aggiehawg said:
Agthatbuilds said:
No no, they most definitely have the right and, indeed, the duty to change unconstitutional law. It's literally their job.
For people to understand what stare decisis and well settled law actually mean is that a lower court is compelled to follow Supreme Court precedent.
It has never meant that the Supreme Court itself is compelled to follow it.
I got interested in this listening to the confirmation hearings of the last couple of Justices, especially Amy Coney Barrett, with whom I am not-so-secretly in love. She was obviously a thumb in the eye of the pro-abortion crowd, a veritable walking, talking, breathing symbol of openness to life with her large family, her adopted Haitian children and her special needs child.
I do recall her being grilled, by whom I don't recall, about stare decisis and precedent and she remarked that Roe vs. Wade couldn't be considered super precedent because of all of the various and sundry ways in which it was continually challenged, be that from lower courts or even at the level of the Supreme Court. Nobody every challenges Brown vs. Board of Education - it's considered settled law and precedent. By definition, I guess, it would be difficult for anyone to EVER call Roe versus Wade well settled law, as much debate as has been given to it by the brightest legal minds out there vis-a-vis its Constitutional adherence and not so much its moral (or amoral) impetus.
It might have been you, Hawg, if not another attorney in this Forum, who helped explain this to me in a thread not all that long ago. If this holds, obviously Roe will no longer be precedent, super precedent, or settled law.
What the conservative justices said about Roe v. Wade during confirmation hearings"(Barrett) also refused to say that Roe v. Wade was a "super precedent," defining the term as a case that is universally accepted and that virtually no one advocates for overturning.
Although she said she believed that "indicates that Roe
doesn't fall in that category," scholars say it "doesn't mean that Roe should be overruled, but descriptively it does mean that it's not a case that everyone has accepted."
Barrett said she would take into account stare decisis, a legal principle that says a judge should look to precedent when deciding on a current issue, when considering any case."
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