A heap of.......... something

Julian Sanchez of Reason Magazine shows the dangers of stare decisis and slippery slopes in America's courts.

Here's the bottom line:

Stare decisis is an important guarantor of stability in legal rules: By insisting on like treatment of like cases, it provides people with a more detailed sense of when they're engaged in constitutionally protected conduct than the stripped-down language of the Constitution alone ever could. But legal rules, to be legitimate, should also reflect a shared public understanding. That's not to say the polls must vindicate each particular court ruling. But when stability begins to undermine the public's sense that they understand the most fundamental rules by which they're governed, it's a sign that jurists need to be willing to step back and see the heap.