Adam Nellis

Abstract:

The Supreme Court of the United States is widely considered to be the law of the land. Its decisions and the legal precedent that it sets are followed by every lower court; this federal structure of courts leads to relative stability within the legal system, but it also allows the Supreme Court to set legal precedent that is fundamentally damaging towards the rights of United States citizens. When this happens it results in something known as unjust or tainted precedent: which is precedent that is so mired in prejudice that it is unconstitutional and morally wrong. This research project seeks to answer the question of, what pushes the United States Supreme Court to overturn those precedents that fail to protect human rights? This project will use the Supreme Court cases of Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v Board of Education to make the claim that it requires a mixture of both inter-legal and outside forces to overturn Supreme Court precedent.