Stare decisis is "the basic legal principle that commands judicial respect for a court's earlier decisions and the rules of law they embody." Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545, 556-557 (2002) (plurality opinion) (citing numerous cases).
"It is . . . a fundamental jurisprudential policy that prior applicable precedent usually must be followed even though the case, if considered anew, might be decided differently by the current justices. This policy . . . ‘is based on the assumption that certainty, predictability and stability in the law are the major objectives of the legal system; i.e., that parties should be able to regulate their conduct and enter into relationships with reasonable assurance of the governing rules of law.’" Moradi-Shalal v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Companies (1988) 46 Cal.3d 287, 296.
The doctrine "‘promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.’" United States v. International Business Machines Corp., 517 U.S. 843, 856 (1996) (quoting Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S.808, 827 (1991)). Departure from precedent is exceptional, and requires "special justification." Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U.S. 203, 212 (1984).
RECENT DECISIONS
An important discussion of stare decisis in recent years is found in the plurality opinion of Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade. After noting (in an oft-quoted phrase) that "[l]iberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt," the plurality explained the considerations that weigh against overruling prior decisions:
"When this Court reexamines a prior holding, its judgment is customarily informed by a series of prudential and pragmatic considerations designed to test the consistency of overruling a prior decision with the ideal of the rule of law, and to gauge the respective costs of reaffirming and overruling a prior case. Thus, for example, we may ask whether the rule has proven to be intolerable simply in defying practical workability; whether the rule is subject to a kind of reliance that would lend a special hardship to the consequences of overruling and add inequity to the cost of repudiation; whether related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine; or whether facts have so changed, or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application or justification." Casey, 505 U.S. at 854-855 (citations omitted).
Applying those considerations to Roe v. Wade, the plurality in Casey held that even if they would have decided the issue differently as an initial matter, stare decisis compelled them to uphold its validity. Some have referred to Casey as having enshrined Roe as a "super-precedent" (or as Senator Specter called it during the Roberts hearings, a "super-duper precedent") because to overrule it the Court would not only have to overrule Roe itself but would also have to overrule Casey's application of stare decisis.
STARE DECISIS AND MIRANDA
A more recent example of the Court's adherence to stare decisis is Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 443 (2000), where the Court (in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Rehnquist) declined to overrule the Miranda decision. There, the Court explained that "[w]hether or not we would agree with Miranda's reasoning and its resulting rule, were we addressing the issue in the first instance, the principles of stare decisis weigh heavily against overruling it now." The Court noted that "even in constitutional cases, the doctrine carries such persuasive force that we have always required a departure from precedent to be supported by some ‘special justification,’" and that "[w]e do not think there is such justification for overruling Miranda," which "has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture." The Court explained that "[w]hile we have overruled our precedents when subsequent cases have undermined their doctrinal underpinnings, we do not believe that this has happened to the Miranda decision. If anything, our subsequent cases have reduced the impact of the Miranda's rule on legitimate law enforcement while reaffirming the decision's core ruling . . . ." 530 U.S. at 443-444.
DEPARTING FROM STARE DECISIS
A notable recent case in which the Court departed from stare decisis is Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), in which the Court struck down a law banning consensual homosexual activity, overruling its prior decision in Bowers v. Hardwick. The Court explained that Bowers has not induced detrimental reliance comparable to some instances where recognized individual rights are involved. Indeed, there has been no individual or societal reliance on Bowers of the sort that could counsel against overturning its holding once there are compelling reasons to do so. Bowers itself causes uncertainty, for the precedents before and after its issuance contradict its central holding. ". . . Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled." 539 U.S. at 576-577.
Another instance where the Court declined to adhere to stare decisis was Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995), in which the Court overruled an earlier case applying a more relaxed standard of review to federal affirmative action programs. The Court applied "Justice Frankfurter's admonition that ‘stare decisis is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision, however recent and questionable when such adherence involves collision with a prior doctrine more embracing in its scope, intrinsically sounder, and verified by experience.’" Id. at 231 (quoting Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U.S. 106, 119 (1940)). The Court held that "[r]emaining true to an ‘intrinsically sounder’ doctrine established in prior cases better serves the values of stare decisis than would following a more recently decided case inconsistent with the decisions that came before it; the latter course would simply compound the recent error and would likely make the unjustified break from previously established doctrine complete. In such a situation, ‘special justification’ exists to depart from the recently decided case." Id. In Adarand, the Court went on to catalog numerous other cases in which precedents were overruled, explaining the reasons for each one.
