University of Memphis Digital Commons
Not a member yet
43176 research outputs found
Sort by
Residence of E.H. Crump
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1291/thumbnail.jp
W.S. Bruce School
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1298/thumbnail.jp
Residence of Mrs. Antoinette Wetter
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1295/thumbnail.jp
Residence of Mrs. Antoinette Wetter
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1294/thumbnail.jp
Good for This Day and This Day Only: A Study on Changes in Court Personnel, Precedent, and Judicial Legitimacy
No full textThe watershed discarding of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization1 predictably included a discussion of the role of stare decisis. After deciding that the Constitution does not protect the right to make decisions about abortion, the Court considered whether stare decisis counseled leaving Roe in place to protect the integrity of the legal process.2 In this discussion, the majority cited Payne v. Tennessee,3 a fairly obscure 1991 case regarding the admissibility of victim impact evidence in death penalty sentencing hearings.4 In Payne, the Court abandoned several recent precedents, concluding that “[s]tare decisis is not an inexorable command; rather, it is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision,” a dynamic particularly true in constitutional cases where legislative correction is difficult.5 As in Payne, the Dobbs Court concluded that the benefits of stare decisis were not sufficient to justify continued adherence to a previous decision.6 And so, Roe was no more.7 Payne was a 6-3 decision and prompted a furious dissent from Justice Thurgood Marshall in what would be his last opinion before retiring the following day.8 “This truncation of the Court’s duty to stand by its own precedents is astonishing,” Marshall wrote before highlighting other cases vulnerable to potential future reversal, a list that included Roe.9 Though it took three decades, Dobbs proved this prediction correct.10 The dissenters in Dobbs quoted from Marshall’s dissent in registering their disagreement.11 Marshall wrote in 1991 and Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan echoed thirty years later that “power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court’s decisionmaking.”12 But there was more to Marshall’s Payne critique than simply an assertion that the majority’s conclusion was rooted in power rather than reason. He had leveled a more specific charge: “It takes little real detective work to discern just what has changed since the [Court’s previous decisions]; this Court’s own personnel.”13 The future meaning of the Constitution, under this view, “must be understood to depend on nothing more than the proclivities of the individuals who now comprise a majority of this Court.”14 By tying Court outcomes to personnel—and reversals to changes in personnel—Marshall offered one of the most damning attacks on judicial legitimacy: that results depend more on who is making the decision than what a case is about or why a result is justified.15 When changes in Supreme Court personnel generate changed understandings of the Constitution, the rule of law is shaken, and the ripple effects are profound
Residence of Jas. O. Dwyer
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1362/thumbnail.jp
Residence of J.G. Gerbig
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1360/thumbnail.jp
Residence of B.C. Alsup
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1351/thumbnail.jp
Residence of Dr. D.T. Porter
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1371/thumbnail.jp
Residence of Dr. R.B. Maury
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1369/thumbnail.jp