The Principal Purpose Of Stare

A Law Can Be Both Economic Folly And Constitutional.

There Is No Basis In Text, Tradition, Or Even In Contemporary Practice (if That Were Enough), For Finding In The Constitution A Right To Demand Judicial Consideration Of Newly Discovered Evidence Of Innocence Brought Forward After Conviction. My Concern Is That In Making Life Easier For Ourselves We Not Appear To Make It Harder For The Lower Federal Courts, Imposing Upon Them The Burden Of Regularly Analyzing Newly-discovered-evidence-of-innocence Claims In Capital Cases (in Which Event Such Federal Claims, It Can Confidently Be Predicted, Will Become Routine And Even Repetitive).

Campaign Promises Are - By Long Democratic Tradition - The Least Binding Form Of Human Commitment.

You Can't Come In Smugly And With Great Self Satisfaction And Say 'oh It's Torture, And Therefore It's No Good.' Is It Really So Easy To Determine That Smacking Someone In The Face To Determine Where He Has Hidden The Bomb That Is About To Blow Up Los Angeles Is Prohibited In The Constitution? It Would Be Absurd To Say You Couldn't Do That. And Once You Acknowledge That, We're Into A Different Game.

The Principal Purpose Of Stare Decisis Is To Protect Reliance Interest And Further Stability In The Law.