What Is Binding Precedent in Law

A court may consider that the decision of a higher court is not binding. For example, a U.S. First Circuit District Court might consider a U.S. Court of Appeals decision for the Ninth Circuit to be a persuasive authority. Non-publication of opinions or unpublished opinions are decisions of the courts that cannot be cited as a precedent because the judges giving the opinion consider the cases to be less of a precedent. Selective publishing is the legal process in which a judge or judge of a court decides whether or not to publish a decision in a journalist. « Unpublished » federal appeal decisions are published in the Federal Schedule. Publication is the power of a court to make an order or notice that has already been published and unpublished. To assist the courts in finding a « special justification » that justifies setting a precedent, the Supreme Court has identified « a number of factors that are interdependent and overlap in some respects [that] are relevant to deciding whether or not to set aside a previous decision. » [15] The courts do not analyze these considerations mechanically; `[n]or the other shall be regarded as a device; none are marked as essential; The relative weight of each is unclear.

[16] However, one of the main advantages of this « classic immeasurable multifactor balancing criterion »[17] is that it allows for an individual assessment on a case-by-case basis of the merits of the omission of a particular precedent. Several rules may lead to a decision being considered a narrow « precedent » to exclude the future legal positions of the specific parties to a case, even if a decision is not unprecedented compared to all other parties. Stare decisis refers to the execution of a case and not to obiter dicta (« things that are said, by the way »). As the U.S. Supreme Court has said, « diktats can be followed if they are sufficiently convincing but not binding. » [34] Where the two courts are in separate and parallel jurisdictions, there is no conflict and two precedents may remain. Courts in one jurisdiction are influenced by decisions from other countries and, over time, in particular, better regulations can be issued. Emphasizing the role of trusting interests in the decision not to overthrow Roe, Casey explained that « during two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made decisions that define their views on themselves and their position in society, confident in the availability of abortion in case of contraceptive failure. » [37] In Dickerson v. United States [38], the Court also referred to confidence in the interests it refused, to the requirement of Miranda v. Arizona that a criminal suspect must receive certain warnings during interrogation in custody so that the suspect`s subsequent testimony is later admissible in court. [39] Although some judges, including the Chief Justice who drafted Dickerson`s opinion, « believed that the original Miranda decision was based on a misinterpretation of the Constitution, » [40] Dickerson nonetheless upheld Miranda on the basis that the precedent « was rooted in current police practice, to the point where warnings became an integral part of our national culture. » [41] The second condition for a case to be considered a binding precedent is that it must have been decided by the same court or a superior court within the hierarchy to which the court considering the case belongs.

The U.S. federal judicial system has three levels: district courts, appellate courts (divided into « circles » with different geographic boundaries), and the United States. Supreme court. Each state also has a multi-tiered judicial system, and if certain jurisdiction requirements are met, the U.S. Supreme Court can review the decisions of each state`s highest court. Each district court thus follows the precedents issued by the Supreme Court and the County Court of Appeals, which includes the District Court. Each court of appeal follows its own precedents and precedents issued by the Supreme Court, but it does not have to comply with the decisions of the courts of appeal of other circles. [2] However, a court may consider the decisions of other non-superior courts to be a persuasive precedent and follow them if they are well reasoned and if there is no binding precedent that contradicts itself. In the federal legal systems of several common law countries, and particularly in the United States, it is relatively common for different judicial systems to move to a lower level (e.g. B state courts in the United States and Australia, provincial courts in Canada) consider decisions of other jurisdictions in the same country to be a persuasive precedent. In the United States in particular, the adoption of a legal doctrine by a large number of other state judicial bodies is seen as very convincing evidence that such a doctrine is preferable.

A good example is the comparative negligence hypothesis in Tennessee (which replaces contributory negligence as a complete obstacle to recovery) with McIntyre v. Balentine (at that time, all U.S. jurisdictions except Tennessee, five other states, and the District of Columbia had systems of comparative negligence in place). In addition, the Erie Doctrine in U.S. law requires that federal courts sitting in diversity lawsuits apply the substantive law of the state, but in a manner consistent with how the court believes the state`s highest court would rule in this case. Since such decisions are not binding on state courts, but are often very well reasoned and useful, state courts quite often cite federal interpretations of state law as a persuasive precedent, although it is also quite common for a state supreme court to reject a federal court`s interpretation of its jurisdiction. « Super stare decisis » is a term used for important precedents that are resistant or immune to tipping, whether they have been correctly decided or not. It may be considered an extreme in a number of precedents,[17] or alternatively, to express a belief or criticism of that belief, that certain decisions should not be overturned.

The Supreme Court has never clarified the precise weight to be given to the transformability factor or how transformability can be weighed against other competing considerations. [32] Indeed, the Court has sometimes set precedents without even considering feasibility. In Roper v. Simmons, for example, the Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment prohibited the death penalty for minors [33], setting the opposite precedent in Stanford v. Kentucky. [34] Stanford had formulated a clear line and was by no means difficult to apply, but the Court nevertheless deprived the case of its precedent. Roper criticized not the feasibility of Stanford, but the tension of the previous one with « the evolution of society`s standards of decency. » [35] Transformability is therefore in any event neither decisive nor applicable. On many issues, reasonable people may disagree. If two of these people are judges, the tension between two precedents can be resolved as follows. Precedents that need to be applied or followed are called binding precedents (alternatively metaphorically preceding, mandatory or binding authority, etc.).

According to the doctrine of stare decisis, a subordinate court must respect the legal conclusions of a higher court, which is in the appeal of cases heard by the court. In the state and federal courts of the United States of America, jurisdiction is often divided geographically between local courts of first instance, several of which fall within the territory of a regional court of appeal. All courts of appeal are subject to a Supreme Court (sometimes, but not always, called the « Supreme Court »). By definition, decisions of lower courts do not bind the higher courts of the system, and decisions of courts of appeal do not bind local courts before another court of appeal. In addition, courts must follow their own legal statements made previously in other cases and respect the decisions of other courts in disputes between the parties before them that relate to the same pattern of facts or events, unless they have a valid reason to change those decisions (see The Law of the Case: The Previous Position of a Court is a precedent that binds that court). According to the doctrine of stare decisis, all courts exercising subordinate jurisdiction are required to follow the decisions of courts exercising higher jurisdiction […].