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Confronting Silence: The Constitution, Deaf Criminal Defendants, And The Right To Interpretation During Trial, Deirdre M. Smith
Confronting Silence: The Constitution, Deaf Criminal Defendants, And The Right To Interpretation During Trial, Deirdre M. Smith
Maine Law Review
For most deaf people, interactions with the hearing community in the absence of interpretation or technological assistance consist of communications that are, at most, only partly comprehensible. Criminal proceedings, with the defendant's liberty interest directly at stake, are occasions in which the need for deaf people to have a full understanding of what is said and done around them is most urgent. Ironically, the legal “right to interpretation” has not been clearly defined in either statutory or case law. Although the federal and state constitutions do not provide a separate or lesser set of rights for deaf defendants, their situation …
A Matter Of Interpretation: Federal Courts And The Law, Charles R. Priest
A Matter Of Interpretation: Federal Courts And The Law, Charles R. Priest
Maine Law Review
Justice Scalia's engaging essay, “Common-Law Courts in a Civil-Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts in Interpreting the Constitution and Laws,” and the four comments it provokes, should provide lawyers, judges, and other lawmakers with an interesting evening. Instead of presenting a theoretical view of the role of the federal courts in interpretation, Justice Scalia sketches out a case for “textualism.” “Textualism” is one of several currently contending methods of interpreting statutes and the United States Constitution, and is currently popular among federal judges who see their role as restricting government's powers to those expressly stated in the …