Last week, something happened that should have been HUGE NEWS. Instead, it just seemed to waft through the country with little attention.
Since the start, we've regularly noted the Supreme Court and, with Alito and Roberts ruling, the dangers to the American justice system. In April, "Precedent and privacy go out the window" addressed how the new majority on the Court was ignoring precedent. Stare decisis is the term. Websters defines it as "a doctrine or policy of following rules or principles laid down in previous judicial decisions unless they contravene the ordinary principles of justice." What that means in terms of the Supreme Court is that if the Court's rendered a verdict, it's respected and followed unless there is a huge reason for it not to be.
Stare decisis provides consistinency and allows people to speak of the law. Without it, you really can't speak of the law. If the Supreme Court decided in 1971 that oranges cannot be banned, in 2007, lawyers can advise that oranges are un-bannable. Provided, of course, that stare decisis is followed. When it's not, the whole thing becomes a crap shoot and you never know how the dice will land.
The current five member majority on the Court has shown a disregard for precedent and maybe, in the case of late term abortion, you thought, "Oh, that doesn't effect me."?
Or maybe you thought, "Well, yes, they'll do that on abortion. I mean look at them. But with other issues, they will respect the principles by which this country is governed."
If you still think that, you missed Linda Greenhouse's "Justices, 5-4, Accept No Excuses From Inmate for Mistaken Late Filing." It was easy to miss. Below the fold, on A18, of Friday's New York Times. Possibly that's why it got so little attention.
Forget the case for a moment and zoom in on this:
The court, however, used the case to announce it was overruling the two precedents the Supreme Court had used when it established the 'unique circumstances' doctrine in the 1960s. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court now regarded the doctrine as illegitimate.
Take a moment to absorb that. Two Supreme Court verdicts, over forty years old, just got wiped away in one Court decision.
Forget the case itself and just grasp that. That is a runaway court. A court that refuses to accept established verdicts and just tosses them aside to bend the Court to its own will is not a legitimate court and it all calls all past decisions into question meaning the law pretty much changes from case to case as the five member majority sees fit.
The case itself? Keith Bowles attempted to file an appeal. The Court decided he was too late in filing the appeal. Bowles, a prisoner serving time for murder, was given 18 days to file an appeal by the federal judge of his case. Bowles filed on the 18th day. What was the problem? The rule, as opposed to the judge's instruction, was that the appeal had to be filed in 14 days. Despite that fact, despite two past Supreme Court decisions, the five member majority said, "Tough luck." After they spit on the legal system, they said, "Tough luck."
It is tough luck for all Americans. This is the second time the five majority has tossed precedents out the window. First they did it on abortion and many didn't seem too concerned. Now they've done with regards to prisoners' rights to an appeal that some reading this will argue that "prisoners get what's coming to." At what point do people wake up and grasp that a Supreme Court that does not feel it is bound by precedent is a very dangerous thing to the country?