The reliance on a headnote as legal precedence is an abomination. It's worse than dicta, or relying on a footnote in an opinion as somehow being the ruling of the court.
It's just not the way the law works, or at least is supposed to work.
Opinions from the Court are supposed to mean something. That something is pretty narrowly defined.
The Court itself could set the matter straight, but it won't. It has no press secretary as far as I know (leaving aside the question of whether that would be a good idea).
If you get time, I do recommend reading
that book chapter linked in the article (OOPSIE, did it again :-). The author is a populist without a clue of how to fix this mess, but his research appears to be quite thorough.