice Scalia weren't being sloppy, he'd have used the correct word "flagrantly" rather than "blatantly" here, because the sound track of the video has nothing to do with his reasons for reaching that conclusion.) Judges below, and one judge on the Supreme Court, disagree. But a dispute about whether the plaintiff's version of the facts has been flagrantly discredited by the video is not a dispute about whether there are material facts in genuine dispute, let alone a dispute about whether summary judgment should have been granted or the case should have been remanded without entry of judgment.

As I said the first time through, appellate fact-finding is an interesting subject, which gives rise to many subtle, intricate. and revealing questions. But the path this rewrite travels doesn't get to them. You tried to minimize rewriting and avoid rethinking, adopted language from my comments into the text out of context, didn't go back to take apart the law on which the Court relied in the opinion you were analyzing, and lost the thread of the original question about the nature of video evidence.

I think the way forward here is to take the machine apart and rebuild it. What's the subject: video evidence, appellate fact-finding, or summary judgment standards? What's the complaint about Scott v. Harris, if it's still relevant once the subject has been defined? Are you actually arguing that summary judgment shouldn't exist? If not, what's the problem with the Supreme Court's standard, if any? Are you actually arguing that summary judgment should not be granted on appeal if a motion is wrongly denied below? If so, why?