Stare Decisis "Stare decisis" is a Latin term tha

"Stare decisis" is a Latin term that means "to stand by things decided." In the legal arena, therefore, stare decisis is essentially the doctrine of precedent, whereby courts rely on previously decided cases to guide their rulings in cases before them. What is often overlooked in discussion of stare decisis, however, is that there is both binding precedent (to which some courts must abide) and persuasive precedent (which courts may consider but ultimately ignore). This paper explores the doctrine of stare decisis and concludes that, though it may have its problems, it is not a doctrine that is ever likely to be completely removed from legal reasoning.

It should first be noted that stare decisis is a judicial rule or policy rather than a constitutional principle. One of the primary legal reasons for this rule is to provide some predictability or certain in judicial reasoning. For example, noted Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote that "[i]t will not do to decide the same question one way between one set of litigants and the opposite way between another. If a group of cases involves the same point, the parties expect the same decision. It would be a gross injustice to decide alternate cases on opposite principles. . . . Adherence to precedent must then be the rule rather than the exception if litigants are to have faith in the even-handed administration of justice in the courts."

On the other hand, there is a more pragmatic basis for the rule. For one thing

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tatements - in the case of Agostini v. Felton. In Agostini, the Court was faced with the issue of whether a New York school board program that allowed public school teachers to teach remedial education classes in parochial schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the federal and state (through the Fourteenth Amendment) governments from participating in action that advances or inhibits religion. The Agostini case arose 12 years after a case involving the exact same program - Aguilar v. Felton - in which the Supreme Court had held that the program did violate the Establishment Clause. Thus, stare decisis would guide the court to hold again in Agostini that the program was unconstitutional. Nonetheless, the Court decided precisely the opposite. In Agostini Justice O'Connor wrote that "[t]he doctrine of stare decisis does not preclude us from recognizing the change in our law and overruling Aguilar . . .. As we have often noted, '[s]tare decisis is not an inexorable command,' Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 828 (1991), but instead reflects a policy judgment that 'in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right' Burnet v.

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