<P> In 1976, Richard Posner and William Landes coined the term "super-precedent," in an article they wrote about testing theories of precedent by counting citations . Posner and Landes used this term to describe the influential effect of a cited decision . The term "super-precedent" later became associated with different issue: the difficulty of overturning a decision . In 1992, Rutgers professor Earl Maltz criticized the Supreme Court's decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey for endorsing the idea that if one side can take control of the Court on an issue of major national importance (as in Roe v. Wade), that side can protect its position from being reversed "by a kind of super-stare decisis". The controversial idea that some decisions are virtually immune from being overturned, regardless of whether they were decided correctly in the first place, is the idea to which the term "super stare decisis" now usually refers . </P> <P> The concept of super-stare decisis (or "super-precedent") was mentioned during the interrogations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito before the Senate Judiciary Committee . Prior to the commencement of the Roberts hearings, the chair of that committee, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote an op / ed in the New York Times referring to Roe as a "super-precedent". He revisited this concept during the hearings, but neither Roberts nor Alito endorsed the term or the concept . </P> <P> Persuasive precedent (also persuasive authority) is precedent or other legal writing that is not binding precedent but that is useful or relevant and that may guide the judge in making the decision in a current case . Persuasive precedent includes cases decided by lower courts, by peer or higher courts from other geographic jurisdictions, cases made in other parallel systems (for example, military courts, administrative courts, indigenous / tribal courts, state courts versus federal courts in the United States), statements made in dicta, treatises or academic law reviews, and in some exceptional circumstances, cases of other nations, treaties, world judicial bodies, etc . </P> <P> In a "case of first impression", courts often rely on persuasive precedent from courts in other jurisdictions that have previously dealt with similar issues . Persuasive precedent may become binding through its adoption by a higher court . </P>

Persuasive authority which judges may use in cases of first impression