In Their Own Words

In this book, Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of the role of precedent in constitutional law. Gerhardt synthesizes both legal and social-science analysis to show that most constitutional law is relatively stable, that public institutions such as the Supreme Court are generally constrained to recognize and employ precedent as a mode of constitutional discourse, and that particular prior constitutional decisions do not exert much constraint in constitutional adjudication. Nevertheless, Gerhardt shows further that there is a durable golden rule of precedent in constitutional law, one which calls upon justices generally to respect the precedents of others if others are to respect their preferred precedents.

This book should be of interest to legal scholars, social scientists, and anyone else interested in the role of precedent in constitutional law. It is a timely book, given that there are many precedents that the current majority of the Supreme Court may wish to weaken if not overrule.