Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 52.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

5 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

remarks issued in one context to apply perfectly in others, 
perhaps especially ones they could not foresee.  Ibid.  Also, 
the limits of the adversarial process, a distinctive feature of 
English law, had to be borne in mind.  When a single judge 
or a small panel reached a decision in a case, they did so
based on the factual record and legal arguments the parties 
at  hand  have  chosen  to  develop.    Attuned  to  those  con-
straints, future judges had to proceed with an open mind to
the possibility that different facts and different legal argu-
ments  might  dictate  different  outcomes  in  later  disputes. 
See Duxbury 19–24. 

B 
Necessarily, this represents just a quick sketch of tradi-
tional common-law understandings of the judge’s role and
the place of precedent in it.  It focuses, too, on the horizon-
tal, not vertical, force of judicial precedents.  But there are 
good reasons to think that the common law’s understand-
ings of judges and precedent outlined above crossed the At-
lantic and informed the nature of the “judicial Power” the 
Constitution vests in federal courts.  Art. III, §1. 

Not only was the Constitution adopted against the back-
drop  of  these  understandings  and,  in  light  of  that  alone,
they may provide evidence of what the framers meant when
they spoke of the “judicial Power.”  Many other, more spe-
cific provisions in the Constitution reflect much the same 
distinction  between  lawmaking  and  lawfinding  functions 
the  common  law  did.  The  Constitution  provides  that  its
terms  may  be  amended  only  through  certain  prescribed
democratic processes.  Art. V.  It vests the power to enact
federal legislation exclusively in the people’s elected repre-
sentatives in Congress.  Art. I, §1.  Meanwhile, the Consti-
tution describes the judicial power as the power to resolve 
cases and controversies.  Art. III, §2, cl. 1.  As well, it dele-
gates  that  authority  to  life-tenured  judges,  see  §1,  an  as-
signment that would have made little sense if judges could