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Statutory Interpretation And The Rest Of The Iceberg: Divergences Between The Lower Federal Courts And The Supreme Court, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Statutory Interpretation And The Rest Of The Iceberg: Divergences Between The Lower Federal Courts And The Supreme Court, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
This Article examines the methods of statutory interpretation used by the lower federal courts, especially the federal district courts, and compares those methods to the practices of the U.S. Supreme Court. This novel research reveals both similarities across courts and some striking differences. The research shows that some interpretive tools are highly overrepresented in the Supreme Court’s decisions, while other tools are much more prevalent in the lower courts. Differences in prevalence persist even after accounting for the selection effect that stems from the Supreme Court’s discretionary docket. Another finding—based on a study of 40 years of cases from all …
Statutory Interpretation And The Rest Of The Iceberg: Divergences Between The Lower Federal Courts And The Supreme Court, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Statutory Interpretation And The Rest Of The Iceberg: Divergences Between The Lower Federal Courts And The Supreme Court, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Faculty Publications
This Article examines the methods of statutory interpretation used by the lower federal courts, especially the federal district courts, and compares those methods to the practices of the U.S. Supreme Court. This novel research reveals both similarities across courts and some striking differences. The research shows that some interpretive tools are highly overrepresented in the Supreme Court’s decisions, while other tools are much more prevalent in the lower courts. Differences in prevalence persist even after accounting for the selection effect that stems from the Supreme Court’s discretionary docket. Another finding—based on a study of 40 years of cases from all …
The Constitution And The Language Of The Law, John O. Mcginnis, Michael B. Rappaport
The Constitution And The Language Of The Law, John O. Mcginnis, Michael B. Rappaport
William & Mary Law Review
A long-standing debate exists over whether the Constitution is written in ordinary or legal language. Yet no article has offered a framework for determining the nature of the Constitution’s language, let alone systematically canvassed the evidence.
This Article fills the gap. First, it shows that a distinctive legal language exists. This language in the Constitution includes terms, like “Letters of Marque and Reprisal,” that are unambiguously technical, and terms, like “good behavior,” that are ambiguous in that they have both an ordinary and legal meaning but are better interpreted according to the latter. It also includes legal interpretive rules such …
Striding Out Of Babel: Originalism, Its Critics, And The Promise Of Our American Constitution, André Leduc
Striding Out Of Babel: Originalism, Its Critics, And The Promise Of Our American Constitution, André Leduc
William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal
This Article pursues a therapeutic approach to end the debate over constitutional originalism. For almost fifty years that debate has wrestled with the question whether constitutional interpretations and decisions should look to the original intentions, expectations, and understandings with respect to the constitutional text, and if not, what. Building on a series of prior articles exploring the jurisprudential foundations of the debate, this Article characterizes the debate over originalism as pathological. The Article begins by describing what a constitutional therapy is.
The debate about originalism has been and remains sterile and unproductive, and the lack of progress argues powerfully for …
What Did They Mean?: How Principles Of Group Communication Can Inform Original Meaning Jurisprudence And Address The Problem Of Collective Intent, W. Matt Morgan
William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal
No abstract provided.
Originalism And The Other Desegregation Decision, Ryan C. Williams
Originalism And The Other Desegregation Decision, Ryan C. Williams
All Faculty Scholarship
Critics of originalist approaches to constitutional interpretation often focus on the “intolerable” results that originalism would purportedly require. Although originalists have disputed many such claims, one contention that they have been famously unable to answer satisfactorily is the claim that their theory is incapable of justifying the Supreme Court’s famous 1954 decision in Bolling v. Sharpe. Decided the same day as Brown v. Board of Education, Bolling is the case that is most closely associated with the Supreme Court’s so-called “reverse incorporation” doctrine, which interprets the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment as if it effectively "incorporates" the Fourteenth …
Dodging A Bullet: Mcdonald V. City Of Chicago And The Limits Of Progessive Originalism, Dale E. Ho
Dodging A Bullet: Mcdonald V. City Of Chicago And The Limits Of Progessive Originalism, Dale E. Ho
William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal
The Supreme Court’s decision in last term’s gun rights case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, punctured the conventional wisdom after District of Columbia v. Heller that “we are all originalists now.” Surprisingly, many progressive academics were disappointed. For “progressive originalists,” McDonald was a missed opportunity to overrule the Slaughter-House Cases and to revitalize the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In their view, such a ruling could have realigned progressive constitutional achievements with originalism and relieved progressives of the albatross of substantive due process, while also unlocking long-dormant constitutional text to serve as the source of new unenumerated …
Race, Rights, And The Thirteenth Amendment: Defining The Badges And Incidents Of Slavery, William M. Carter Jr.
Race, Rights, And The Thirteenth Amendment: Defining The Badges And Incidents Of Slavery, William M. Carter Jr.
Articles
The Supreme Court has held that the Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude and also empowers Congress to end any lingering "badges and incidents of slavery." The Court, however, has failed to provide any guidance as to defining the badges and incidents of slavery when Congress has failed to identify a condition or form of discrimination as such. This has led the lower courts to conclude that the judiciary's role under the Thirteenth Amendment is limited to enforcing only the Amendment's prohibition of literal enslavement.
This article has two primary objectives. First, it offers an interpretive framework for defining …
Original Intent And Boris Bittker, Raoul Berger
Original Intent And Boris Bittker, Raoul Berger
Indiana Law Journal
No abstract provided.