Making Precedent News Today

In certain ways and you are assessing the parties arguments and determining within your proper role whether what the appellate courts have said provides the law of decision for the case. but what is important, as youve mentioned, is the clarity by which courts of appeals and the supreme court need to operate so that the lower courts can actually follow the precedent. im very conscious of that, as you said, as someone who has had to follow precedent and i would think carefully about that and use ...

Focused on making sure that i found the right precedents and applied them faithfully. as i mentioned with respect to my methodology, part of the process is receiving information from the parties in a case, and the parties write briefs and in most cases they identify the precedents that they at least believe are applicable and then the court does its own legal research as well to determine whether all of the relevant cases have been identified. and then you look to see whether there is anything t...

Their mistakes, correct, by overruling previous decisions? >> if the various considerations that the supreme court uses to make that determination is satisfied. >> have you ever heard a federal judge talk about super duper precedent or super precedent? >> i have not. >> i have never seen it, either, in any opinion. ive heard it here in the judiciary committee on a number of occasions when somebody has a favorite case or outcome that they dont want to see the supreme court revisit. let me ask a m...

Been reaffirmed by the court and have been relied upon. reliance is one of the factors that the court considers when it seeks to revisit or when it is asked to revisit a precedent. and in all cases, those precedents of the supreme court would have to be reviewed pursuant to those factors because stare decisis is very important. if you are confirmed you would be one of only two justices who has also served on a federal district court. the other being justice sotomayor. in your eight years as a tr...

Now to senator cornyn for his line of questioning. >> well start with stare decisis and ive never figured out why lawyers speak in lat-in rather than in english when describing these concepts by which judges apply precedent. would you agree with me that even under an appropriate stare decisis analysis, that dred scott and pleasey versus ferguson were appropriately overruled by the supreme court? >> i have not engaged in the actual analysis but i think it is well established now that the cases th...

He also stated that roe has been reaffirmed many times. i also spoke with judge kavanaugh about this issue in 2018. i asked him whether he believes that roe was settled law and if so, whether it was correctly settled. justice kavanaugh said that roe, quote, is settled as a precedent of the supreme court, end quote. he said that roe, quote, has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years and most prominently, most importantly, reaffirmed in planned parent hood versus casey, end quote. and h...

In 2020. i asked her whether she agreed with justice scalias view that roe was wrongly decided. she committed to, quote, obey all the rules of -- she said she had no eye gend to try to overrule casey, end quote. so here is the question. do you agree with justice kavanaugh that roe v. wade is settled as a precedent and will you like justice barrett commit to obey all the rules of stare decisis in issues related to abortion, end quote. >> thank you, senator. i do agree with both justice kavanaugh ...

Questions. you have to think that she heavily prepared for that heading into this knowing it was out there. >> absolutely. there are those murder boards we talk about, the mock trial interview things you go through where she is pressed by people to answer tough and uncomfortable questions. she those the topic is out there, soft on crime and thoroughly prepped backwards and forwards on that and issues like abortion like senator feinstein and precedent asked from chuck grassley who chaired it in t...

She is not going to have to always follow precedent. now she will be making precedent. >> fair enough. >> they are not as bound as the lower courts are like the court she is now on to follow the supreme courts precedent. >> live inside the room senator dick durbin chatting away as we expect the recess or temporary break they took 15 minutes they said. it broke at 32 after the hour. we expect it the resume shortly. lets check in with shannon bream our chief legal correspondent. shannon, you have ...

Trials. as you know from your service on the district court it is important for appeals courts and episcopal tli supreme court, to be clear in their decisions. the clarity is necessary as you well know, for trial judges to effectively do their job and properly apply legal precedents that are fair and consistent. as a district judge, you were responsible for applying precedent from the supreme court and the courts of appeal to your case, and now as a judge in the d.c. circuit, you are drafting th...