Court Opinion

ID: 9577268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:33:31.774351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:16.836567
License: Public Domain

STRUCKMEYER, Justice
(dissenting).
I join in the dissent of Justice Lockwood, but I would emphasize one point,
During the same term, October 1971, that Fuentes v. Shevin, supra, was handed down, eleven other opinions of the United States Supreme Court were decided by a four-member majority. Likewise, between October 1949 and October 1957, sixteen opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States were decided by a four-member majority. In 1920, the leading case of United States v. United States Steel Corp., 251 U.S. 417, 40 S.Ct. 293, 64 L.Ed. 343, was decided by a four-member majority.
I cannot believe the important aspects of the United States Constitution and federal statutes so construed are not binding on all other courts of this country simply because all nine members oiFthe Court did not enter into the decision. Cases such as these must be held to be binding precedent; otherwise, important areas of constitutional law and congressional enactments remain in limbo, until finally the court in a subsequent action has an opportunity, years later perhaps, to re-examine the questions presented. The resulting mischief is intolerable.