As noted above, Salman appealed this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, stating that the Second Circuit decision was inconsistent with the Supreme Court`s precedent of Dirks v. SEC and that, therefore, the Court of Appeals did not respect the principle of stare decisis. The Supreme Court disagreed and upheld the conviction. “Salman`s behavior is at the heart of Dirks` rule regarding gifts,” Judge Alito wrote. Stare decisis is a legal doctrine that requires courts to follow historical cases when deciding a similar case. Stare decisis ensures that cases with similar scenarios and facts are approached in the same way. Simply put, it requires courts to follow precedents set by previous decisions. The common law structure of the United States has a unified system for deciding legal issues with the principle of stare decisis at its core, which makes the concept of precedent extremely important. A previous decision or judgment in a case is called a precedent. Stare decisis requires courts to use precedents when overseeing an ongoing case in similar circumstances. The doctrine of stare decisis in American jurisprudence has its roots in eighteenth-century English common law.

In 1765, English jurist William Blackstone described the doctrine of English common law as a strong presumption that, in order to promote the stability of the law, judges would respect precedents where the same points recurred in litigation, unless those precedents were merely absurd or unjust.5Footnote1 William Blackstone Commentaries on the Laws of England 69-70 that it is not in the chest of a later judge to change or deviate from his private feelings). At least some of the framers of the Constitution advocated that judges respect judicial precedents because they limited judges` discretion in interpreting ambiguous provisions of the law. For example, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78 during debates over the adoption of the Constitution in an essay in which he raised concerns about the judiciary, that courts should apply precedents to prevent judges from having unlimited discretion in interpreting ambiguous legal texts.6FootnoteFederalist No. 78, at 439 (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1999) (To avoid arbitrary discretion on the part of the courts, it is essential that [judges] be bound by strict rules and precedents designed to define and emphasize their duties in every case before them). Historical sources give only limited insight into the founders` views on stare decisis, and it is not clear whether Hamilton was referring to the assumption that a court should abide by its own previous decisions, or rather those of higher courts. Thomas R. Lee, Stare Decisis in a Historical Perspective: From the Founding Period to the Rehnquist Farm, 52 Vand. 647, 664 (1999).

Other founders had similar views on the advantages of the previous ones. See, for example, 1 Diary and Autobiography of John Adams 167-68 (L.H. Butterfield, ed., 1961) (draft of November 5, 1760) (A very possible case, thus received in writing and settled in a precedent, leaves little or nothing to the arbitrary will or uninformed reason of the prince or judge). See also Caleb Nelson, Stare Decisis and Demonstrably Eroneous Precedents, 87 Va. L. Rev. 1, 9 (2001) ([T]he notion of discretion was a common theme throughout the pre-war period; in one form or another, it invented most of the pre-war explanations for the necessity of stare decisis.) But see James Madison`s letter to C.E. Haynes (25.

February 1831), reprinted in 9 The Writings of James Madison 443 (ed. Gaillard Hunt, 1910) (Cases that exceed the authority of precedents must be allowed, but these are exceptions that speak for themselves and must be justified.) Although courts rarely set precedents, the U.S. Supreme Court in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida said stare decisis is not a “relentless order.” If previous decisions are “impracticable or poorly reasoned,” then the Supreme Court cannot follow a precedent, and that applies “especially to constitutional cases.” For example, in Brown v.