Judicial Review: Precedent & Change
45 min
Guiding Questions
- What is judicial review, and how is it used by the Supreme Court?
- How have Supreme Court decisions endured over time?
- When the Supreme Court strayed from its own precedents, how has the Court justified such decisions?
Objectives
- Analyze Supreme Court cases to determine whether they follow or break legal precedent.
- Explain the role of legal precedent in judicial decision making.
- Evaluate the historical significance of judicial review as a mechanism for maintaining consistency and predictability within the legal system.
Resources
Anticipate
- Begin with a review of the essential vocabulary. You can find the definitions using the dictionary for this curriculum.
- Judicial Review
- Precedent
- Stare Decisis
Engage
- Instruct students to fill out the graphic organizer. Students may work in groups, pairs, or individually. The first case is provided as an example. You may walk through this case to demonstrate how you want students to fill out the rest of the organizer.
Explore
- After students finish the graphic organizer, ask them to compare at least two cases where precedent was followed with those where it was broken. Ask students, “What patterns or differences do you observe?”
- Facilitation note: Students can use a T-Chart to record their notes.
- After they finish comparing, have students share their findings with a partner.
Assess & Reflect
- Toward the end of class, ask students to answer the following question in their journals or in a class discussion.
- How does adherence to precedent contribute to the stability of the legal system? How does this stability affect the Supreme Court’s role in the United States constitutional order?
Student Handouts
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