Justice Scalia scored a (laughter.) in J.D.B. v.  North Carolina with this exchange about whether we need empirical data to show that childrencloser to adulthood act more like adults.

MS. BLACKMAN: What we are talking about here is relative youngness and relative oldness. I mean, the empirical data demonstrates to us that the older a child is to an adult, the more adult-like they are. The younger, the farther away they are from that adult standard

-JUSTICESCALIA: We need empirical data for that?

MS. BLACKMAN: Excuse me?

JUSTICE SCALIA: We need empirical data for that?

MS. BLACKMAN: Empirical data does exist

.JUSTICE SCALIA: To show that –

MS.BLACKMAN: I’m simply pointing that out.

JUSTICE SCALIA: — the closer to adulthood a child is, the more like an adult he is?(Laughter.)

MS. BLACKMAN: I’m simply pointing out that the empirical data supports that. There are bases of knowledge from which -12