Source: pewresearch.org 4/9/26
The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether to overrule two of its own long-standing legal precedents – one about presidential power over federal agencies, which has been in place for over 90 years, and another about campaign financing by political parties.
These cases follow the court’s high-profile decision in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, a ruling that had guaranteed the right to an abortion nationwide for nearly five decades.
Since the Supreme Court’s founding in 1789 through its most recent full term in 2024, fewer than 1% of all rulings (236 of 29,202) have overturned an earlier high court decision, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court Database at Pennsylvania State University.
Overturning precedent hasn’t been very common in recent decades, either. Between the 2005 and 2024 terms, only 21 of 1,471 rulings (1.4%) overturned one or more earlier decisions.
For the Library of Congress to consider a case overturned, a majority of the Supreme Court must have explicitly said so or used language that is “functionally equivalent.” Also, these figures only account for cases the Supreme Court agreed to hear in the first place; the modern court takes up fewer than 100 cases out of thousands of petitions it receives each term.
Information about Supreme Court rulings that have been overturned, either in part or in full, comes from the Library of Congress. For the Library of Congress to consider a case overturned, a majority of the court must have explicitly said so or used language that is “functionally equivalent.” The resulting list of overturned cases may be narrower than some others because it is based on these specific, fixed criteria.
Issue areas for each case come from the Supreme Court Database’s codebook. We consolidated its 14 broad issue areas into 12, combining the civil rights and privacy categories because they concern similar legal questions. We also combined private action, miscellaneous and uncategorized cases into an “Other” category because they address a very wide range of legal questions.
How long did precedents stand before being overturned?
The first time the Supreme Court overturned its own ruling was in 1810, with Hudson and Smith v. Guestier. This case broadly concerned courts’ international jurisdiction and overruled a decision handed down two years earlier. On average, decisions that have been overturned by the court stood for around 29 years before being reversed.
Many rulings lasted much longer, including 10 that were in place for at least a century before being overturned. On the other end of the…
I think we all can think of another, extremely important, ruling they need to overturn…….
Ramos v LA is still a bone of consternation in the Dept of War legal circles and is currently being discussed heavily as to whether they want to adopt unanimous panel verdicts for all UCMJ cases or not. If the Dept had their way, according to the the Joint Svc Commission, they wouldn’t adopt it as they feel it is unnecessary, bad timing, and too expensive to implement. Others don’t agree and feel opposite of their conclusions while believing they need to adopt unanimous panel verdicts.
PFRs and their families are encouraged to reach out to their elected WDC officials and have them pass law to make unanimous panel verdicts be the law of the UCMJ regardless.
Probably many people here believe the supreme court ruled incorrectly in the Alaska case, however that case was far more limited in scope than just about all state registries are today. The registry was offline. LE only I believe. Updates were yearly. Limited information collected. As soon as the list goes public, that changes everything. Everyone knows…not just background checking companies. The scope of sharing the information changed and the negative results of that extend much further. Now employment becomes limited, housing becomes limited, being involved with your kids activities is limited. Most of that is due to registry information being publically available. Sure, one can say the conviction is public info… But where one currently lives, works, their picture, emails, cars…none of that is from the conviction record. They aren’t just sharing the conviction. Those data points are not a public record per se, certainly not compiled in one place. To say well some of your privacy is stripped if you commit an offense…that’s not backed by the supreme court ruling at all. The registry was not online. All that to say, I don’t think the ruling would be overturned. The argument would be purely those factors beyond the bounds if the initial ruling.
Overturn Roberts term as Chief Justice, get rid of Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and few others. Get rid of lifetime appointments for judges. Install Janice and put in Washington, DC, but she’d have to give up her bigger purse yet she could always give it to one of her clerks.
They’re only going to overturn precedent if the current administration gains something from it. You can pipe dream all you want about getting a revisit of Smith v. Doe. But it was a 6-3 ruling when there was one less conservative and one swing voter on the court. The Roberts Court is 6-3 conservative supermajority, and conservative justices virtually never rule against the registry.
Do you folks honestly believe you are going to get John “Price Club” Roberts to overturn the very ruling that likely got him the position he has now? Maybe if you can bribe Clarence Thomas with a motorhome and $5 million, you might win him over. Buy Kavanaugh a few kegs of beer, perhaps?
At best, a revisit to Smith v. Doe would be another 6-3 decision. I don’t think you folks realize just hoew bad the past decade have been for any hope we have for a SCOTUS revisit to Smith v. Doe. We need a liberal majority, something we could’ve had if not for the GOP rigging & stealing elections. Even then victory isn’t guaranteed.
We are going to have to find a different way to take this issue on than wishing upon a star or praying for a revisit of Smith v. Doe.
Is there anything in the ruling that could be used to help those of us who were “added” to the internet, but we were added because the State ordered it (CA) and not the Federal Gov’t?