The legibility of American supreme court rulings is really wonderful and a US national treasure - the democratic value of having judgements be scrutable to citizens probably shouldn't be underestimated. Scalia was in particular an amazing stylist. I remember deciding to check out supreme court proceedings for the UK and finding them absolutely impenetrable in comparison. I wonder if countries with very different legal systems (e.g. France, which doesn't have such an emphasis on common law / legal precedent to my understanding) have more readable/accessible-to-non-professionals judgements/proceedings still.
I think relatively weak Constitutional power of the Supreme Court led to this. The President has control of Military and Law Enforcement. Congress has the power of the purse. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, was relatively weak, until John Marshall and subsequent Justices basically persuaded everyone that it was the final arbiter of what the Constitution said. The Supreme Court’s power ultimately rests on its ability to persuade and thus I think it has developed a culture of trying to to give good reasons for its decisions to the general public.
