By the time you see a published SCOTUS decision clerks have definitely checked all citations. The problem is that occasionally the source or interpretation is questionable/contentious.
There's something very funny and simultaneously chilling about a majority opinion authored by Gorsuch[1] who has said “[o]nly the written word is the law” [1] totally mixing up laughing gas and a toxic pollutant emitted by cars.
[1] I know the clerks actually write them, HN pedants.
Clerks have much more limited time than one might think, and research is basically an added-on function that they never staffed for once courts started engaging in it.
“Facts” from amicus briefs make it in all the time without an apparent attempt at verification.
Perhaps they do check and then ignore their findings, but why bother with that?
There's something very funny and simultaneously chilling about a majority opinion authored by Gorsuch[1] who has said “[o]nly the written word is the law” [1] totally mixing up laughing gas and a toxic pollutant emitted by cars.
[1] I know the clerks actually write them, HN pedants.
[2] https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/06/symposium-the-triumph-of-...