Stare Indecisis The Alteration of Precedent on the Supreme Court, 1946}}}1992 [Hardcover]

This book presents a full-length empirical study of why US Supreme Court justices have chosen to alter precedent.Although the concept of precedent is basic to the operation of the legal system, there has not yet been a full-length empirical study of why US Supreme Court justices have chosen to alter precedent. This book fills that gap by analyzing those decisions of the Vinson, Warren, and Burgers courts, and the first six terms of the Rehnquist Court.Although the concept of precedent is basic to the operation of the legal system, there has not yet been a full-length empirical study of why US Supreme Court justices have chosen to alter precedent. This book fills that gap by analyzing those decisions of the Vinson, Warren, and Burgers courts, and the first six terms of the Rehnquist Court.Although the concept of precedent is basic to the operation of the legal system, there has not yet been a full-length empirical study of why U.S. Supreme Court justices have chosen to alter precedent. This book attempts to fill that gap by analyzing those decisions of the Vinson, Warren, and Burger courts, as well as the first six terms of the Rehnquist Court--a span of forty-seven years (1946-1992)--that formally altered precedent. The authors summarize previous studies of precedent and the Court, assess the conference voting of justices, and compile a list of overruling and overruled cases.1. Preface; 2. A survey of the empirical literature; 3. A list of cases; 4. Some characteristics of the overruling and the overruled cases; 5. The conference votes; 6. Attitudinal voting; 7. Personal and institutional stare decisis; 8. Ideology; 9. Conclusion; Appendices. ...Saul Brenner and Harold Spaeth are prolific and productive scholars who over the years have enriched our discipline prodigiously. In their latest work they have made imaginative forays into some nooks and crannies of Supreme Court behavior that have not received much recent attention. The result is a book that will be a nelc7