for all the lawyers out there....did they ever discuss super stare decisis in law school? Is there a general feeling about this in the legal community?
I don't know if there's a consensus. I'm of the Scalia / Thomas mindset: precedent should be respect, but not when the original case was clearly wrongly decided. The Supreme Court has made some massive mistakes in its history; there's no reason to give unconstitutional decisions validity just because it would be hard to overturn them.
I'm mindful of the practical effects of my philosophy. A commerce clause case like Wickard v. Fillburn was, in my mind, decided horribly wrongly. There have been dozens of cases that have been decided on its precedent. Thomas has advocated overturning that decision (I believe in a concurrence in U.S. v. Lopez), and philosophically, I agree with him. As a practical matter, I'm not sure how the economy could adjust.
The best answer? Overturn it, and stay the decision to give Congress and the States time to pass a Constitutional amendment.