Law Commons^™

Foolish Consistency: On Equality, Integrity, And Justice In Stare Decisis, Christopher J. Peters

All Faculty Scholarship

The doctrine of stare decisis often seems anomalous in a legal system ostensibly devoted to justice: It purports to require that courts, in the name of consistency, sometimes reach decisions they otherwise would reject as unjust. As such, stare decisis is a particular application of a more general belief that decisionmakers should strive for consistency as well as-and sometimes instead of-substantive correctness. What can justify this occasional preference for consistent decisions over correct ones?

Mr Peters explains that, in the context of stare decisis, two types of response to this question can and have been offered by courts and commentators. …