The Doctrine of Stare Decisis in Supreme Court Decisions

Abstract

As Randy Barnett, a Professor of Law at Georgetown Law, stated, “how and when precedent should be rejected remains one of the great unresolved controversies of jurisprudence” (Kozel 1846). Whether the people contemplating this controversy are philosophers of law or justices in The United States Supreme Court, the issue does not seem to have one acceptable conclusion. The Supreme Court is responsible for presenting cases and their decisions to the public. Because illustrating what the public can expect from the law is one of their main responsibilities, concerns regarding the tools that the Supreme Court uses to decide these decisions come into question. In some cases, decisions do not require further scrutiny because most people agree with the decision, for instance, Brown v. Board of Education. But there are other cases, such as the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, that causes people to question the rationality behind the decision. In both cases, the Supreme Court made the decision to overturn precedent instead of upholding it, but many would applaud Brown and decry Dobbs. In this paper, I will be defining the term precedent and the doctrine of stare decisis that enforces it, the issues that revolve around precedent itself, and how the Supreme Court applies precedent, specifically in the context of Dobbs v. Jackson and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.