Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wasn’t quite successful when he tried this week to answer the thorny question of when court precedent should be binding and when instead it should be overturned.

Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion on Monday in a criminal-justice case called Ramos v. Louisiana amounted to a disquisition on the legal doctrine of “stare decisis.” The doctrine, whose name means “let the decision stand,” holds that, in general, courts should respect precedent and avoid frequently or arbitrarily changing the way they rule on the same issue.