Sunsets minimize judicial mistakes.

Instead of using devices that minimize the impact of systematic mistakes as part of a broader architecture of justice, our judicial system has adopted a system to magnify it. Both the doctrine of stare decisis and the superiority of the Supreme Court over the lower courts exacerbate Supreme Court errors, the former over time, the latter over distance. The stare decisis principle is so entrenched into jurisprudence that even when the Supreme Court realizes it made a mistake-such as Plessy v. Ferguson-it does not often admit the error.31

In these settings, and some others, the judicial sunset provides a method to prevent the automatic magnification of the mistake. The sunset gives the Court a way to convey its uncertainty about the longterm effect of its holding. The Justices may come to a decision in a particular case, but fear that the underpinnings of its decision may evaporate over time. Or they may know themselves well enough to know that they may be overreacting to a potential crisis, but at the same time believe that a generalist court, in the midst of a national security emergency, should not hamstring the executive branch.

Some might say that a judicial sunset is not necessary because the Court always retains the power to overrule itself. The same thing could be said of the legislature, which has the power to overrule itself and therefore arguably does not need a sunset provision either. The gambit here replaces reality with formalism: the Court rarely overrules itself, particularly given the strong adherence to stare decisis. And even if the Court became predisposed to reconsidering precedent more often, it would be difficult to signal to lower courts that the Court was ready to question one of its decisions. Instead, the matter would be likely taken as settled law, enshrined into the jurisprudence and accepted by lawyers and lower court judges alike.