The Supreme Court can issue a decision one day and completely reverse itself the next, correct? It is my understanding that if they so chose, they could hear a case identical to Roe v. Wade or D.C v. Heller, for example, and issue a completely opposite ruling.
Thanks,
Rob
It wouldn’t happen that quickly. Getting a question certified to the SCOTUS takes time, and if the Court took two or more cases that presented the same question in the same session, those cases would be consolidated. Nonetheless, the Court can and does reverse itself, and there is no time limit on how long it has to let a decision sit before it can revisit the issue. There is, however, a maxim called stare decisis, or the doctrine of precedent, which provides that settled issues should be left alone.
ETClarify: the Court doesn’t just consider issues devoid of context. Before the Court could reconsider Heller, for example, it would have to face a challenge to a similar statute that presented the same (albeit decided) issue.
Honoring precedent is merely traditional, though, correct?
It happens, and much more often than many people think. There have been reversals within a year or two.
Practically, it happens after there is a change of justices. It’s never happened within a term and is bizarrely unlikely to. There is nothing in statute that would prevent this. It’s just unrealistic, another version of the what happens if the justices go crazy thread.
Not exactly, Stare decisis is not precisely precedent, but the policy that stable government means that we do not need to reinvent the wheel each time a government vehicle needs something to put on an axle, so to speak. It means “to stand decided” and says, in essence, that once it has been decided, it should stay decided until and unless there’s good reason to revisit it.
Some predecent is binding, others is guiding. When a case turns on a point of law that is a ‘matter of first impression’ in, say, Nebraska, counsel will cite the decisions of the high courts in California and in Texas as precedent. There’s absolutely nothing in law requiring the Nebraska court to give any more credence to those two decisions than to the letter the judge got from one of Rand Rover’s clients expressing his personal opinion. But the judge would be a fool not to make use of the analysis of issues another judge has already gone through, even if he doesn’t arrive at the same conclusion.
On the other hand, a decision by a “higher” court is absolutely binding on the courts “below” it (high and low in terms of who hears appeals from whom). A state’s high court’s decisions are absolutely binding precedent, to be followed by every (non-Federal) court in that state. A Federal circuit court’s decisions are binding precedent on courts in the states covered by that circuit. Even something as low-ranked as a New York State county court’s decisions are binding on the town and village justices’ courts within that county. And of course any Supreme Court decision is binding on all other courts.
I was really referring to reversals once the court make-up changes. Can you give me some examples of reversals where the facts at issue were identical to the those in the first decision?
Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy v. Ferguson with pretty similar facts at issue.
Actually, yes exactly. I get the nit you’re trying to pick but both Black’s and Garner respectively define stare decisis in the context of American jurisprudence as the doctrine of precedent and adherence to precedents. The distinction between binding and persuasive authority, though an important one, is not really relevant to a discussion of the SCOTUS ability to review and reverse prior decisions.
Published circuit court decisions are binding on lower Federal Courts and, to the extent that those decisions address federal law, state courts within the circuit. If the 11th Circuit were to issue an order in a case of first impression interpreting a Georgia* law, the Georgia Court of Appeals and Supreme Court are not bound by that interpretation.
*a state in the 11th Circuit
as *Lawrence * did Bowers
to clarify, for the above to be true, the 11th circuit would not be reviewing the Georgia law to determine whether it passes US Constitutional muster
Was Brown really a reversal of Plessy? I always read Brown to be that they declared segregated schools to be inherently unequal. The Plessy decision, I thought, said that if they are equal then they are okay, but Brown clarified to say that they can never be equal, and therefore segregated schools are not allowed.
At the end of the day, Brown did say segregated schools are not allowed while Plessy said they were, but it still doesn’t feel right to say it was a reversal to me for some reason.
Actually, Plessy said that if segregated passenger railway cars are provided that are indeed ‘separate but equal’ in service provided, that does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Brown reversed Plessy only to the extent that in the field of segregated public schools, separate was inherently inequal. (There had already been previous decisions regarding housing and public colleges that had already made similar declarations.)
Why might the 11th circuit be looking at a state law but with regard to a Federal question? I take your point that the state supreme court (or other high court depending on how state judiciary is named) would not be bound by Federal precedent on a state question. But in that case the 11th circuit would decline to be involved.
From Brown:
*This is from the syllabus.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=347&invol=483
It’s pretty hard to say that this isn’t a reversal…
Plessy wasn’t regarding school, but the basic idea of segregation as long as seperate but equal faciltities were provided was overturned.
If you want a ‘cleaner’ case of the Supreme Court overturnig itself, then see Erie v. Thompkins as opposed to Swift v. Tyson.
However, what was being overturned is a little trickier to non law-talking folks than the Brown decision, since its procedural.
And, of course, you could argue that Dairy Queen and Beacon overturned uncounted cases…
Not if it had supplimental jurisdiciton.
ETA: However, if it was an issue that the state court had not addressed then a federal court may file an interlocutory appeal sua sponte out of commity.
Breyer’s dissent in McDonald begins by contending that Heller was wrong and should be overruled, although obviously he recognizes that he does not have the votes to do so (and he goes on to make other arguments).
This “Yes, it is”, “No, it isn’t” thing seems a little contrary notions I have about the finality of law, but as was pointed out in Parlaiment of Whores, our democracy rests on the decisions of this autocratic institution.
federal appeals court might review the constitutionality of a state law. This is an example of a federal appeals court at a state law but with regard to a federal question. I don’t think that was what you’re after though.
This is untrue. A federal court exercising diversity jurisdiction or hearing an appeal on a bankruptcy matter might likely have to consider issues of state law.
Though the procedure might differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction*, if the 11th Circuit were confronted with an issue of first impression concerning Georgia law, the circuit court could certify the state law question to the Georgia Supreme Court, but it is not required to do so.
*the certification of a question to the Georgia Supreme Court is provided by Georgia, not federal, law
This. I was recently working on an state law issue for a client where there was no Illinois case directly on point, but there was a very recent Seventh Circuit opinion (on a case with diversity jurisdiction) that was almost on all fours with our own case and which opinion extended earlier Illinois holdings by analogy (what’s known as an “Erie guess”). The Seventh Circuit’s holding was contrary to my client’s interest, so among other things, if this went to litigation (and the parties were not diverse, so it would be in Illinois state court), we would argue that the Seventh Circuit’s interpretation of Illinois state law was not binding on the court and that a better and fuller analysis of Illinois law would produce a different outcome.