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Justice Thomas rejects stare decisis

Here is a link to today’s Supreme Court decision in Gamble v. United States. In Gamble, the Court decided not to overturn the dual sovereignty doctrine. Pursuant to that doctrine, it does not violate the double jeopardy clause if a state prosecutes a defendant under state law even if the federal government has already prosecuted the defendant for the same conduct under a federal statute.

Justice Thomas wrote an intriguing concurring opinion in which he rejected the use of stare decisis to avoid overturning demonstrably erroneous precedents. As an example of such rulings, Thomas mentioned the Court’s substantive due process decisions, and explicitly cited the Court’s abortion decisions as an example of an area where the Court “has doggedly adhered to these erroneous substantive-due-process precedents again and again, often to disastrous ends.” Although no other Justice joined his concurrence, Thomas’s opinion will likely fuel speculation about the possible reversal of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

 

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