Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Lower Court Constitutionalism: Circuit Court Discretion In A Complex Adaptive System, Doni Gewirtzman
Lower Court Constitutionalism: Circuit Court Discretion In A Complex Adaptive System, Doni Gewirtzman
Articles & Chapters
While federal circuit courts play an essential role in defining what the Constitution means, one would never know it from looking at most constitutional scholarship. The bulk of constitutional theory sees judge-made constitutional law through a distorted lens, one that focuses solely on the Supreme Court with virtually no attention paid to other parts of the judicial hierarchy. On the rare occasions when circuit courts appear on the radar screen, they are treated either as megaphones for communicating the Supreme Court’s directives or as tools for implementing the theorist’s own interpretive agenda. Both approaches would homogenize the way circuit courts …