My only credential for pontificating about court decisions is that briefly in 9th grade I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. (In plenty of time, I realized that many future lawyers major in history in college. Oops…time to rethink!) However, we all aspire to be counted in the Informed Citizenry category, and I’ve at least made a personal pledge to study the topics I’m talking about. First I read a New York Times article by Adam Cohen about how the Supreme Court regarded the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000 a stand-alone case; it is not supposed to be discussed or used as precedent in other cases, even ones about the narrow notion of equal protection of all voters’ rights to use the same dependable voting methods. Then on NPR, I heard a discussion about the many district court “unpublished opinions” which are not supposed to be used as precedent in deciding future cases; you can listen to the piece here. The job of lawyers just got a whole lot easier—or maybe harder—if they don’t have to research and be guided by all the other relevant cases from the past. I’ve always assumed that was a given. Who wants to live in a country where a case is considered and decided upon in a vacuum and without reference to the body of existing law? There are enough pitfalls or opportunities for human error (judges are making judgments, after all) without introducing the notion of starting from scratch on each new case and depending simply on such factors as the persuasive skills of the lawyers or the political leanings or whims of the judges. This seems to me to be a serious issue of fairness and consistency that needs more light shed on it.