Legal Precedent in American Courts

Eric Wilson

Legal precedent is a term strewn about in today’s media, but it is more than just a vague idea. Precedent is a doctrine that has very real consequences in all aspects of life, including health equity. As is seen in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, when there are no requirements on the use of precedent, it can be applied in any way This use of precedent means that rulings made to benefit health equity can be stripped away later This paper is simply here to provide more information about precedent to the reader and show how its loose definition can be a pitfall for all people

Legal Precedent, also referred to as stare decisis (Latin for to stand by things decided), in American courts has been established as part of the common law system where courts rely on previous judgments rather than deciding the outcome based on their personal understanding of the law. This is important because it means that rulings made by the courts can actually create laws for American society without having to put forth legislation. Legal precedent also involves the trust that courts will abide by the precedent set by the courts with higher or equal authority to ensure stability within their rulings. Without that trust, the entire idea of precedent falls to pieces While precedent does allow for laws to be created on trust there are reasons for precedent not to be followed and for a new ruling to be administered However, there are no metrics a court has to follow before it can overturn previous rulings All of this seems rather confusing How can you make laws with no legislation? How do courts decide what laws should be thrown out? How can I trust decisions made by courts if they can be overturned just based on an opinion? Some questions have an answer, and some don’t. Leaving those of us who live within American society still scratching our heads.

Legal precedent itself started back in England with the use of common law in the 13th century A document was written On the Laws and Customs of England that included the written rulings made by the courts in the time leading up to then to try and get future rulings to abide by those rulings that had already been made. The argument is that those preceding rulings had formed the precedent of what should be done. Precedent was then adopted by the United States court system following the United States’ independence A benefit of precedent is that it allows a set standard to be applied to all similar situations brought before the court system

Precedent, though does not have to be followed by a higher court on a ruling by a lower court So, if a ruling is made by a federal judicial court, the federal supreme court is not pressured to follow the same ruling, but if the federal supreme court makes a ruling, then all other federal courts are pressured to adhere to that ruling to follow precedent. This is referred to as vertical stare decisis. Horizontal stare decisis is describing the doctrine that courts should follow their own precedent. So, a 7th circuit court should adhere to the same decisions that court has made in the past This idea of horizontal stare decisis does not apply to situations form one judicial district to another So, if a 13th district court makes a ruling and there is a similar situation where a ruling is being made in a 5th district court, the 5th district court does not have to use the ruling made in the 13th district court While being used in the United States precedent has been used and broken many times in all types of law applications.

Precedent itself is not limited to a specific area of law. It is used in all areas. The fact that it is in every aspect of the shows its great importance, but there is no legal requirement to follow precedent or how to use it Why? Something that is so inherent in our legal system should have some ground rules There should be bounds on when to follow or break away from precedent to prevent it being used to fulfill an agenda In our current system any judge can break away from precedent by stating that the previous ruling was wrong, didn’t fit in with our society any more, or that the justification of the previous ruling is not strong enough. How can you measure these requirements? How far off does the justification need to be? Our legal system needs to address and create a metric by which reasons for deviating from precedent can be measured to help prevent against misusing the doctrine of precedent.

The most well-known and recent case where precedent was rejected was when Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa v Casey were overturned The opinion of the majority was that “(a) The critical question is whether the Constitution, properly understood, confers a right to obtain an abortion. Casey’s controlling opinion skipped over that question and reaffirmed Roe solely on the basis of stare decisis. A proper application of stare decisis, however, requires an assessment of the strength of the grounds on which Roe was based. The Court therefore turns to the question that the Casey plurality did not consider (Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization) (b) The doctrine of stare decisis does not counsel continued acceptance of Roe and Casey Stare decisis plays an important role and protects the interests of those who have taken action in reliance on a past decision It “reduces incentives for challenging settled precedents, saving parties and courts the expense of endless relitigation.” Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U. S. 446, 455. It “contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.” Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 827. And it restrains judicial hubris by respecting the judgment of those who grappled with important questions in the past. But stare decisis is not an inexorable command, Pearson v Callahan, 555 U S 223, 233, and “is at its weakest when [the Court] interpret[s] the Constitution,”

Agostini v Felton, 521 U S 203, 235 (c) Casey identified another concern, namely, the danger that the public will perceive a decision overruling a controversial “watershed” decision, such as Roe, as influenced by political considerations or public opinion. 505 U. S., at 866–867. But the Court cannot allow its decisions to be affected by such extraneous concerns. A precedent of this Court is subject to the usual principles of stare decisis under which adherence to precedent is the norm but not an inexorable command If the rule were otherwise, erroneous decisions like Plessy would still be the law The Court’s job is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly Pp 66–69 (d) Under the Court’s precedents, rational-basis review is the appropriate standard to apply when state abortion regulations undergo constitutional challenge. Given that procuring an abortion is not a fundamental constitutional right, it follows that the States may regulate abortion for legitimate reasons, and when such regulations are challenged under the Constitution, courts cannot “substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies.” Ferguson, 372 U. S., at 729–730” (Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 2022).

According to this majority opinion there was nothing Constitutionally wrong made by the court in its original opinion of Roe v Wade or in Planned Parenthood of Western Pa v Casey

The only argument made was that the opinion of the previous Supreme Court majority differs from the majority opinion of the current Supreme Court. Then it tries to defend its decision to defy precedent by quoting how stare decisis was used in different cases. Using precedent to defy precedent is an extremely flawed argument.

Precedent has been used to defy precedent, what happens when precedent is used to defy precedent which was used to defy precedent? This is setting the stage to use stare decisis however the interpreter wishes to use it and dilutes its very power in the legal system This demonstrates the need to have clearly defined rules for using precedent and when it can be broken Otherwise, courts will continue to use precedent as an interpretive argument to do whatever they want.

This opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is only a very high profile case in the United States. Most cases where stare decisis is used in the lower courts and does not receive the media attention that is given to supreme court cases, but use of stare decisis in the lower courts is no less important All decisions made at all levels of the courts both federal and state determine what precedent will be used at that level and those below Those decisions are shaping the very law of our society without having to go through the legislative process of creating new laws. That very idea is circumventing the legislative process that was intended to be the law creating system of the United States. Should the Judicial system have that power to create new law with no oversight from the Legislative powers?

I have found through my research that there are quite a few flaws presented by our current use of the doctrine on precedent We need to change our view of what law is Law is not rigid but fluid, and changes over time Sometimes rapidly without us even knowing through our current system. We also need to have measurements for when to overturn previous rulings so precedent cannot be overturned because of political viewpoints or for any reason that is not firmly rooted within the bounds of law. Once a judgment has been made that establishes a new precedent on the law, I propose that judgement be sent to the legislative brand of government to decide on whether to pass that judgement into law by a majority vote of a certain percentage That way judges can make a decision that cannot be overturned by another court because they disagree with the original decision That way the precedent stands with application of law, and not solely with the judicial interpretation.