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Full-Text Articles in Law
Precedent And Jurisprudential Disagreement, Amy Coney Barrett
Precedent And Jurisprudential Disagreement, Amy Coney Barrett
Journal Articles
This Article, a contribution to a symposium on constitutional foundations, maintains that an unappreciated function of stare decisis is that of referee between competing visions of the Constitution. Stare decisis is styled as a doctrine of error-correction, but in controversial cases, "error" is often a stand-in for disagreement about first principles. In these cases, stare decisis functions less to guide the business of correcting mistakes — a conception that oversimplifies the reality of pluralism on the Court — than to mediate intense disputes about the Court’s role in interpreting the Constitution. Identifying this function of stare decisis offers a different …
Stare Decisis As Judicial Doctrine, Randy J. Kozel
Stare Decisis As Judicial Doctrine, Randy J. Kozel
Journal Articles
Stare decisis has been called many things, among them a principle of policy, a series of prudential and pragmatic considerations, and simply the preferred course. Often overlooked is the fact that stare decisis is also a judicial doctrine, an analytical system used to guide the rules of decision for resolving concrete disputes that come before the courts.
This Article examines stare decisis as applied by the U.S. Supreme Court, our nation’s highest doctrinal authority. A review of the Court’s jurisprudence yields two principal lessons about the modern doctrine of stare decisis. First, the doctrine is comprised largely of malleable factors …