Abstract
This chapter combines historical evidence and social-psychology insights to contend that “coherent” Supreme Courts—those with five or more Justices who agree on crucial issues—are far more likely to overrule precedents, and to aggressively attempt to create broad precedents, than are “incoherent” Courts. The author explains the social-psychology dynamics that contribute to the formation (or absence) of coherent Court majorities. He then surveys three historical periods to illustrate the divergent behavior of coherent versus incoherent Courts: the post-1936 New Deal Court, which was highly coherent on most issues and thus ambitious in both overturning and establishing precedent; the Warren Court, which was incoherent and cautious before 1962 but became coherent and aggressive thereafter; and the Rehnquist Court, which was incoherent on most issues (dominated by two centrist swing Justices) and thus adopted a minimalist approach toward precedent. The author concludes with a preliminary analysis of the Roberts Court, suggesting that it is generally incoherent and therefore reluctant to formally overrule precedent in most areas.
This chapter draws from “Ideological Cohesion and Precedent” (Devins 2008) and “The Supreme Court, Social Psychology, and Group Formation” (Devins and Federspiel 2010). The author thanks C. J. Peters for helping him think through the structure and content of the chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
This broad agreement includes the work of Jeffrey Segal and Harold Spaeth (2002), who argue that Justices vote their policy preferences; of Lee Epstein and Jack Knight (1998), who argue that Justices are policy-seekers who take potential resistance to their decisions into account in order to “move the substantive content of law as close as possible to their preferred policy positions”; and of Howard Gillman (2001), who argues that legal considerations play a significant role alongside policy considerations in Supreme Court decisionmaking.
- 2.
See Lawrence Baum’s Judges and Their Audiences for general background (2006).
- 3.
See Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), and Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). Justice Kennedy’s unexpected votes in those cases were discussed in popular media at the time, including Terry Eastland’s (1993, 32) article “The Tempting of Justice Kennedy.”
- 4.
Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, 306 U.S. 466, 491–92 (1938) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
- 5.
Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938).
- 6.
Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. 1 (1842).
- 7.
See Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918), and Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942).
- 8.
United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1941). See Keith Whittington’s “Congress Before the Lochner Court” (2005, 821–23) for a brief overview of the significance of the Supreme Court during the Lochner era.
- 9.
See 18 U.S.C. § 2385 (2000).
- 10.
354 U.S. 298, 318 (1957).
- 11.
United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 263–64 (1967); Lamont v. Postmaster Gen., 381 U.S. 301, 306–07 (1965).
- 12.
384 U.S. 436 (1966).
- 13.
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973); Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856). The Court in Dred Scott infamously held that slaves, former slaves, and descendants of slaves could not be citizens and declared that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories.
- 14.
410 U.S. 113 (1973).
- 15.
60 U.S. 393 (1856).
- 16.
Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997); Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).
- 17.
521 U.S 702, 720 (1997).
- 18.
478 U.S. 186 (1986).
- 19.
478 U.S. 186, 194 (1986).
- 20.
521 U.S. 702, 720–21 (1997).
- 21.
539 U.S. 558 (2003).
- 22.
Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996).
- 23.
521 U.S. 702, 737 (1997) (O’Connor, J., concurring).
- 24.
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 562 (2003).
- 25.
United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013).
- 26.
550 U.S. 124 (2007).
- 27.
551 U.S. 449 (2007).
- 28.
551 U.S. 449, 470 (2007).
- 29.
540 U.S. 93 (2003).
- 30.
551 U.S. 701 (2007).
- 31.
Id. at 740–48.
- 32.
559 U.S. 50 (2010).
- 33.
130 S. Ct. 2250 (2010).
- 34.
551 U.S. 701 (2007).
- 35.
558 U.S. 310 (2010).
- 36.
540 U.S. 93 (2003).
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Devins, N. (2013). Group Formation and Precedent. In: Peters, C. (eds) Precedent in the United States Supreme Court. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7951-8_6
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