Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf
Page Number: 67.0

Cite as:  563 U. S. ____ (2011) 

9 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

and  that  releasing  prisoners  would  increase  the  crime 
rate.  I  am  not  saying  that  the  District  Judges  rendered 
their  factual  findings  in  bad  faith.    I  am  saying  that  it  is
impossible  for  judges  to  make  “factual  findings”  without
inserting  their  own  policy  judgments,  when  the  factual
findings  are  policy  judgments.  What  occurred  here  is  no 
more judicial factfinding in the ordinary sense than would 
be the factual findings that deficit spending will not lower 
the  unemployment  rate,  or  that  the  continued  occupation
of  Iraq  will  decrease  the  risk  of  terrorism.  Yet,  because 
they  have  been  branded  “factual  findings”  entitled  to
deferential review, the policy preferences of three District
Judges  now  govern  the  operation  of  California’s  penal 
system.

It is important to recognize that the dressing-up of pol-
icy  judgments  as  factual  findings  is  not  an  error  pecu- 
liar to this case.  It is an unavoidable concomitant of insti-
tutional-reform litigation.  When a district court issues an 
injunction,  it  must  make  a  factual  assessment  of  the  an-
ticipated  consequences  of  the  injunction.    And  when  the 
injunction  undertakes  to  restructure  a  social  institution, 
assessing  the  factual  consequences  of  the  injunction  is
necessarily  the  sort  of  predictive  judgment  that  our  sys-
tem of government allocates to other government officials. 
But structural injunctions do not simply invite judges to 
indulge  policy  preferences.    They  invite  judges  to  indulge 
incompetent policy preferences.  Three years of law school 
and  familiarity  with  pertinent  Supreme  Court  precedents
give no insight whatsoever into the management of social 
institutions.  Thus,  in  the  proceeding  below  the  District 
Court  determined  that  constitutionally  adequate  medical 
services  could  be  provided  if  the  prison  population  was 
137.5% of design capacity.  This was an empirical finding
it was utterly unqualified to make.  Admittedly, the court
did not generate that number entirely on its own; it heard 
the  numbers  130%  and  145%  bandied  about  by  various