{"id":16604,"date":"2025-10-11T19:40:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T19:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=16604"},"modified":"2025-10-11T19:40:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T19:40:02","slug":"justice-thomas-defends-overturning-precedent-setting-cases-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=16604","title":{"rendered":"Justice Thomas Defends Overturning Precedent-Setting Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Justice Clarence Thomas defended the Supreme Court\u2019s practice of overturning precedent during a recent appearance at Catholic University Law School.<\/p>\n

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Thomas, appointed to the court by President George H.W. Bush and now serving his 34th year, said justices cannot \u201cturn off their brains\u201d when evaluating cases.<\/p>\n

He compared the principle of stare decisis \u2014 the reliance on prior rulings to guide legal decisions \u2014 to a train, with each case adding another car to the chain, the Washington Times\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not some sort of automatic deal where you can just say, \u2018Stare decisis,\u2019 and then turn off the brain,\u201d Justice Thomas said during a Thursday evening event. \u201cWe never go to the front to see who\u2019s driving the train or where it is going, and you could go up there to the engine room and find out it\u2019s an orangutan.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He went on to say that precedent isn\u2019t written in stone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that I have the gospel, that any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel, and I do give perspective to the precedent,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cBut it should. The precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition and our country and our laws, and be based on something, not just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In recent years, the Supreme Court has drawn significant attention for overturning landmark precedents. In\u00a0Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/i>\u00a0(2022), the justices reversed\u00a0Roe v. Wade<\/i>, the 1973 decision that recognized a national right to abortion, sending the issue back to states for them to decide individually, which was where it had been since the founding of the country.<\/p>\n

Since then, more than a dozen Republican-led states have enacted bans on the procedure.<\/p>\n

The Court also struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions in\u00a0Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina<\/em>, ending a decades-long practice that allowed institutions to consider racial diversity as a factor.<\/p>\n

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In another major shift, the Court overturned the doctrine of Chevron deference, which for decades had directed judges to defer to federal agencies\u2019 rulemaking authority.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, the justices have agreed to revisit Humphrey\u2019s Executor v. United States, a 1935 decision that limited a president\u2019s ability to remove officials at independent agencies.<\/p>\n

The conservative majority has already signaled a willingness to revisit the precedent, allowing President Trump in recent months to dismiss members of the Federal Trade Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump on Wednesday from firing Democratic Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s highest court will allow Cook to remain in her seat until oral arguments begin in January 2026.<\/p>\n

The high court\u2019s decision came months after most of the justices seemed to protect the Fed by calling it a \u201cuniquely structured\u201d entity with a \u201cdistinct historical tradition\u201d that kept it out of presidential politics. This was even though the court has let Trump fire leaders at other agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission.<\/p>\n

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In late August, Trump fired Cook after a member of his staff said she had committed mortgage fraud by claiming two different properties as her main residence, which can lead to better credit conditions.<\/p>\n

Cook is facing mounting allegations of mortgage fraud after federal housing regulators issued criminal referrals over discrepancies in her property filings.<\/p>\n

CNN acknowledged the seriousness of the case Friday, with legal analyst Elie Honig saying the suspicious activity was \u201creally problematic\u201d for Cook, the Daily Caller\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

Bill Pulte, the head of the U.S. Federal Housing Agency, confirmed that a second criminal referral has now been filed.<\/p>\n

He alleges Cook misrepresented a condominium in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when she claimed it was a \u201csecond home\u201d on a 2021 mortgage application, then listed it as an \u201cinvestment\/rental property\u201d on a government ethics form eight months later<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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