Transcription
Hey everybody. Welcome back. The Supreme Court is usually pretty hesitant to change its mind or to overrule itself, but don't hesitate—smash that like button before it gets away. [Music]
I'm gonna cut right to the chase and get to the most important vocab in this video first: *stare decisis*. Learning Latin has to make you feel smart, right? It literally means “to let the decision stand,” and what that means in reality is that the court usually prefers to follow precedent. A precedent is a past decision that influences future decisions by the courts. And while judges aren't compelled to follow past decisions, the principle of *stare decisis* is generally a guiding principle for judges. And that's important enough that I'm going to reiterate it: judges can totally rule against past precedent; they just don't usually do it that often, unless they think it's really necessary to do so.
On the other hand, the Court's precedents are pretty much binding on the lower courts. Their job is to rule on cases using Supreme Court precedents as their guide. So precedent is a huge deal; in fact, it sets what's known as case law—the law as established in prior cases. Lower courts are there to follow case law and apply it to new cases.
Hopefully, you remember when I said that one of the most contentious things in U.S. politics is when a president nominates a new Supreme Court Justice, subject to Senate confirmation. This is because it's a huge deal who serves on the Supreme Court, because when new Justices are appointed, it can change the ideological balance of the court, and this can lead to past precedents being overturned and new precedents being established. A prime example of this follows the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. When Trump was able to nominate his third Supreme Court justice during his term, then in 2022, the court, with its now six-three conservative majority, overturned *Roe v. Wade*, that had established abortion policy for the previous 50 years or so. It's obvious that if Hillary had beaten Trump in 2016, that she would have nominated different justices, and that the court would not have overturned that precedent.
When there is a vacancy on the court, the president looks at a number of factors and tries to nominate someone who checks as many boxes as possible. At the top of the list is probably political ideology. Obama nominated two liberal justices; Trump nominated three conservatives; and at the time of this video, Biden has nominated one liberal Justice. And that makes sense, right? They want to choose judges and justices who share their ideology. Other things they consider are things like their judicial philosophy, which we'll get to later, as well as their age, sex, and race. That might sound odd, but age is a huge one since justices serve life terms. Presidents prefer to nominate younger people whenever possible because they'll serve on the court longer and have more influence. Remember, young is relative, so we're talking mid-to-late 40s or early 50s. That gives them a good chance to serve 25 or 30 years. For example, Obama and Biden both promised that they would nominate women to the Supreme Court if they had the opportunity, and they both did.
In the early 90s, after the retirement of Thurgood Marshall, the only Black Justice, George H.W. Bush wanted to nominate a Black person to replace him. Other times it might be more about campaign promises or appealing to the president's party coalition. But just because federal judges, and more specifically Supreme Court Justices, are allowed to serve for life, it doesn't mean that they usually do. There are three ways for a Justice's time on the court to end: she can pass away, she can be impeached and removed from the bench, or she can retire.
In recent decades, we've seen a rise in strategic retirements where a Justice retires while a president who shares their ideology is in office. And this makes a ton of sense because that President gets to choose your successor, so you want to make sure that that person shares your ideology. Think about it: if a liberal Justice retires while a Democrat's in office, he can get replaced by another liberal, so it doesn't change the ideological balance of the court. On the other hand, when a justice passes away while the president is from the other party, it can swing the balance of the court to the other side.
Let's go back to Ruth Bader Ginsburg again. The notorious RBG was a beloved liberal icon on the court since the early 90s. However, as Obama was in his second term, she decided not to retire, despite being in her 80s. When she passed away in the last few months of Trump's presidency, he replaced the liberal Justice with conservative Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett became the fifth vote necessary to overturn *Roe v. Wade*.
Out of fear of exactly that kind of result, most justices strategically retire. The big picture idea that's all over the AP exam is about the role of precedent. It tells lower courts what to do and it guides the Supreme Court, but it's merely a guiding principle, not something that they're bound to. And now that the court has a 6-3 conservative majority, it's been overturning some long-standing precedents. In fact, Justice Clarence Thomas makes the argument the court cares too much about precedent and that it should feel free to overturn past decisions if the current justices disagree, regardless of how entrenched that precedent is. None of the other justices go quite as far as Thomas on the issue, though.
Anyway, that's it for this one. Until next time, this has been a La Money production. Thanks again for watching. Smash that like button, tell a friend, and check out the ultimate review packet and have a great day. And I will see you in the next video.