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Stare Decisis In The Inferior Courts Of The United States, Joseph Mead
Stare Decisis In The Inferior Courts Of The United States, Joseph Mead
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
While circuit courts are bound to fallow circuit precedent under "law of the circuit" the practice among federal district courts is more varied and uncertain, routinely involving little or no deference to their own precedent. I argue that the different hierarchical levels and institutional characteristics do not account for the differences in practices between circuit and district courts. Rather, district courts can and should adopt a "law of the district" similar to that of circuit courts. Through this narrow proposal, I explore the historical stare decisis practices in federal courts that are not Supreme.
Safeguarding The Safeguards: The Aca Litigation And The Extension Of Structural Protection To Non-Fundamental Liberties, Abigail R. Moncrieff
Safeguarding The Safeguards: The Aca Litigation And The Extension Of Structural Protection To Non-Fundamental Liberties, Abigail R. Moncrieff
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
As the lawsuits challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) have evolved, one feature of the litigation has proven especially rankling to the legal academy: the courts' incorporation of substantive libertarian concerns into their structural federalism analyses. The breadth and depth of scholarly criticism is surprising, especially given that judges frequently choose indirect methods, including the structural and processbased methods at issue in the ACA litigation, for protecting substantive constitutional values. Indeed, indirect protection of constitutional liberties is a well-known and well-theorized strategy, which one scholar recently termed "semisubstantive review" and another theorized as "judicial manipulation of legislative …