Signed Networks for the US Supreme Court Overturning its Prior Decisions

Abstract This paper introduces the idea of studying the decision citation network of the US Supreme Court in a new fashion by focusing on this Court’s overturning of some of its prior decisions. Two departures from current practices were developed. One was to consider the phenomenon of overturning in a broader network context. The second was to treat the citations between overturning decisions and the overturned decisions as negative ties. This led to the creation of multiple signed citation networks. These networks were studied to get a better understanding of the operation of this Court. The results show that, frequently, when decisions are overturned, this is not done in a logically consistent fashion. A research agenda is proposed regarding a reexamination of stare decesis, thought to be a bedrock of the US legal system, and calling it into question as a genuine operating legal principle.