My view is that especially in cases where ambiguity exists, a judge needs to adhere all the more closely to principles established in precedents. The law needs to be as predictable as possible, and judges should always adhere as closely as possible to the text, legislative history and the body of case law developed in accordance therewith in order to carry into effect the original intent of the statute.
Take just the First Amendment as an example: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” It would take a text of hundreds of pages to explain what this law means in the myriad of circumstances in which this issue arises. If every judge presented with a new case arising under this clause were free to ignore the principles established in prior case law there would be no ability for citizens to know what the law is, as it would vary radically depending on the happenstance of the individual judge deciding the case who would be free to ignore the prior developed body of law.
The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution doesn't give list Supreme Court decisions as having authority; consequently, any authority they have must be subservient to the Constitution and statutes.
The Constitution certainly DOES give Supreme Court decisions authority, by the very fact of vesting the judicial authority of the United States in that body. The Supremacy Clause is not limited to statutes of the United States, rather it extends to all “laws” of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution. The power of the courts to interpret statutes under case law and for that case law to be considered “law” is the very heart of the English common law system that we inherited and continued. As if there were any doubt, the Constitution refers to the power of federal courts to decide cases “in law and equity” arising under the Constitution – the fact that the Framers contemplated judges applying principles of equity in deciding cases removes any doubt from the question of whether principles established in judicial cases were to be considered law.
Because I disagree with your premise that precedent should not be considered binding by virtue of being such, I also disagree with the rest of your reasoning that follows therefrom. The proper way for the Supreme Court to reverse rulings is to explicitly hold that such decisions, like Roe v Wade and Plyler v Doe, themselves are contrary to well-reasoned precedent that was soundly founded on the original intent of the Constitution, and NOT based on a claim of changing social attitudes or the peculiar jurisprudential philosophy of the judge or justice ruling in the case free to ignore the prior established body of law.
We agree there. When bona fide ambiguity exists, it is right and proper to use precedent in deciding how to resolve it. On the other hand, it's important to recognize that judge-made law should be considered only as a necessarily expedient to make up for the lack of legislative clarity. When legislative ambiguity compels a judge to invent his own rules, the legislature should, at its earliest convenience, create new legislation to resolve the ambiguity and render the judicial precedent irrelevant. The legislature should feel no obligation to resolve the ambiguity in the same manner as the judge did, but should make clear its intentions, no matter what they are.
Take just the First Amendment as an example: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” ... If every judge presented with a new case arising under this clause were free to ignore the principles established in prior case law there would be no ability for citizens to know what the law is, as it would vary radically depending on the happenstance of the individual judge deciding the case who would be free to ignore the prior developed body of law.
And what basis is there for believing that the First Amendment was intended as anything less than an absolute bar against Congress passing legislation whose design or substantial effect was to interfere with free persons' exchanging ideas and information in any and all such manners as they see fit, with very narrow exceptions only for communications whose restrictions would otherwise be provided for in the Constitution (e.g. the Constitution defines the crime of treason, and the Constitution provides that writers may be given, for a limited time, exclusive control over their work). Note that the First Amendment is a restriction on the federal government; the Founders clearly intended states to have power that was less restricted.
Further, I would aver that before the government started systematically working to keep jurors ignorant of their rights and responsibilities, one of the proper roles of the jury was to uphold the Constitution, giving substantial but not total deference to judicial instruction. With regard to the First Amendment, the jury should examine the question of whether they feel that the enforcement of some particular statute in the case before them would by design or substantial effect impair the ability of a free person to communicate ideas or information to another free person who would wish to receive them. If the government cannot consistently convince jurors that its actions should not be considered infringements of free speech, that would be a pretty good sign that its actions probably are infringements upon free speech.
The Constitution certainly DOES give Supreme Court decisions authority, by the very fact of vesting the judicial authority of the United States in that body.
It gives the Court over the parties who appear before it. That is different from saying it has authority over everyone.
The Supremacy Clause is not limited to statutes of the United States, rather it extends to all “laws” of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution.
Even by such a reading is there anything that would imply that the Court's authority should be regarded as superior to the Constitution itself? If the Court were to issue a ruling which were in clear, direct, and unambiguous contradiction to the text of the Constitution as ratified and subsequently amended under the Article V, should one regard the "Constitution" as having been amended to fit such ruling?
The proper way for the Supreme Court to reverse rulings is to explicitly hold that such decisions, like Roe v Wade and Plyler v Doe, themselves are contrary to well-reasoned precedent that was soundly founded on the original intent of the Constitution, and NOT based on a claim of changing social attitudes or the peculiar jurisprudential philosophy of the judge or justice ruling in the case free to ignore the prior established body of law.
I'm not quite sure I follow. It sounds like you are saying the proper way to reverse Roe v. Wade etc. would be to find that they failed to adhere to precedent. But if one accepts the notion that all court decisions become law, why would not the fact that Roe v. Wade mean that all properly-behaving courts must forevermore regard it as settled law independent of whether it properly considered any precedents before it?
If all judges were always honorable, court decisions would be written in accordance with the law, and thus what the law required and what the court ruled would always be one and the same. I'm not sure whether judges were consistently 100% honorable, but I would expect that they used to be better than they are today. In today's judicial climate, saying that anything a judge writes must forevermore be regarded by honorable judges as law unless superseded by some other (possibly less honorable) judge basically grants carte blanche to leftist judges to rule however they see fit, while binding "honest" judges to the whims of the leftists. If rulings which are contrary to the Constitution are not recognized and denounced as illegitimate, what protection can the Constitution offer against those who would write them?