On December 5, 2000, Schmier v.
United States Court of Appeal for the 11th Circuit (4:00cv457-RH) was filed seeking an
injunction to prevent the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals from ruling on matters
including the presidential race in an "unpublished" decision that
will not be precedent for the future, (Rule 36-2), or from failing to regard pertinent
prior decisions of that court as precedents, which that court now permits
itself to do.
Similarly decisions of the
We hope to point out that the precedents set in the little matters often decide
big matters later on, that this mechanism requires that insignificant people
and cases of little media interest be decided with the same proper care and
respect given to cases of public attention. That protects individuals when
standing alone before our courts, allows the society to debate the right
resolution of issues before such issues pose questions of nationwide impact,
and leaves the whole society with guidance when huge matters need to be
decided.
Stare decisis satisfies most citizens of justice even when a ruling is at
bottom arbitrary because all others will be treated the same way.
We hope that raising the issue in such a highly publicized context may cause
some to think how much more important stare decisis is to citizens when they
stand before the judiciary and no one else appears to be interested, and
interest the people in seeing to it that the vast interference with the Rule of
Law posed by the novel practice of deciding appellate matters outside the
system of precedent be eliminated. Mike Schmier is in
See the text of the complaint here.