Once we understand judicial opinion-writing as the practice of offering legal support for decisions often involving elements other than the formal law-justice, for example, or efficiency, or wise policy, or even mercy or pity-we can see that many, maybe even most, judicial opinions are not fully candid. They read in the language of legal or rule-based motivation or compulsion, but their goal is to provide support or justification for decisions reached for different reasons. Perhaps it would be good if this were otherwise. Perhaps judicial opinions should describe accurately how the judge reached the decision she did. But as long as the idea of a judicial opinion as the accurate report of a decision-making process remains far more an aspiration than reality, the alleged importance of judicial candor turns out to be a substantial exaggeration.

Unknown, Frederick Schauer - Thinkin…, loc. 320