Henry Zhuhao Wang

Excited to share two forthcoming projects in the @MinnesotaLawRev and the @NotreDameLRev about federal courts’ increasing reliance on “external” factfinding of epistemically dubious provenance. The first, “Factfinding Revolutions” (forthcoming @NotreDameLRev), traces the rise and fall of previous Anglo-American factfinding regimes--from the ordeal to the self-informing jury to oath-centric proceedings to the adversarial trial--to identify a recurring structure of regime collapse. When that framework is turned toward the present, the Article suggests that the era of the adversarial trial is in a state of terminal decline, with adjudication transitioning to a new age defined by decentralized “external” factfinding. The second, “The Article III Factfinding Power” (forthcoming @MinnesotaLawRev), considers the constitutional dimensions of that shift. It argues that, as factfinding moves outside the courtroom, federal courts nonetheless retain the authority and duty to preserve an essential baseline of epistemic legitimacy in the factfinding that grounds their judgments. Put simply, Article III does not require federal judges to oversee factfinding themselves, but it does require that they ensure external factfinding is epistemically legitimate if it is to serve as the basis for an Article III judgment. I’ll post both papers once SSRN actually approves them (ugh), but feel free to reach out in the interim to get a copy. I welcome your comments!