Ari Melber Quotes

Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority.

Stare decisis is the policy of the court to stand by precedent;  the term is but an abbreviation of “stare decisis et non quieta movere”--to stand by and adhere to decisions and not disturb what is settled.

What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.

A precedent provides legal authority for an action precisely because it occurred before.

One precedent creates another and they soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was a fact, today is doctrine.

The value of a decision as a precedent is very much enhanced by the care with which it has been considered, and if the opinion itself shows that other decisions of the same court, or of other courts upon the same point, have been reviewed and examined, it adds to the value of the decision made on each consideration.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

Once you begin being naughty, it is easier to go and on and on, and sooner or later something dreadful happens.

One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, today is doctrine.

Great cases like hard cases make bad law.

I entirely differ with the Government as to the value of precedents. In this case, as in others, precedents are not mere dusty phrases, which do not substantially affect the question before us. A precedent embalms a principle.

I always look for judges who respect precedent.

Precedents once established are so much positive power.

They're all focusing on how John Roberts is going to decide Roe v. Wade. That isn't even the right question. I don't even know of a case in the (court) system that addresses it.

The problem with faerie gifts is that they always come with a price, which is why they are made by the desperate and the foolish.

Judge Roberts has assured me personally that he has a healthy respect for precedent and the hard-won rights of Americans.

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.

Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.

To the extent that the judicial profession becomes the daily routine of deciding cases on the most secure precedents and the narrowest grounds available, the judicial mind atrophies and its perspective shrinks.

A precedent embalms a principle.

Upholding ... suspicionless drug testing would set a dangerous precedent.

Law is largely crystallized custom.

All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications.

People expect that the law will be what the Supreme Court told them what the law was going to be.

It seems to me that stare decisis ought to be applied even to the doctrine of stare decisis, and I confess never to have heard of this new, keep-what-you-want-and-throw-away-the-rest version.