Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 32

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in part 

II 
In contrast  to the criminal-procedure context,  “[c]onsid-
erations in favor of stare decisis are at their acme in cases 
involving property and contract rights.”  Payne, 501 U. S., 
at 828.  Despite that fact, the Court has recently overruled
precedent where the Court’s shift threatened vast regula-
tory and economic consequences.  Janus  v. State, County, 
and Municipal Employees, 585 U. S. ___ (2018); id., at ___ 
(KAGAN,  J.,  dissenting)  (slip  op.,  at  23)  (noting  that  the
Court’s opinion called into question “thousands of . . . con-
tracts covering millions of workers”); see South Dakota v. 
Wayfair, Inc., 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 21) (not-
ing the “legitimate” burdens that the Court’s overruling of 
precedent  would  place  on  vendors  who  had  started  busi-
nesses in reliance on a previous decision).

This  case,  by  contrast,  threatens  no  broad  upheaval  of
private economic rights.  Particularly when compared to the 
interests  of  private  parties  who  have  structured  their  af-
fairs in reliance on our decisions, the States’ interests here 
in  avoiding  a  modest  number  of  retrials—emphasized  at
such length by the dissent—are much less weighty.  They
are  certainly  not  new:  Opinions  that  force  changes  in  a 
State’s criminal procedure typically impose such costs.  And 
were this Court to take the dissent’s approach—defending
criminal-procedure opinions as wrong as Apodaca simply to
avoid  burdening  criminal  justice  systems—it  would  never 
correct its criminal jurisprudence at all. 

To pick up on the majority’s point, ante, at 23, in that al-
ternate universe, a trial judge alone could still decide the
critical  facts  necessary  to  sentence  a  defendant  to  death. 
Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639 (1990), overruled by Ring 
v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584 (2002).  An officer would still be 
able to search a car upon the arrest of any one of its recent 
occupants.  New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), hold-
ing limited by Arizona v. Gant, 556 U. S. 332 (2009).  And