While He Appears Before Senate, SCOTUS Overturns Nominee's Ruling
All eight sitting Supreme Court Justices ruled against a Gorsuch decision in a decision handed down during the third day of the federal judge's confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
The Court overruled Gorsuch's court on a decision he penned, that a public school didn’t have to pay for an autistic child’s private school tuition that had improved his education more than the public school option.
In the unanimous opining, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “when all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing “merely more than de minimis” progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all. For children with disabilities, receiving instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to “sitting idly . . . awaiting the time when they were old enough to ‘drop out.’”
Pressed on it during his hearing by Sen. Dick Durbin, Gorsuch said he was bound by circuit court precedent in the ruling. While it is true a judge should pay deference to previous court decisions under the legal doctrine of stare decisis, a judge is not bound to follow previous decisions of his court under all circumstances. Faced with a new case and a new set of facts, a judge may choose to depart from precedent.
Gorsuch pushed back when pressed again on it Wednesday afternoon: on this case, he said he was joined by Democrat-appointed judges and he argued the Supreme Court took the case in order to settle it for good, as circuit courts have disagreed on it for years.