The End of Stare Decisis?

Stare Decisis—a Latin term that means “let the decision stand” or “to stand by things decided”—is a foundational concept in the American legal system. To put it simply, stare decisis holds that courts and judges should honor “precedent”—or the decisions, rulings, and opinions from prior cases. Respect for precedents gives the law consistency and makes interpretations of the law more predictable—and less seemingly random.
Understanding Stare Decisis, ABA Supreme Court Preview (December 23, 2022).

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During the past decade, the court’s reconsideration of constitutional constructs has shown that stare decisis is much less dependable than we thought. As members of the Supreme Court have been replaced, the scope of constitutional rights and privileges has changed. No longer does the principle of stare decisis—capturing the idea that past decisions deserve respect and should direct the forces of change away from the courts and toward the domains of politics—govern new decisions.
U.S. Supreme Court and the Elimination of Stare Decisis, by Larry E. Cohen, The Legal Intelligencer (May 22, 2026)

Stare decisis is intended to promote stability, continuity, and public confidence in the legal system. There are, of course, decisions -- such as Plessy v. Ferguson -- that most Americans now agree were profoundly wrong, a stain on the nation's history, and rightly overruled. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has overturned longstanding precedents not because they had become unworkable, but because a new majority concluded they were "wrongly decided."

Cases such as Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935), Roe v. Wade (1973), and Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984) have given way to Trump v. Slaughter (2026), Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024). Notice the years. The Constitution has not changed. The people interpreting it have.

If stare decisis is no longer a consistently applied principle at the Supreme Court, then why should these and other recent decisions be regarded as untouchable precedent by a future Court with a different judicial philosophy? The answer is simple: they should not.

Progressives should not mourn the decline of stare decisis as an inviolable doctrine. If the current Court has demonstrated that precedent may be discarded when a majority believes it was wrongly decided, then future Courts are equally free to revisit the decisions of today. The principle that has been weakened by this Court may ultimately provide the means to reverse what many will regard as its own wrongly decided opinions.