Appearing before the United States Supreme Court is enough to make almost any lawyer nervous,  A lawyer appearing before the Justices of the United States Supreme Court has to be prepared for an intense grilling on the facts of his case and how they apply to existing law and how they should shape the opinion in the case.  The Justices of the United States Supreme Court have clerks and support staff to help them understand every aspect of the facts and law involved in every case.

Given the Court's reputation for reasoning and preparation, Justice Scalia's error yesterday came as a surprise,  Details of the error can be found here.

Justice Scalia's dissent chastised the Environmental Protection Agency and claimed that they had taken a specific position in a previous case.  The problem is that the EPA was not involved in that earlier case.  When the error  in the dissent was spotted, the name of the party involved in the previous case was changed in the dissent and the title of the dissent was changed as well.  

Will this lead to Scalia being more understanding of errors committed by lawyers who appear before the Court?  Time will tell, but it seems unlikely.