https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-finall...
Sample:
Jessop v. City of Fresno. In this case, the Ninth Circuit granted immunity to police officers who stole over $225,000 in cash and rare coins in the course of executing a search warrant. The court noted that while “the theft [of] personal property by police officers sworn to uphold the law” may be “morally wrong,” the officers could not be sued for the theft because the Ninth Circuit had never issued a decision specifically involving the question of “whether the theft of property covered by the terms of a search warrant, and seized pursuant to that warrant, violates the Fourth Amendment.”
Edit: I will just reply to all of the comments downthread at once because they all seem to urge the same thing. SCOTUS has no incentive to act when the legislative branch is doing something that could easily overturn or not align with their decision, which would render their decision moot. A law that Congress passes overrules any and all SCOTUS precedent on the issue because Congress "legislates against the backdrop of the common law." Further, Congress has the ability to move much faster than SCOTUS: a bill could be passed on less than a month in Congress while it will take at least a year for SCOTUS to reach a decision.
No, because the current state of the law still matters. In fact, it might matter even more if there are legislative proposals pending.
That they have to decide cases to create said precedent is a side issue.
What this means is that if the law is likely to be changed, then there is little incentive to set a precedent that will have effect on a limited number of pending cases. Whereas if the law is not likely to be changed, the precedent set will affect many future cases and has a greater impact.
Therefore the Supreme Court is properly less interested in cases if it looks like legislation will be passed to address the issue.
No, the job of the Supreme Court is to be the last court of appeal to uphold the US Constitution and laws passed under it. It does that by deciding cases. Setting precedent is a side effect, which can be helpful if it reduces the need for future cases of the same type to have to come to the Supreme Court again, but is not the primary purpose.
The result is that precedent is the most effective tool that the Court has to serve its purpose. And therefore that is the most important thing that they do. And they are extremely highly aware of it.
And all 100% of its decisions decide cases. So more of its decisions decide cases than set precedents. So your argument is a non sequitur.