Seated from left to right: Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
Standing from left to right: Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.
ABA Legal Fact Check debuted in August 2017 and is the first fact check website focusing exclusively on legal matters. This article has been republished with permission.
In his U.S. Senate confirmation hearings 17 years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was pressed on his view of the doctrine of stare decisis. “I do think it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent,” he said. “Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness.”
With the spring 2022 leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that would overturn the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, the concept of stare decisis, a Latin term which means “to stand by things decided,” has moved from legal jargon to everyday conversations. But is the U.S. Supreme Court bound by the concept? And is overturning legal precedents that rare?
The concept of stare decisis, commonly known as legal precedent, is ingrained in the U.S. system of justice and stands out as a bedrock of the rule of law. The U.S. Supreme Court has often stated that following its prior decisions encourages stability, brings uniformity in the application of law to cases and litigants, and establishes a societal reliance on settled law. Former Associate Justice Lewis Powell once remarked: “The elimination of constitutional stare decisis would represent an explicit endorsement of the idea that the Constitution is nothing more than what five justices say it is.”
The actual concept is not found in the U.S….
