Why can such powerful stances be resolved with a 5-4 ending position? Literally one person makes the difference. You'd think for such a far-reaching situation, a resolution would require at least a 2-person majority to pass.
Mostly because it's not practical, since these are Supreme Court cases, so it's not a resolution as such. If you end up voting 5-4 and a 2-person majority is required, there's a problem. No one can appeal, because it's the Supreme Court, and you can't just ignore it, because you have to do something about the case in front of you.
I'm afraid I don't quite follow. Yes, the supreme court is an appeals court, but what I'm saying is that you can't appeal from a SCOTUS decision, so it's not like a case with a 5-4 decision can be resolved through some other method.
As for stare decisis, the Supreme Court often deals with cases for which there is no precedent. Isn't that precisely the type of case we're dealing with here?
I am saying that if the case comes down to a 5-4 decision, the court issues no ruling, and in all respects participants act as if a writ of certiorari had not been granted, except that you extend any relevant deadlines by the amount of time the supreme court spent dealing with the case.
There are no cases in which there is no precedent. It may be a new technology, or a new law, or a new amendment, but there is never an utter lack of precedent. In this case, I used stare decisis to mean that the court should choose to let the decision stand and not overrule the lower court.
With constitutional amendments, that logic seems a bit circular. Amendments are hard to reverse because it takes another amendment to do that and adding an amendment is difficult. If adding an amendment was easier (I think some state constitutions are like this) then they would also be easier to reverse.
