Law Commons^™

Supreme Court Cases That Persist: The Japanese American Cases, Louis Fisher

William & Mary Law Review Online

As with any human institution, the United States Supreme Court makes errors that, over a period of time, need correction. By focusing on the Japanese American cases, Hirabayashi (1943) and Korematsu (1944), the record is particularly remarkable. Over many decades the Supreme Court had abundant evidence that the two decisions were defective. It was not until June 26, 2018, in Trump v. Hawaii, that the Supreme Court announced that “Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided.” If Korematsu was that deficient, why did it take the Court seventy-four years to admit it? Moreover, what about Hirabayashi? The decision …

The Dobbs Effect: Abortion Rights In The Rear-View Mirror And The Civil Rights Crisis That Lies Ahead, Terri Day, Danielle Weatherby

William & Mary Law Review Online

On June 24, 2022, seven weeks after the first-ever leak of a draft opinion, the United States Supreme Court circulated its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, defying stare decisis, overruling fifty years of precedent, and shattering the hopes of millions of Americans, who wished the leaked opinion was a fiction that would never come to be.

As the leaked draft forewarned, Roe v. Wadeis no longer the law of the land. No longer is a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy—to exercise bodily autonomy and be free to control the trajectory of her life—protected as a fundamental …

Second Guessing Double Jeopardy: The Stare Decisis Factors As Proxy Tools For Original Correctness, Justin W. Aimonetti

William & Mary Law Review Online

In Gamble v. United States, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the 170-year-old dual-sovereignty doctrine. That doctrine permits both the federal and state governments—as “separate sovereigns”—to each prosecute a defendant for the same offense. Justice Thomas concurred with the majority opinion in Gamble, but wrote separately to reject the traditional stare decisis formulation. In particular, the factors the majority used to evaluate stare decisis, in his view, amount to nothing more than marbles placed subjectively on either side of the stare decisis balancing scale. He would have preferred, instead, an inquiry into whether the precedent was demonstrably erroneous as an original matter, …