The Power of Congress over the Rules of Precedent

In the Passenger Cases Chief Justice Taney expressed his willingness always to reconsider his Court’s constitutional doctrines. In Dickerson v. United States the Court declined to do as Chief Justice Taney said he would have done and adhered to Miranda v. Arizona without saying whether a majority of the Justices believed Miranda to have been correctly decided as an original matter. Suppose that some time between the Taney and Rehnquist Courts Congress had adopted a statute purporting to codify Chief Justice Taney’s suggestion by providing that the Supreme Court shall depart from its precedents whenever it believes them to be incorrect.