The phrase “Homer nodded” seems 4 occasions within the U.S. Studies. The primary time was in Justice Douglas’ concurrence in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) (quoting Choose Realized Hand because it occurs).
The phrase wouldn’t seem in one other Supreme Court docket choice till 1992’s Lee v. Weisman, when Justice Souter included it in a footnote. But as Mark Tushnet recounts on Balkinization, whereas the phrase had been included within the authentic slip opinion, it was omitted by the Reporter’s office–apparently as a result of nobody there acknowledged the phrase and so they thought it was an error. As a consequence, it didn’t seem within the official sure quantity for a number of years. Certainly, it was solely after Tushnet contacted Souter in regards to the omission that Souter realized what had occurred, and the language was restored by a subsequent erratum.
Tushnet writes:
“Homer nodded” involves us from the Roman poet Horace by way of two English poets from the flip of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, John Dryden and Alexander Pope. It has been extensively noticed that Justice Souter appears to have been extra snug in some earlier century, although the seventeenth appears to me a bit too far again. Justice Souter’s writing type was extra ornate, extra nineteenth century, than the pared down (Hemingway-influenced?) up to date opinion type.
“Homer nodded” was a part of Justice Souter’s retailer of cultural information—however not, apparently, a part of the shop of such information within the Reporter’s workplace. Justice Souter may write “Homer nodded” as simply as Justice Scalia may refer with out quotation to Broadway lyrics or Justice Kagan (with quotation!) to Dr. Seuss. Once I retired from classroom educating I had nearly performed out my string on cultural allusions that my college students may perceive (“The Princess Bride” was hanging in there by a thread), and my guess is that that have is near-universal (we age, the scholars we take care of within the classroom stay younger).
If there is a bigger level right here, and possibly there is not, it’s one thing like this: All of us carry cultural information with us however what that information is modifications—not for any particular person, however for the inhabitants composing our establishments—and evaluation might go at the very least a bit off the rails if “we” (the older amongst us) use our cultural information because the predicate for our analysis of the efficiency of as we speak’s establishments. Or, I suppose, for our analysis of the efficiency of yesterday’s.
For what it’s value, “Homer nodded” has appeared in two extra Supreme Court docket opinions: McCreary County, Kentucky v. American Civil Liberties Union (2005) (citing Lee v. Wiesman) and Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence in Kisor v. Wilkie (2019).
