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>Well, the judge has to base the decision on a whole bunch of laws. It's not like judges get to decide this on their own.

This is a weird opinion to hold when you take the fact that two judges can come to two completely separate conclusions on a single issue, while drawing from the same laws.

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Judging is the act of applying law (general) to a particular case (specific). Since laws can't anticipate every future situation at their time of writing, no matter what there will _always_ be some disconnect between these two -- i.e. vagueness/generality in law, leading to edge cases.

Which is why two judges can come to two completely separate conclusions on a single issue, while drawing from the same laws, based on their own personal methods of interpretation and biases.

Judges in the lower circuits are also held accountable to higher circuit judges if they don't interpret the law while taking past case judgement into consideration.

A lower district judge can't overrule a higher judge's opinions.

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