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The Intersection Of Judicial Interpretive Methods And Politics In Supreme Court Justices’ Due Process Opinions, Julie Castle Apr 2023

The Intersection Of Judicial Interpretive Methods And Politics In Supreme Court Justices’ Due Process Opinions, Julie Castle

The Compass

The Supreme Court, a nine seat bench of unelected and lifetime tenured Justices, determines the constitutionality of dozens of cases each year. In this thesis, I research to what extent the political affiliation of the Justices affects the judicial decision making process and, ultimately, case outcomes. Using pattern matching, I evaluate due process opinions from Justice Breyer, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Scalia, all of whom have established constitutional analysis methods, in order to determine if they reasonably adhere to their established method. Due to the highly political nature of due process cases, variance between the expected (adherence to the Justices’ …


Make Pennsylvania Free Again, Margaret Riley Aug 2022

Make Pennsylvania Free Again, Margaret Riley

The Compass

The author created this paper for a class assignment testing students’ knowledge of constitutional law. The assignment was to write a legal brief addressing the constitutionality of a statewide mask mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 is an airborne disease that can be transmitted from person to person up to six feet apart. The hypothetical facts provided for this brief were that a suit was filed in Pennsylvania state court by a group of individuals in opposition to the state’s mask mandate that was enacted to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of this brief is to demonstrate knowledge of …