Читать книгу Justice Rehnquist, the Supreme Court, and the Bill of Rights - Steven T. Seitz - Страница 19

Electoral coalitions, party coalitions, or caucuses in the House or Senate have little direct impact on the court, save for the appointment of justices chosen because of ideological perspective. Such perspectives are not law, but they may color interpretations of the law. Some scholars, particularly some political scientists, take this to mean that we need study each justice to understand court decision-making. If the individual perspectives of judges aggregate to SCOTUS decisions, the lower courts would be in constant chaos, more so when a justice dies or resigns. The practice of stare decisis dampens this fluctuation, elevating case precedent over individual court decisions on most cases. Overturned precedents need close examination, but they are the exceptions to the rule of stare decisis. Trust in the justice system and its reservoir of good faith would diminish if the court abandoned its own continuity.