Washington • The doctrine that court precedents should have momentum for respect — the predictability of settled law gives citizens due notice of what is required or proscribed — is called stare decisis. This Latin translates as: “To stand by things decided.” The translation is not: “If a precedent was produced by bad reasoning and has produced irrational and unjust results, do not correct the error, just shrug, say, ‘well, to err is human,’ and continue adhering to the mistake.”
Last week, the Supreme Court was roiled by an unusually pointed disagreement about stare decisis. It occurred in a case that demonstrated how, when judicial review works well, Americans’ rights can be buttressed and American liberty enlarged by a process that begins when the denial of a right is challenged by someone who thinks that precedents, although important, are not graven in granite by the finger of God.