Technical basis for the binding nature of precedent or stare decisis
<p>I understand that US district courts are generally required to follow precedent set by the appeals court directly superior to the district court, while opinions of other appeals courts may be influential, but are not binding.  Similarly, appeals courts (indeed <em>all</em> inferior courts) are of course bound to follow precedent set in rulings of the supreme court.</p>
<p>Is the mandate to respect the precedent set by superior courts explicit in statute somewhere?  I looked in the US code, but could not find it.  Is it specified in the judiciary's rules of procedure?</p>

<h2>No</h2>
<p>The importance of following precedent, and the principle of <em>stare decisis</em> were inherited by the early US legal system from the British Common Law system, and have been taken as part of the natural order of the legal system by US courts ever since.</p>
<p>This extends even to a court overruling itself.  US Courts are notoriously reluctant to overrule their past decisions, even when current court members agree, However they will do so from time to time. The US Supreme Court in particular will flatly overturn previous decisions, especially on Constitutional issues, when it thinks there is no other way to achieve a proper outcome, although it often prefers to <em>distinguish</em> the prior decision without actually overruling it.</p>
<p>I think the fastest and most extreme case where the  US Supreme Court overruled itself was that of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette</em>, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)</a>, the second flag-salute case. (This was also a particularly significant case.) This reversed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minersville_School_District_v._Gobitis" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Minersville School District v. Gobitis</em>, 310 U.S. 586 (1940)</a> a case on the exact same issue, only three years previously, and a vote of 8-1 on the first case became a vote of 6-3 the other way, with only one new Justice on the Court. Only Justice Frankfurter, the author of the fist decision, issued a dissenting opinion in the  <em>Barnette</em> case, and no other Justice formally joined that opinion.</p>

<p>I cannot find any such statute, and heavily doubt that one would exist. I also saw nothing in the rules for appellate procedure.</p>
<p>If you're looking for something written down about how lower courts must respect Supreme Court precedent, then the Supreme Court itself said it in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/522/3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">STATE OIL COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Barkat U. KHAN and Khan &amp; Associates, Inc.,</a> 522 U.S. 3 (1997) (emphasis mine):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Despite what Chief Judge Posner aptly described as Albrecht's &quot;infirmities, [and] its increasingly wobbly, moth-eaten foundations,'' 93 F.3d, at 1363, there remains the question whether Albrecht deserves continuing respect under the doctrine of stare decisis. The Court of Appeals was correct in applying that principle despite disagreement with Albrecht, <strong>for it is this Court's prerogative alone to overrule one of its precedents.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>They said this despite overruling that previous decision themselves.</p>

united-states federal-courts precedent