What's so important about legal precedent?

to write. Uh, some of like, you know, just because we have work contracts for the first time. So some of it's because of that, some of it because of all the trouble we get in, all the trouble we've gotten in over the years. And then we just kind of covered a lot of stuff legally speaking. And it's

interesting the law it is it is. And this one was like it was kind of tough because Olivia helped us out with this, and it was like it's a really unless you're in the legal profession one way or another,

Like it's really dry, like incredibly dry. But if you can just chip past that crusty dryness, and it takes a lot, Yeah, it gets a little moisture the further you get in, But finally you get to the rich new Gute center and there you realize, WHOA, this is actually super important because what we're talking about legal precedents um kind of guides our society and a lot of a lot of ways beyond just this is law. This is not law, UM, this is illegal. You can do

this like that. We actually organize our lives in surprising ways according to what's legal and what's not. And as if the law is steady and stable, which is the point of you know, relying on legal precedence, as we'll find, then you know, society and he can kind of grow and experiment and try new things because the law part

is covered. But if the law is going to change every couple of years, it makes it really hard to um, be in a gay marriage, or start a business or invest in a like kind of a risky new technology, because there's you can't rely on the law being stable. So it makes life for us unstable. And I didn't really realize just how much of a just an effect that that law has, like an unseen effect on just our day to day lives, because you don't think about

that kind of thing. But until you start researching something like this, right, and or until you get slapped with that lawsuit, and all of a sudden you're like, what, uh, so much about the law too, is uh attorney's love words? Yes? Um, that the simple I mean, anyone who's ever even if you've never dealt with an attorney, great congratulations. I'm not saying attorneys are bad, but that means you, you know, you have a blissfully simplistic way of living that is

to be admired. But uh, you've probably clicked on in terms of service or something, and you know that's all legal words. It's all legal wording, like those you know, nine hundred thousand words to sign up for a website or whatever, or to download an app. Those are words written by attorneys. And so much of law is so specific to it can hinge on the wrong couple of words that a well meaning jurists typed up in their decision.

Just a couple of things can really change things. A couple of words, because it's all about those words and how those words are interpreted by others. And um, I just I don't know that part about it. I find pretty fascinating and I think every attorney I know really like UM values words. Let's just say that, and not like, oh because it could charge to it. I mean, you know, they value like boy, you better be careful about how

you say something. You know. Yeah, it's true, which really doesn't jibe with me because I'm pretty hyperbolic, and I just assume everybody's going to understand that I'm being hyperbolic. But that's not always the case. Especially, I guess now that I think about it, it's when I'm talking to

lawyers that it really gets lost. Uh. So I guess we should go back to the early eleven hundreds, uh, specifically eleven fifty four, when Henry the second Um kind of codified the fact that they were going to be in England was going to be working on something called common law, or at least towards something called common law, because you'll see, it takes precedent and common law and this kind of thing takes a long time to really take hold, uh for a lot of reasons we'll get to.

But it was common law because they said, hey, right now, we're deciding these cases all over the land and everyone has their own opinion, and it's a bit of a mess. So maybe if we had one sort of common law for all the kingdom and there were you know, we could refer to that law and these decisions to make decisions on down the line, that might be a pretty

smart thing. And it was and it is yeah, because I mean the stuff that they were doing locally was like, if you couldn't tell the truth between you know, a plane iff and a defendant, you had them both snatch a rock out of a pot of boiling water. I'm not kidding, and then whoever whoever healed fastest was telling the truth, and then you would execute the one who healed slower. Like that was the kind of legal stuff

you would face like at this time. So Henry the second the idea that he came up with common law and said, all this is nuts, We're just gonna have one law for all of England. Um. It was really forward thinking. And when you dig into it a little more, he established trial by jury um the concept of circuit

courts um. That that comes from this time when judges would travel around and and go to like different localities to hear cases, and the fact that they weren't rooted to one specific locale meant that that was much more difficult to corrupt them. There's a lot of really forward thinking stuff and the basis of it, Chuck. The common law formed the foundation of not just England's law, but basically every country that was colonized by England, including the

United States. We have a common law system, which is um, I don't want to see the opposite, but it's the It's one of two basic ways that you can conduct your society legally, and the other one is civil law. Right, even though Henry the Second was still like it's still like to bob for apples and bats of acid because that's just fun. Sure, Yes, civil law is not the way we went Um. That was you know, it was kind of developed around the same time and Europe back

in the day. But that's uh. Common law was the smarter approach. And what we got out, what we realized early on with common laws was what we needed to adhereby was a principle that you've heard a lot kind of lately. It's a Latin term meaning let the decision stand, uh star a decisive right. And that's that big deal. Yeah, And that's I mean, it's not like Henry the Second came up with common law, and said and also it's it's going to be based on this concept of starry

decisives that actually evolved over time. And the idea behind starry decisives is if there's a good decision made by a judge, um, then later judgments about cases that have some similarities are a lot in common with that case that the original decision was made on have to follow that same precedent. It's a legal kid necessarily say again, I don't even know that I would agree that it's based on a good decision, because originally it was like they even said it was as long as it wasn't

flatly absurd or unjust. And they have said later on that like and well we'll get to it. But know, the decisions don't have to be perfect, right right, the I guess what I meant by good was good meaning like not like the judge wasn't wearing a tinfoil hat and sentenced the person to like eat their own poop. I mean good like they like, it was reasonable, it was thought out, it was you know, deliberative, like it was a sound judicial opinion, whether it actually was good

or not. Right, Okay, I'll buy that. But here's the deal. Like I said earlier, like applying common law and applying precedent is something that takes a long long time because early on, I mean for a lot of reasons, but one of the main reasons is early on the courts were such a mess. They didn't even start recording, really, um their decisions in a really meaningful way until like the mid eighteen hundreds in England the early eighteen hundreds in the US, so they may not have even known

there might have been precedent in any given case. But starting like I said, early eighteen hundreds, in mid eight hundreds in England, we started to have a real sort of president. Yes, I guess, yeah for sure. And we talked about that in our Unsung Heroes of the Court, with our I think our transcriptionist segment, right, I think so,

I think so too. But the reason that, um, that you have this this emphasis on precedence is because in a common law system, law kind of builds on judgment after judgment, and the more judgments you have about like a particular um the topic or or you know, case or something, the more well rounded and in robust the

idea of the law concerning that goes. Like in a civil or in a common law society, the legislature makes a law, but it's not you know, they don't try to lay out every single law with every single possible outcome that they can think of. That's what civil law is based on. In common law, it's like they lay it out, it kind of makes sense, it's open to interpret cation. And then people start suing each other, and

then over the years the judges figure it out. But they figured it out by basing their assumptions on the previous rulings of other judges. Right, that sounds like a good breaking point. I think so too. I'm at my breaking point. No, not already. Ye, all right, Josh is out in the first third, but we'll press on and we'll talk about the U S system right after this stopt Alright, so Josh is gone, everybody, I'm gonna do the rest of this one solo. So we're just gonna

talk talk about car tunes and breakfast cereals. Josh, I'm back up. I couldn't leave you, Chuck. Uh. So, if we're gonna talk about the the U S system, as far as legal precedent goes, we need to talk a little bit obviously about the constitution. Uh, the Constitution of the US doesn't really talk a lot about how the court system should operate. Uh, they don't talk about precedent.

This is something that the United States. Uh you know, it goes from the top down here in the US, and we'll talk about it gets really confusing at some point as far as which courts bind with other courts so that that mess will follow. But it goes top down. So the Supreme Court is is really what ultimately matters and what they decide about the really important cases because everything binds upwards to them. But they didn't really like they kind of made it up as they went. And

that's not to like knock the Supreme Court. It just is to say there weren't any real rules in place as far as this goes. But they realize early on, and I think in nineteen thirty two is when it really became serious when a justice named Lewis Brandeis of

Brandeis University fame. Oh yeah, yeah, of course, I wrote in a descent in a case Burnett versus UH Coronado Oil and Gas Company, UM, basically laid out what started to decisive is all about for everyone to look back on from then on and they have when he wrote, in most matters, it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than it be settled, right, And that was what I was kind of referring to earlier. He's he's basically basically saying, listen, courts aren't perfect, laws

aren't perfect. But what's really important, unless it's a really terrible, terrible decision, is that we kind of come together and agree that this is how it is. Uh. And then he went on to kind of say, ultimately, like it, you can't overturn precedent if it is really really bad. Yeah, because if you didn't, if you just blindly followed precedent, then you have the potential for a bad judgment, a

bad decision, infecting your society and your legal system. And if you just have to follow it blindly even though it's a really bad ruling, that's not good. So you need to have an outlet to overturn those bad decisions. But what Brandis was saying is, for the most part, you want to just leave it alone. If it's even remotely good, leave it alone. Let it But yeah, and that's really to me. If you like middle of the

road stuff, started to cease. This is exactly what you want, because it's like it's the it's the full crum between going one direction where you just have like a whiplash going on because law is changing all the time, and then the other direction on the other end of the spectrum, where the law just does not change, it is just

set in stone. And that's that. This is like, Okay, you want to follow tradition, you want to observe custom to have some stability, but at the same time, you want to be able to let society evolve by having the laws evolve as new ideas and concepts come around. Yeah, it's it reminds me of one of my favorite I'm not a big axiom guy, but there's a handful that I really kind of informed my way of thinking, and one is don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

That's that's always been as a sort of an underachiever in life. It's always been one I really stood on, And that's kind of what they're saying here. It's like, listen, if we go for perfect, you're just gonna because law is subjective to like, these justices are deciding things based on what they think, based on other things. But ultimately it's the subjective thing. So we can't just go back

and forth forever trying to get a perfect ruling on something. Right, My favorite axiom is it has to be perfect or else I'm a completely useless human. Oh no, oh yes, So over time that concept of starry decisive when when was it? It was like the I guess ninety two with brand Ice. Yeah, that's when he kind of laid the gauntlet down, and think about how meta that is. He was establishing precedent about when to follow or overturned precedent.

Pretty amazing stuff that guy deserves, like a sure university named after there's a statue there, but over there better be um. But over time, after brand Ice, you know, said that, they were like, okay, well you know exactly when is it okay to overturn the decision? And they've actually come up with a handful of kind of guiding bullet points that are appropriately laid out in bullet points for us UM that just kind of say like, okay,

does it check this box? Is check that box? And it's not like a perfect Scantron sheet where everything every box is going to be filled out and you calculate them all and you say, yes, it should be overturned. Like, there's still a lot of subjectivity and weighing all of this stuff, but it's pretty good guideline if you ask me, no, absolutely. Um. Well, the first thing, and this is a little bit counterintuitive, but it's easier to overturn a decision based on the

Constitution than it is a statutory law. And again that seems counterintuitive because the Constitution can feel so locked in. But basically what that means is is if it's just statutory law, then you can change the law pretty easily. Like the Constitution is very hard to get changed. So it's easier to change a decision based on the Constitution than the actual underlying constitution. Yeah, because Congress is going to say, oh, yeah, we we we miss that one.

And then similarly to Congress can actually create laws to overturn unpopular judicial rulings. Um, So they can make a law that, you know, if everybody's really mad about, say some judicial ruling, and Congress says, you know, our constituents are really up in arms, let's make a law that says the opposite of what that was just ruled. That that law um takes precedence over every ruling, including that

Supreme Court ruling. So now judges have to follow that law until new precedents are set that kind of adjust it and make it evolve. That's right. Uh. The next one is working something called workability, which is basically like, how difficult in practice is it really to implement this original decision? Uh? And if it's really difficult for lower courts to to follow whatever that original decision was in practice, then you may want to take another look at it. Yep.

Another one is reliance, and this one makes a lot of sense to me too. It's um, really kind of um, what's that word that people use when it's just kind of like it lacks substance though it's it's not concrete. It's kind of poofy coofy sounds great. I've never heard it, but I like that word. If you're gonna go with

that from now on, So reliant it makes sense. But it's a little fee I think legally speaking, because what it's saying is if if this judgment was not quite right, if the reasoning wasn't very good, if the deliberation wasn't perfect. But it's become so enshrined in society that overturning it would basically really mess society up, even temporarily. Um, then

you would not want to overturn that. That's UM. There's a good example of the Miranda rights were under attack in two thousand I guess from a case and Um, the court I think, in a very narrow I think five to four ruling said no Miranda should stay. It's on it's based on a flawed interpretation of the Constitution. But we've become so reliant on it to protect legal rights of people accused of crimes that we're just gonna leave it, they said, But it's already in all the

TV shows exactly. Lawn owner editors were just like, please don't, please don't. Yeah, I mean, reliance is kind of the it's too late to turn back now. Basically, Yeah, the bell has been wrong, the genie's out of the bottle, the smell is in your nose. That's my favorite. The basically the next one is abandonment, which is basically UM, when the court says this is old timey, Um, this

is antiquated. When they looked at Lawrence v. Texas in two thousand three that overturned the previous ruling, UM about private same sex as sodomy laws things like that. Uh, the Supreme Court came along and said, oh, you know, things have kind of changed and maybe we shouldn't be in people's bedroom and forcing laws about how they want to have sex. Yeah, they're like, we all just saw Brokeback Mountain and really we really feel differently about such

a great love story they wrestled. So there's also legitimacy to um, which is saying like, Okay, there's a really good chance that if we start overturning previous decisions that people have come to rely on that we're actually good decisions. Um, that going to to harm the legitimacy of the Supreme Court in the eyes of the public. I can't think of any example, um, but that is it is something that they take into account when they are considering overturning

something or not. That's right. Um. The next one, I'm just going to call it the was it close. That's when they can look back at a previous case and say, you know, this was five four, there was a really spirited descent it wasn't you know, it was maybe a controversial case, but not necessarily but just really really close. Uh. Then maybe you know, we could take another peek at it, right. Um,

there's also quality of reasoning. I've kind of hit on that a couple of times that it's like, if you can look back and look at the judgment and the reasoning behind the judgment and it still makes sense, then maybe kind of leave that law alone. If it's just completely and equated, if it's um racist, if it just doesn't jibe with the most of you know, society today, then maybe it is ripe for being overturned or other laws, like of other laws have come along since then to

kind of eroded or negated, or if facts have changed. Yeah, that's a big one, especially when it comes to scientific findings and stuff like like you find the moon is not made of cheese, so cheesemakers no longer have to pay a moon tax. That's a good example of real real life. Uh was that off the cuff? Very nice? No, I wrote it down. Let's still I could not think of an example, and that is the best I could

come up with. Sad, that's really good. Uh. So here's where judicial philosophy kind of comes into play, because when it comes to being a jurist, as we've seen on the Supreme Court, especially lately. Uh. There are a couple of different ways you can go as far as looking at the Constitution. You can be what's called an originalist, which, um, you know, some originalists say, you know what, the only thing that matters is what these founding fathers meant when

they wrote these laws hundreds of years ago. Yeah, so like whatever happens in society today, however it applies to the late eighteenth century, that is the law. That's what the originalists think. And there are actually justices on the Supreme Court who are fervent originalists, that's right. Uh. And there are originalists that say, you know, what's happened in the past two and thirty four years is uh some of these decisions, a lot of them have subverted the

will of the and the intent of the founders. And pragmatists come along and then say, duh exactly, because what we would like to decide law based on is modern times and uh, the context in which we live and the impact on our society as it is today, and those two things pushing and pulling is uh, as we've you know, it's always been this way. But every I think gener ration when they see the big decisions coming

down paid more attention to it. So right now, because of Row, obviously everyone is paying a lot of attention to this push and pull of originalists versus pragmatist but also pragmatizing, but also the tension between originalists and people who follow Starry Decisive too, there's a big tension between

that as well. Um and I was reading about originalism Chuck and Clarence Thomas is like a hardcore died in the wool originalist, like literally what the Founders literally meant when they wrote the Constitution is law and anything beyond that should not be law. And he if you read it,

he kind of makes a pretty good case. It makes sense to an extent, But then you stop and realize what he's talking about is a civil law society, a law where you have a founding document of laws and rules and regulations and it's super um specific and it covers as any basis that possibly can, and then the judiciary has a very limited role in in shaping those laws. You come before a judge and they say, uh, did

you violate this this um article? Yes you did, Yes you're guilty, or no you didn't know, you're not guilty. That's the role of judges, and that sounds like Clarence Thomas is like dream job. But he's in the wrong kind of society because we have a civil law society where judges are dependent upon to interpret the law correctly and sensibly and in a way that applies to the society at large. And that that really is intention with

originalism big time. Yeah. And I'm you know, no shock, I'm a pragmatist, and I don't think you should like just ditch the Constitution. But I think it's crazy to think about in a hundred and fifty years in the in the in the future where we're flying around and and we look like Buck Rogers in the twenty first century. Man, it'll be twenty second century. I can't wait. I'm gonna be first in line to get that haircut to once

this over, jumpsuits come out. But it's crazy to me to think about going back to a time when they spelled the word time with a y, you know, and say like, no, we still have to go back, you know, four or five six years to what these uh, I mean, the world just changes so much. I just it's crazy to me that the law shouldn't change with it, and the law has changed with it. I'm not, you know, saying that it hasn't, But I don't know. It's a

little frustrating sometimes I'm kind of in between. I'm a starry decisiveist, I guess you'd say, because I feel like pragmatism can be a little whiplash eat. The law can change a little too much, um, which we've seen, you know, where one administration comes in and makes a bunch of rules, and then the next administration comes in and and changes them, and it's it's really tough to say, like run a

business like that or to live your life like that. Um. But with starry decisives, it's it's veneration and respect to tradition and custom and stability. But there's again, there's that ability to change, to be pragmatic when it's called for. Um, it's again it's really middle of the road, and it's it's right up my alley, right up your alley. UM. So let's get to the confusing part. I mentioned earlier that there would be an eventual breakdown of kind of

how courts bind to one another. And when we're talking about binding authority, that basically means decisions that a lower court must follow from an upper court in its jurisdiction. Uh, and it and it goes a little something like this. Uh. State courts are only bound by higher state courts in their own state. They're not bound by federal courts except for the Supreme Court. Again the ultimate authority. Uh, they

can strike down state court decisions is unconstitutional. And then you've got the whole and I want to say, mess. It's not a mess if you really understand it, but the whole sort of Plato spaghetti, which is the federal court system, which is take it away, man. I was hoping you're and take it all the way home. The federal court system is based on those circuits that was established all the way back in the twelfth century. Um. But rather than traveling around, I think judges kind of

have home courts. But the point is these courts are related to one another. And there's ninety four districts. Um. You know, there's twelve districts with ninety four district courts. It's very confusing. Twelve regional circuits, okay, thank you, with nine district courts spread out among them, right. Yeah. Each each regional court has one appellate court. And then there's a court of appeals for the federal Circuit. It has

nationwide jurisdiction over certain cases. It gets really confusing, Yeah, it really does, because you start out in district court, you end up in um, I guess circuit court maybe, and then you end up in appellate court. Um. I may have added a step there, you know, I like to do stuff like that. And then eventually you end up at the Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter

of the law of the land. Um. But the Supreme Court tries not to overrule state law because the states have their own supreme courts and they tend to be respected. The point is in federal court in a district, if you have a ruling made in a district appellate court, it will apply to all the courts in that district, But in the next district over it will have no

no impact whatsoever. Yeah, And you don't you know, as a regular citizen, if you ever are bouncing through the bouncing away up the court system, you don't have to really understand it because you're gonna have an attorney that says, well, now you go see this lady, all right, Well, now you go see this guy, and you just go okay, right, like and and they're like, and by the way, you owe us another check or you could just come listen

to this on repeat several times. Yeah, good luck with that, right. So the other so the thing is is like they're there this This didn't land with me until like the second or third time I really kind of read over this. But you have to follow precedent if your state supreme court rules on something. If you're a lower court and that same similar case comes to you, um, you have to follow with the supreme court ruled on that other case that that established precedent, you have to. Um. That's

that's binding. That's what that's called. But there are other times where, um, if you're a lawyer or if you're a judge and you're kind of examining case law, there's other kinds of non binding types of judgments or precedents that you can use to be persuaded one way or another to prove your case. Um. But it's it's not like incumbent upon you to actually follow those. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. One of those is what's called persuasive precedents. It is non binding, and that

you know that means exactly what you said. There's no real precedent, but maybe the decision is very useful. Maybe it's a very similar kind of case, and maybe it's a principle that you can look at at least when you do make your decision. Um. Another one is called an unpublished when they say it's not for publication their opinion. And this is basically like, it doesn't mean it's literally not They just like wattered up and throw it away

at the end. It just means, hey, this is a like you see this most times in state trial court, Like this is just some run of the mill state trial case. The judge doesn't like, Hey, this isn't gonna affect law or precedent moving forward. I don't want if I mess up one tiny little thing, I don't want people to refer back to this and say, oh, but

this judge said that. It's kind of like it's sort of the let's go to lunch, let's get to lunch already, uh, and just get through this trial and it's not really that important. So they just say it's not for publication. Yeah, And I guess it's up to the judge to decide that or not. So I about Like you said, though, it's not like they just throw it away. It is actually published, it's just not it means that this is a non binding decision. It's like, don't come looking at me,

right right, I'm just going to t G I Friday. Okay, you want to take a break and then come back and talk about some overruled precedents, sure, let's do it. Stop stop, okay, Chuck. It seems like they the Supreme Court over rules precedents every couple of days these days. But I guess they started out fairly slow. Um, in total, they have overruled their own judgment. So remember if you look at the Supreme Court as a single body made up of you know, rotating or incoming and outgoing members,

but it's still it's the same things. I don't know how, I just like everyone knows that the Supreme Court is and I just managed to make it confusing. Anyway. The Supreme Court has overruled itself over two d and thirty times in in the it's lifetime, and it started in eighteen ten, right, But like you said, it didn't happen a lot. I think in with Pollock ve Farmers and Loan Trust Company, Uh, that is when things really got rolling and the Supreme Court started overturning itself more and

more because it's happened. I mean, that wasn't that long ago, and it's happened, Uh, how many times since then? Well, it happen. Yeah, it only happened twenty six times in the entire nineteenth century from eighteen ten to eighteen nine nine. So everything since then, yeah, has been you know, they've been going gangbusters. Um. And that that Pollock versus Farmers Loan and trust had to do with the income tax.

And that's actually a good example of Congress coming in and saying, oh, you overruled our ability to have an income tax. Here's the sixteenth Amendment down your throat. So Um, the thing is is like little by little, kind of like the little train that could going up the hill and starting to kind of gain steam and gain speed.

If you look at the Supreme courts um over rulings or overturned precedents, um, if you like, graft him on like a spectrum of time, the few, the present, and you know, the recent past would have a lot of dots on it. And some people say that's evidence that the Supreme Court has become much more activist and politicized over the years. But then other people say, well, I mean, it just makes sense that further back in time they

had much fewer rulings to return. They're basically starting from scratch. Now there's so many rulings to consider and deliberate on them. Yeah, of course there's going to be more overturned because there's more precedents to be overturned. Yeah, I think the middle of the road, like myself would say, it's probably a bit of both. Yeah, I agreed. Um, you know, a

starry decisiveist like us. Um, here are some very famous examples and truly important, you know, because I mean I think overall, overturning precedent as a starry decisist isn't the greatest thing, but um boy that it sure has been the right thing in a lot of cases. Yea. And of course that's it's all subjective, but that's my opinion. Um, Brown v. Board is one of the big ones. Uh. Plus e v. Ferguson, the U. S. Supreme Court said, separate but equal is how we should go forward. We

can segregate things. We can make black kids go to black schools and white kids go to white schools, and it doesn't protect or I'm sorry, it doesn't violate the equal protection clause of the fourteenth Amendment. As long as long at things are equal and these schools have the same uh, school supplies and they're all they're all the same,

it's all good. And that was later overturned. Of course, the lower courts um sided with it, but the in the the double A CP would eventually appeal this to the Supreme Court with Brown v. Board And this is one of those situations where like new uh, new data

and new studies kind of came into play. Then it happened since that original plus e versus Ferguson ruling, UH in Chief Justice or A. Warren said hey, look we're looking at these studies now that say, yeah, these schools may be equal on paper, but inherently they are not

equal if they are segregated. And that will, um, that will really has a big psychological component to a young black student, even if they have the same textbooks and school supplies, just affects the fact that they have to go to a different schools harmful to them, right, And so that clearly violates the Fourteenth Amendment to equal protection

under the law, and that made Brown versus. Board of Education one of the most celebrated not just court cases, but one of the most celebrated um overturnings of a legal precedent in American history. For sure, pretty much everybody can get behind Brown versus Board of Education. You know, there's probably a few holdouts there are. I was researching it,

and it's surprising. It's not everybody you would think it's It's kind of like people on both sides are like, it was kind of better before, But for the most part, society is like now now, even if it was rough at first, like it was a step we needed to take as a society so we could evolve and stop living separately, because that's ridiculous. What about paying versus Tennessee? This one, I I thought was surprising. It kind of flies under the radar if you're not paying attention to

low stuff. But there it used to be. The Supreme Court upheld this idea that you could not have a victim impact statement at sentencing because they said that it violated the Eighth Amendments protection against cruel and Unusual punishment because this emotionally charged you know, atmosphere right before a person's sentence really increases the risk that they're going to get the death penalty. And in uh nineteen late eighties case, a guy named Purvise Pain who had murdered a woman

and her two year old daughter. UM, the woman's mother had given a victim impact statement, and apparently the Supreme Court at the time was made up with I think enough liberal justices that they were like, now you should

be able to have victim impact statements. And third Good Marshal, who was one of the most liberal justices in Supreme Court history, wrote a descent and a critical descent saying like, hey, you're taking starry, decisive way too lightly, Like this is this is tradition, this is cus to minute, it's like reasonable that Yeah, it increases the risk that somebody's going to be put to death. Uh, and you guys really dropped the ball. But now, uh, the Supreme Court overturned it.

So to this day you're allowed to have victim impact statements at sentencing in the US. Uh. Yeah, that's um. Ropert versus Simmons was another that was a case where they basically um where like kind of things had changed since the original decision. UH in nineteen eighty nine Stanford versus Kentucky. UM. That was they found that it was

unconstitutional to sentence a minor. I'm sorry. In two thousand five, they found it was unconstitutional to sentence a minor to death, which overturned the nineteen eighty nine decisions Stanford versus Kentucky. And they basically said, you know, we've evolved since then. In in nineteen eighty nine, and most people thought it was okay to to put a sixteen year old to death, but now things have changed and we don't really feel that way. As the year graduated high school, Uh, I

could have been put to death. And it's a good thing you didn't get in trouble, Chuck. That was a good kid. But they cited a state legislature UH, and the decisions there that outlawed it. UH. And they even looked at like sort of what was going on around the world as far as that kind of thing goes. There's another really consequential case that came before the Supreme Court and UM had to do with their emergency docket, which will we'll talk about a little bit about later.

But UM, in some cases where the time is of the essence, the Supreme Court will hear really important emergency cases. I'm very short noticed, will deliberate on it over a very short period of time and issue a ruling um that does not have anything to do with anything else

except for that one case. Ideally, but Bush versus Gore is a good example of how that's not the case, because this is a this is one of those emergency cases that they heard, and Chuck, I think we needed do an entire episode on the two thousand election because it was so consequential to the United States, and also

it's just super interesting too. But the upshot of is that the there was a really important quote that came out of it that said, our consideration the Supreme Court is saying this, our consideration is limited to the present circumstances. Comma for the problem of equal protection and election processes generally presents many complexities. And some people say the fact that they said that their consideration is limited just to

the present circumstances means that it's not precedents. Other people say, yeah, but that second part about how you know, all all election processes are different. They're actually saying, like, don't just apply this rotely to it. So it is a precedent, and it's been cited a bunch of times since then. But even though it's a big controversy about whether those kind of rulings should be included at all in precedence. Yeah, and that's sort of the it's not a slippery slope.

It's just sort of the system we have when there there isn't a law about precedent. It's just sort of like, you know, we'll try and figure it out case by case. H I laughed because slippery slope came out of the Supreme Court too. I think it was suitor right, Oh really, yeah, I don't remember what cases. Yeah, the slippery slope came out of out of the Supreme Court. Did not know that. That's good fact. That's why I laughed, because I'm the biggest nerd on the BOK. That is pretty funny. Um,

and now you know we should close with row. We did a full episode on just the ins and outs of Roe v. Wade not too long ago. But um, did that come out right after the decision had been rendered? I think did? Or right before our podcast episode? Right after after? Okay, we're very timely in topical Yeah, don't

break your arm adding yourself on the back. I couldn't remember if it was before after, but at any UM rate, we should touch on it here at least because that is obviously the most recent really super impactful uh time, when a super impactful time when the some members of the Supreme Court said sorry, sorry decisive. But even though we might have even said in our confirmation that this was settled ball, we're gonna reverse on that now. Yeah.

And the reason that Row was upheld for so long, and we talked about this in our episode that it was really roundly considered to be based on shaky legal foundation, but it was upheld time and time again because it had become reliant. People had come to rely on it. So that reliance factor kept it from being overturned even though a lot of justice is considered it like this is not the best ruling we've ever made. UM. But then with UM Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization, the

ruling from was two. Yeah, that overturned. Man, it's been a heck of a year that overturned Row. UM. They they basically said like, no, we're we're just going to go ahead and say like this is not this argument

was totally fallacious it was a bad, bad argument. But also we're gonna go one step further and apply our originalism to it and say, the Constitution doesn't say anything about abortions, and if you're going to apply the fourteenth Amendment to it, which is what that shaky legal reasoning was for Row that, um, you couldn't deprive a woman of her privacy a k. A liberty that was guaranteed

through the fourteenth Amendment. If we're gonna apply the fourteenth Amendment, let's go back and talk about what things were like in eighteen sixty eight and how people understood the law in eighteen sixty eight, and they would not have been okay with abortion because three quarters of states already had abortion outlawed on the books ipso facto abortion has no

constitutional protections. But again, they really went to the other extreme, which in this case was the far right, in saying like, there's nothing in the Constitution about abortion, and no one had ever said it was in the Constitution, or that the Constitution explicitly, you know, protected women's rights to choose about reproductive health. What they were saying is, you know, the judges kind of determined over time that this was, um, this was worthwhile and this was what society needed, um,

and they ruled on it. So it was a case of pragmatism, frankly and originalism, which is where we're at now, and then eventually we may get to that middle of the roads storry, decisive, nous, who knows, I don't know,

No one knows, right. And it was also a case though, where, uh, if you're going to open up that can of worms with the fourteenth Amendment, all of a sudden you're looking at other decisions decided on that same rationale, like same sex marriage and uh, interracial marriage and say sex sex um also called just sex. That's right, depending on who you are. Uh. Alito said, you know, but but you know, it doesn't apply to that stuff. It just applies to this,

and that's UM. I think a lot of people worry, like, well, yeah, but the can of worms is now open. And I think immediately after Clarence Thomas even said like, maybe we should go back and look at these other cases. Yeah, totally. And that's the scary thing about it because it established a precedent, and a big one too because of that reasoning. But then again, a Supreme Court can come with new sitting judges down the line and be like, this was

terrible reasoning. We don't agree with originalism. We're gonna overturn dobbs. Who knows. I suspect that it's going to kind of ping pong back and forth for a while. Who knows. Uh. There's also a bit here that I move your honor, that we uh, that we cover this in a short stuff. Overruled this whole Oh oh uh. There's a whole matter of the shadow docket, which I think it would make for a good short stuff. Yeah, that was that had to do with that Bush versus Gore two thousand election thing.

It's like an emergency thing that they probably are using a little flagrantly these days. But I agree, I think that's a good short So sustained after all, thank you? You got anything else about um legal precedents? Now? I don't want to talk about the law for a while, so maybe bump shadow ducket out to summer twenty three. Okay, that sounds good. We did it, Chuck. We made it

through legal precedents. If you want to know more about legal precedents, you can research starry, decisive originalism, pragmatism, all that stuff. On your favorite search engine. And since I said that and Chuck said, woo who, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this just one email about our sitcom's two parter m. You got a lot of great feedback. People really enjoyed those episodes, I think, which is always fun. We did miss a couple of things

before I read this. Um, I don't know why. I guess I said that Rhoda was a spinoff of All in the Family. No, I did, Oh you did? Okay, I thought it might have been me. I knew it was Mary Tyler Moore. I don't know why I didn't speak up. Then, if I could take one thing back in this entire podcast history, it would be that so many people wrote in to say that, and some also,

most of were very nice. But I want to give you a piece of guidance, just as a friend here everybody, if you send an email and the subject lind contains more than one question mark, it made you're being hostile and you may want to second guest sending that email because it makes you look like a huge jerk. You mean that the subject line is who does your research for a four question marks? Maybe? Also, UM, the Simpsons has a little Maggie. They're not for Simpsons. Yeah, I

really goof that one. I forget about Maggie. I I love babies, but Maggie didn't do a lot on the show, so I forgot all about her. Big apologies to Maggie Simpson. Yeah, same here. I didn't catch that either. Um. And then also a lot of people, at least as many who wrote in about Rhoda being a spin off of Mary Tyler Moore UM wrote in about um Roseanne and the two Becky's pulling a Darren switch, Um, which I just walked right past. I was never a big Roseanne fan.

I never watched it, but there were a lot of Roseanne watchers. I'm assuming the original one right, But that one falls under not so much a correction as how could you not include this? And we get a lot of those, especially with stuff like this like how could you not talk about everybody loves Raymond? How could you

not talk about my favorite shoe? Yeah, it's kind of like we put together, um a list of the one hundred top sitcoms of all time in a two episode format and just let her rip because it was inevitable. I'm actually surprised we didn't get more stuff. And it's really interesting that almost everybody wrote in to talk about Roseanne Us leaving out Roseanne. I know I didn't watch that show. Yeah, I just didn't do Sorry everybody, hopefully we didn't taint your experience. But here's a fun email

from Laura Lampert that summed up her admiration of this episode. Hey, guys, this is a complaint that these two episodes were too engaging and entertaining. I really needed to sleep, but it wasn't happening. So I put my podcast Q onto play starting with these two episodes because I really didn't find the subject that interesting. Uh. The thought was that listening to you guys drone on about a dull topic to me would send me off to the land of nod.

But that didn't happen. Here I am at three am sit in front of my computer to find out about the universe that was mentioned. I guess the Tommy what's it called universe, Tommy Westfall, Tommy west Fall universe as wide awake as I was two hours ago. Maybe you consider some dull or less interesting to topics, guys, and then just leave them that way. No jokes, no side notes, no tangents, just drone on. You can label its stuff you should sleep by, and that is Laura Lampert. That's

a good idea. That's a really good idea. We could just kind of talk like that's the whole time. That's right about Varya boring things? Yeah, like a legal precedence we should have would that could have been our debut episode. We have to rerecord it, Chuck, we have to go back and give it another shot. Just play it at half speed. There you there you go. That's great advice to Laura Lampert. Great name. You can tell it's a great name because I remembered it and didn't have to ask,

Chuck Um. Which is not to say that when I don't remember your name, it means you don't have a great name. It's just not quite as memorable. How about that? Sure? Well, since I just dug myself out of that hole, everybody, Um, that's the end of listener mail. And if you want to get in touch with this, like Laura Lampert did, you can send us an email to to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is

a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my Heart Radio visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H