In 1998, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a police officer can be the proximate "cause" of an accident when the driver of a fleeing car hits a third party. In the Robinson case, it overruled its own precedent (5-2). "This Court has no obligation to perpetuate error simply because it may have reached a wrong result in one of its earlier decisions," wrote Justice Taylor (now chief justice).[2]Mr. Wright, the author of our source, goes on to say,
In the court's view, deference to precedent should be limited to cases in which reversals would be impracticable and have broad societal impact.[3]This is debatable.
A case to which this thought would apply would itself have had a broad societal
And on the issue of impracticability, the federal judge in Kansas City who took over the administration of a whole school system wasn't phased by any consideration of whether it was impracticable or not. The magic word "discrimination" swept common sense aside and his little adventure went on for years at huge expense to the taxpayers.
You'll still need a barf bag to watch the infinite ways in which the Senate dems will try to force a revelation from the nominee that she (or he, or another she, please God) really believes what the Constitution says, not what it's been interpreted to mean after the insufferable input of federal bayonets and a succession of
Notes
[1] The doctrine that whatever some collection of idiots voted on in the past is now holy writ amenforeverandaday.
[2] "The Finest Court in the Nation. Hooray for Michigan justice." By Patrick Wright, Wall Street Journal, 10/13/05.
[3] Id.
2 comments:
Many believe that the Michigan Supreme Court is the most radical in the country as a result of its compete disregard for prior precedent it simply does not agree with. As you note, it is pretty easy to simply say a prior ruling was incorrect. When courts simply disregard all prior precedent they disagree with or runs contrary to their political agenda, our judicial system suffers immensely.
Michigan Supreme Court Commentary
Enrico Schaefer
Traverse Legal, PLC
(I had the following all completely written out and one keystroke with the Blogger editor to italicize one littttle word cast it into the Bosphorus of Blogging Genius. Ouch!)
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
It’s true that disregard of (good) precedent can be as capricious as establishing new (bad) precedent, if that’s a fair paraphrase of what you said.
The devil is in the details and Patrick Wright will have to show that the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in the Robinson case is as principled and well reasoned as it is forthright about its U turn.
Of course, trends are more instructive than individual cases and the actions of the US Supreme Court since the 1930s can be fairly and accurately compared to the Mississippi River’s overflowing its banks and establishing a new course through New Mexico to debouche into the Pacific at Seattle.
Today, the federal government without a doubt has the power to mandate the color and number of stripes in primary school street crosswalks, not to mention the powers of the behemoth Department of Education. A la James Madison, I cannot for the life of me lay my finger on that portion of Article I, sect. 8 of the US Constitution that grants such powers to the Federal Government, but the New Deal court and its unprincipled successors and acolytes have found just such a provision, and legions like it, written in ozone-perfumed neon lights no less. Oh but for my presbyopia!
The luminaries of the New Deal Supreme Court and afterwards disregarded over a century of precedents to create new “precedents” that effected a gigantic constitutional revolution that (with help from some earlier decisions, I believe) irrevocably created a unitary state with massive powers. The states are now but administrative subdivisions of the federal government and fall over themselves to extract their “fair share” of boodle from the unseemly spectacle generally referred to as the “political process.” Hardly the vision of the Founders.
Yet, it is these “precedents” that have become holy and untouchable in the eyes of the professorate and the courts. Should any nominee appearing before the Senate suggest that these precedents (not just Roe v. Wade, for gosh sakes, but the whole kitbag) are unprincipled, it would be the career equivalent of licking one’s finger and placing it on the proverbial third rail of contemporary intellectual hypocrisy.
And it’s still a highly energized rail.
The great pity, as others have ably pointed out, is the Mr. Bush has with Ms. Miers foregone an opportunity to bring this perspective into focus. One more nondescript unknown (which is not to say that Ms. Miers lacks character, intelligence, or ability in many different realms) won’t change much, but it would be gratifying to The Colonel to see the fur fly and have an up-or-down cat fight over substance instead of the delicate tea dance, shell game, and charade that have been the essence of recent confirmation hearings.
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