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Freedom Friday: Accumulated Error

Our Fridays are dedicated to the promotion of liberty.

Accumulated error is what you get when you measure from anything but your original starting point. For example, let’s look at the walls in your house. Beneath the sheetrock (or other wall paneling) is the wood frame of the wall. That frame is made up of vertical studs connected at top and bottom by horizontal plates. The studs are positioned on sixteen inch centers. For a number of reasons, it is important that that spacing be maintained fairly accurately. Therefore, when laying out the wall, the carpenter marks the stud positions on the plates, measuring each from the same point at one end of the wall. What would happen if he didn’t do that? Suppose he marked the first stud position, and then measured sixteen inches from that point to mark the next, and sixteen inches from that point to mark the next, and so on. Suppose then, in his haste, his marks were off just a little (as is often the case). If each mark was off only one sixteenth of an inch, the inaccuracy would accumulate with each new measurement until the studs were completely out of place. If, however, the carpenter measures all from the same point, he can make even larger errors without throwing the whole wall out of whack.

Now consider the reference in law to precedent. When judges refer to precedent in their rulings, they are, as it were, measuring from the previous stud rather that the beginning of the wall. They are piling one possible error on top of another. When the Supreme Court — the guardians of the standard of measurement — does this, the consequences are much more serious than in the lower courts. The Supreme Court, more than any other, should ignore precedent. Hear Should-have-been-Justice Robert Bork on the subject:

Robert Bork on Constitutional Precedent