[wastedyears]

Which is where the whole joke of precedence comes in. There was a reason the first Supreme Court had only 5 justices, because all they had to go on was the Constitution. Then it was increased to 7, then 9, and I have no idea where precedence comes from, or who started it.

[noiseman]

Particularly in the realm of the Supreme Court, precedent should be virtually irrelevant. All that SCOTUS should be deciding is constitutionality, and in most cases that can be easily determined by merely reading the Constitution. In other cases where the original intent is less clear, the only additional evidence that should be consulted should be the additional writings (such as the Federalist Papers) and actions of the Constitution's framers.

If the Court is truly trying to determine constitutionality (I know, humor me for a minute and assume that there still exists a judge who cares), then what better method exists than to examine what else the Framers wrote and to observe their actions after they ratified the Constitution? If we used this straightforward method, many of today's constitutional debates would become moot. Certainly, as an example, the whole "separation clause" debate would be shown to be silly once a court actually realized that the very same people who wrote it subsequently held church services in the Capitol building and in the Supreme Court chambers! And a hundred other examples, such as Congress appropriating funds for the purchase of Bibles, could be cited as icing on the cake.

On so many constitutional questions there really is no room for debate if we just quit relying on politically-motivated reinterpretation and instead look to original intent.