Reason and Rhetoric in Edwards v. Vannoy

Judicial reasoning and rhetoric should be mutually reinforcing, but they often end up at odds. Edwards v. Vannoy offers an unusually rich opportunity to explore this tension. First, the watershed exception, though declared “moribund,” may actually have survived. Second, Justice Gorsuch’s ostensibly strict judgment-based approach arguably called for providing relief in Edwards. Third, majority coalitions a counterintuitive incentive overrule relatively insignificant precedents as possible. Fourth, featured charges of personal inconsistency that both reflect facilitate erosion conventional legal argument. Finally, system benefit from superficial even fallacious present judicial decisions, including excellent ones. Other topics include Edwards’s use remedial equilibration, its procedural irregularities, defensible if unfamiliar stare decisis.