Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
When a later SC reverses a previous SC decision, was the first court wrong, or did the Constitution change?  |
There are other possibilities. There's the whole "living document" theory, after all, and society changes. Government has to deal with the real world, today, not some idealized dream, or how it was in the past.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
But seriously, while I know what you mean, they can certainly be "Wrong" with a capital W.
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Wrong is a judgment word, and as such, a statement of opinion. And it's a very emotionally loaded word. The SC makes mistakes, and reverses itself within a few years - but not very often. Most of the time, when they reverse a previous decision, it's because conditions have changed. The original ruling was right for its time, but society has changed, and somebody has figured out how to game the system to their own advantage, making the original ruling a bad idea
now. I have some personal knowledge of one such case, but it's
completely off topic here.