The Constitution, not precedent, is the law of the land.
June 19, 2019
One of the most striking aspects of Monday’s Supreme Court decision in Gamble v. United States was Clarence Thomas’s eloquent summary of the core precept of his judicial philosophy: that stare decisis—the venerable doctrine that courts should respect precedent—deserves but a minor place in Supreme Court jurisprudence. His 17-page concurrence in a case concerning double jeopardy, really a stand-alone essay, emphasizes that, in America’s system of government, the “Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties are the law.” That’s why justices and other governmental officers take an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”—not to safeguard judicial precedents. “That the Constitution outranks other sources of law is inherent in its nature,” he writes. The job of a Supreme Court justice, therefore, “is modest: We interpret and apply written law to the facts of particular cases.” Continue reading