Dicta:
The part of a judicial opinion which is merely a judge’s editorializing and does not directly address the specifics of the case at bar; extraneous material which is merely informative or explanatory.
Dicta are judicial opinions expressed by the judges on points that do not necessarily arise in the case.
Dicta are regarded as of little authority, on account of the manner in which they are delivered; it frequently happening that they are given without much reflection, at the bar, without previous examination. [The ‘Lectric Law Library]
Noted in “Fellow conservatives, stop the baseless attacks on a potential Supreme Court pick,” Alberto R. Gonzalez, WaPo:
The same reporting included another case where the District of Columbia Circuit ruled to allow an undocumented pregnant teen to get an abortion. Again, Kavanaugh dissented, and once again nameless conservatives argued that the dissent should have gone further, no doubt frustrated that Kavanaugh did not take on abortion rights even though he is bound as a circuit judge to follow Supreme Court precedent. I remember a time when true judicial conservatives did not act to advance a social agenda through dicta — words that have no legal bearing in the case at hand nor serve as precedent for future cases.
