U.S. Constitution and International law

[Ilya Somin]

Prof. Scarberry is correct regarding the desegregation decisions. Howver,
it is worth nothing that Abraham Lincoln and other Republicans argued that
they were not required to accept the Dred Scott decision as binding
precedent because strictly speaking it could only bind the parties.
Lincoln made this argument several times in the Lincoln-Douglas debates of
1858.



On Wed, 16 Oct 2002, Scarberry, Mark wrote:

> Prof. Martin writes:
>
> >Anyway, does a US Supreme Court decision -- formally and
> >strictly speaking -- bind non-parties?  I don't think so.
>
> My response:
>
> Lower courts are required to follow US S. Ct. precedent on constitutional
> issues until and unless  the S. Ct. overrules itself. Thus such decisions
> are in a formal and strict sense binding on all parties to later cases in
> all other courts in the U.S. In addition, wasn't Professor Martin's approach
> definitively rejected during the battles to end school segregation? If I'm
> not mistaken, local officials argued, unsuccessfully, that Brown v. Board of
> Education did not bind them because they were non-parties.
>
> Mark S. Scarberry
> Pepperdine University School of Law
> mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
>