Were you making a case in support of stare decisis on the part of SCOTUS with regard to drug laws? If so, do you support stare decisis with regard to Roe v Wade as well?
Much to my suprise upon further investigation of the whole topic of the history of drug regulation, according to the Wiki's entry on the Controlled Substances Act:
In 2003, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled the Controlled Substances Act illegal as it applied to the use of medical marijuana in the case Raich v. Ashcroft, 352 F.3d 1222 (9th Cir. 2003). However, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court by the federal government, and in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the federal government.Of course its not entirely suprising that it was the liberal 9th Cir. court that was overturned (don't they have some sort of record going on in that regard?).
With respect to Roe v. Wade, stare decisis would definitely apply. Whether my opinion regarding that case lies with the majority (or not) is irrelevent; 5-4 is a majority ruling by the high court.
The fact of the matter is that in our legal system, whenever the higher court rules on some specific issue, the lower courts are bound to adhere to that opinion in all subsequent rulings of cases before them (and may even in fact affect all previous decisions), e.g., previous convictions could be overturned.
However, I'm intrigued by one aspect of what Wiki says concerning stare decisis: evasion and binding precedent protest rulings. The Wiki says:
And while lower courts are bound in theory by higher court precedent, in practice judges may sometimes attempt to evade precedents, by distinguishing them on spurious grounds. The appeal of a decision that does not follow precedent might not occur, however, as the expense of an appeal may prevent the losing party from doing so. Thus the lower court decision may stand even though it does not follow the higher court decision, as the only way a decision can enter the appeal process is by application of one of the parties bound by it.With respect to drug law, you can bet your booty that the government isn't going to be hamstrung by evasion due to distinguishment based on spurious grounds. It would appear that stare decisis opinions are not necessarily etched in stone (not even SCOTUS' own rulings by SCOTUS itself). See 132 Wn.2d 1, STATE v. VALENTINE [No. 62274-4. En Banc.]:Occasionally, the application of prior case law results in court decisions which the judge explicitly states personal disagreement with the judgment he or she has rendered, but that he or she is required to do so by binding precedent that is, the issue at hand was already decided by a higher court. Note that is thus distinct from stare decisis, which are decisions from lateral courts, lower courts, or the same court, and affords deviation based upon "compelling justification" (see Hilton v.s. Carolina Pub. Rys. Cmsn., 502 U.S. 197, 202, 112 S. Ct. 560, 565 (1991).)
In the common law tradition case law regulates, via precedents, how laws are to be understood, based on how prior cases have been decided. Case law governs the impact court decisions have on future cases. Unlike most civil law systems, common law systems follow the doctrine of stare decisis in which lower courts usually make decisions consistent with previous decisions of higher courts.
[summary of case]"The doctrine of stare decisis does not prevent the Supreme Court from reconsidering its prior holdings; a prior holding may be overruled if the theoretical footing of the holding has eroded with the passage of time and the holding is no longer relevant in contemporary society. [Dictum.]"There you have a synopsis of what purpose stare decisis serves and how it can be circumvented, not only by the lower courts (both trial and appelate), but by the supreme court itself (notwithstanding legislative intervention).Moreover, "Common Law - Alteration - Change in Conditions. A rule of law announced by an appellate court should be adaptable to the society it governs. [Dictum.]"
[Opinion of dissenting minority]...Justice Douglas's metaphor that "As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." - Letter to Young Lawyers Section of the Washington State Bar Association (Sept. 10, 1976), in THE DOUGLAS LETTERS: SELECTIONS FROM THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF JUSTICE WILLIAM Ct. DOUGLAS, 162 (Melvin I. Urofsky ed., 1987).
Absent legislative intervention "[t]he doctrine [of stare decisis] requires a clear showing that an established rule is incorrect and harmful before it is abandoned." In re Stranger Creek, 77 Wn.2d 649, 653, 466 P.2d 508 (1970).
The obligation to follow precedent begins with necessity, and a contrary necessity marks its outer limit. With Cardozo, we recognize that no judicial system could do society's work if it eyed each issue afresh in every case that raised it. See B. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 149 (1921). Indeed, the very concept of the rule of law underlying our own Constitution requires such continuity over time that a respect for precedent is, by definition, indispensable. See Powell, Stare Decisis and Judicial Restraint, 1991 Journal of Supreme Court History 13, 16. At the other extreme, a different necessity would make itself felt if a prior judicial ruling should come to be seen so clearly as error that its enforcement was for that very reason doomed. The right to rely upon fixed standards to determine one's future course of conduct is, of course, an important consideration supporting the rule. Although I doubt Mr. Valentine spent the evening preceding this incident searching out precedents in his local law library, it is equally apparent that the majority in Casey followed the doctrine in the abortion context more out of a respect for precedent than any illusion that pronouncements of the court would realistically affect the incidence of future pregnancies. Nor do I believe, by the same token, that this court's pronouncements about settling matters in the courtrooms rather than the streets will have the slightest effect other than making criminals out of otherwise innocent men.
Beyond that, Casey clarifies the very heart of stare decisis as a bar to "reexamining the prior law with any justification beyond a present doctrinal disposition to come out differently . . . ." Casey, 505 U.S. at 864. I see no grounds advanced by the majority today to overrule Rousseau for any reason new or unique to our time. Neither human nature nor the essential aspects of coercive state power have changed much over the centuries, much less over the past 40 years.
Beyond that I would assert the clearly incorrect rule is the one created by the majority today. It does not even examine the true principled basis of the common-law rule, much less reasonably, or persuasively, disprove it. At most it misapplies a policy argument made in State v. Westlund, 13 Wn. App. 460, 467, 536 P.2d 20, 77 A.L.R.3d 270, review denied, 85 Wn.2d 1014 (1975), that resisting lawful arrest is disfavored and the courts are the best place to vindicate one's rights. While that is a widely held and commendable view, it has nothing to do with the issue here. Westlund itself suggests that the policy reasons against forcibly resisting lawful arrests are inapplicable to unlawful ones.
Moreover, the rule adopted by the majority is inconsistent with the lawful entitlement to use force to protect one's person and property, or, to put it another way, protect one's property in his person and his estate. It is well established that determinations as to when force may be used in self-defense are not made (as the majority suggests) on the basis of where the right can best be vindicated. Indeed, in this state the citizen has the right to use force to defend property against trespass and invasion. RCW 9A.16.020(3); Coffel v. Clallam County, 58 Wn. App. 517, 524, 794 P.2d 513 (1990).