Justice Elena Kagan urges judges to "be humble" when issuing rulings

Justice Elena Kagan emphasized the importance of precedence Friday, and emphasized the need for the Supreme Court to remain humble.

Driving the news: "It's a kind of hubris to say, we're just throwing that all out because we think we know better, and so that's important," Kagan said at the University of Pennsylvania in a livestreamed interview with school president Liz Magill.

• Kagan discussed her favorite opinion she has written, Kimble v. Marvel, in 2015, which maintains that stare decisis, or adhering to a precedent, is crucial for the court.

What she's saying: "If you have judges and they come on to a court and they say we're sort of overthrowing the apparatus, and we're overthrowing legal rules, it starts not to look like law anymore," she said.

• "The law should be safe, and judges should be humble," Kagan said, adding that it prevents the court from becoming politicized.
• "There are a lot of reasons why judges are not humble. There's a lot that happens to me in my daily life to make me not humble," she said. "This is a doctrine that sort of forces judges to be humble."

Between the lines: Since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, Kagan has been critical of the current court's lack of reverence for the doctrine, per Court House News.

• In her first public appearance after Roe was overturned earlier this year, Kagan warned that it would be "a dangerous thing for a democracy" if the Supreme Court lost the confidence of the public.