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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Territories Under Text, History, And Tradition, Andrew Willinger
The Territories Under Text, History, And Tradition, Andrew Willinger
Faculty Scholarship
In two of its major decisions in the 2021–2022 Term, New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court continued solidifying its originalist method of constitutional interpretation by looking increasingly to historical regulatory practice to construe how the Constitution protects individual rights. The Court is focused not only on the original public meaning of constitutional provisions, but also on historical practice. Historical laws and practices are now key to understanding how those who lived at the relevant time thought a constitutional provision might be applied and what regulatory approaches were consistent …
Finding Law, Stephen E. Sachs
Finding Law, Stephen E. Sachs
Faculty Scholarship
That the judge's task is to find the law, not to make it, was once a commonplace of our legal culture. Today, decades after Erie, the idea of a common law discovered by judges is commonly dismissed -- as a "fallacy," an "illusion," a "brooding omnipresence in the sky." That dismissive view is wrong. Expecting judges to find unwritten law is no childish fiction of the benighted past, but a real and plausible option for a modern legal system.
This Essay seeks to restore the respectability of finding law, in part by responding to two criticisms made by Erie and …
Originalism’S Bite, William Baude, Stephen E. Sachs
Originalism’S Bite, William Baude, Stephen E. Sachs
Faculty Scholarship
Is originalism toothless? Richard Posner seems to think so. He writes that repeated theorizing by "intelligent originalists," one of us happily included, has rendered the theory "incoherent" and capable of supporting almost any result. We appreciate the attention, but we fear we've been misunderstood. Our view is that originalism permits arguments from precedent, changed circumstances, or whatever you like, but only to the extent that they lawfully derive from the law of the founding. This kind of originalism, surprisingly common in American legal practice, is catholic in theory but exacting in application. It might look tame, but it has bite.
Interpretive Contestation And Legal Correctness, Matthew D. Adler
Interpretive Contestation And Legal Correctness, Matthew D. Adler
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Civil Rights And Civil Liberties: Whose “Rule Of Law”?, William W. Van Alstyne
Civil Rights And Civil Liberties: Whose “Rule Of Law”?, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Original Understanding And The Constitution, Michael E. Tigar
Original Understanding And The Constitution, Michael E. Tigar
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Legal Fiction, James Boyle