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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 …
Response: Rights As Trumps Of What?, Joseph Blocher
Response: Rights As Trumps Of What?, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Bans, Joseph Blocher
Bans, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
In the universe of legal restrictions subject to judicial review, those characterized as fully denying some aspect of a constitutional right—bans—are often subject to per se rules of invalidity. Whether the subject of the restriction is a medium of expression, the valuable use of property, or a class of weapons, courts in such cases will often short-circuit the standard doctrinal machinery and strike down the law, even if it might have survived heightened scrutiny. Identifying laws as bans can thus provide an end run around the tiers of scrutiny and other familiar forms of means-ends analysis.
And yet it is …
The Law Of Interpretation, William Baude, Stephen E. Sachs
The Law Of Interpretation, William Baude, Stephen E. Sachs
Faculty Scholarship
How should we interpret legal instruments? How do we identify the law they create? Current approaches largely fall into two broad camps. The standard picture of interpretation is focused on language, using various linguistic conventions to discover a document's meaning or a drafter's intent. Those who see language as less determinate take a more skeptical view, urging judges to make interpretive choices on policy grounds. Yet both approaches neglect the most important resource available: the already applicable rules of law.
Legal interpretation is neither a subfield of linguistics nor an exercise in policymaking. Rather, it is deeply shaped by preexisting …
Originalism Without Text, Stephen E. Sachs
Originalism Without Text, Stephen E. Sachs
Faculty Scholarship
Originalism is not about the text. Though the theory is often treated as a way to read the Constitution’s words, that conventional view is misleading. A society can be recognizably originalist without any words to interpret: without a written constitution, written statutes, or any writing at all. If texts aren’t fundamental to originalism, then originalism isn’t fundamentally about texts. Avoiding that error helps us see what originalism generally is about: namely, our present constitutional law, and its dependence on a crucial moment in the past.
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.
Our Prescriptive Judicial Power: Constitutive And Entrenchment Effects Of Historical Practice In Federal Courts Law, Ernest A. Young
Our Prescriptive Judicial Power: Constitutive And Entrenchment Effects Of Historical Practice In Federal Courts Law, Ernest A. Young
Faculty Scholarship
Scholars examining the use of historical practice in constitutional adjudication have focused on a few high-profile separation-of-powers disputes, such as the recent decisions in NLRB v. Noel Canning and Zivotofsky v. Kerry. This essay argues that “big cases make bad theory” — that the focus on high-profile cases of this type distorts our understanding of how historical practice figures in constitutional adjudication more generally. I shift focus here to the more prosaic terrain of federal courts law, in which practice plays a pervasive role. That shift reveals two important insights: First, while historical practice plays an important constitutive role, structuring …
Brief Of Federal Courts Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of The Petitioner, Willaim Araiza, Howard M. Wasserman, Lawrence Sager, Stephen I. Vladeck, Ernest A. Young
Brief Of Federal Courts Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of The Petitioner, Willaim Araiza, Howard M. Wasserman, Lawrence Sager, Stephen I. Vladeck, Ernest A. Young
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The “Constitution In Exile” As A Problem For Legal Theory, Stephen E. Sachs
The “Constitution In Exile” As A Problem For Legal Theory, Stephen E. Sachs
Faculty Scholarship
How does one defend a constitutional theory that’s out of the mainstream? Critics of originalism, for example, have described it as a nefarious “Constitution in Exile,” a plot to impose abandoned rules on the unsuspecting public. This framing is largely mythical, but it raises a serious objection. If a theory asks us to change our legal practices, leaving important questions to academics or historians, how can it be a theory of our law? If law is a matter of social convention, how can there be conventions that hardly anybody knows about? How is a constitution in exile even possible?
This …
The New Textualism, Progressive Constitutionalism, And Abortion Rights: A Reply To Jeffrey Rosen, Neil S. Siegel
The New Textualism, Progressive Constitutionalism, And Abortion Rights: A Reply To Jeffrey Rosen, Neil S. Siegel
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Jack Balkin’S Rich Historicism And Diet Originalism: Health Benefits And Risks For The Constitutional System, Neil S. Siegel
Jack Balkin’S Rich Historicism And Diet Originalism: Health Benefits And Risks For The Constitutional System, Neil S. Siegel
Faculty Scholarship
In Living Originalism, Jack Balkin reasons from two points of view — the perspective of the constitutional system as a whole and the perspective of the faithful participant in that system. First, he provides a systemic account of constitutional change, which he calls “living constitutionalism.” Second, he offers an individual approach to constitutional interpretation and construction, which he calls “framework originalism” or “the method of text and principle.”
Reasoning from the systemic perspective, Balkin develops a compelling theory of the processes of constitutional change. Balkin may insufficiently appreciate, however, that public candor about — or even deep awareness of — …
Interpretive Contestation And Legal Correctness, Matthew D. Adler
Interpretive Contestation And Legal Correctness, Matthew D. Adler
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Brief Of Constitutional Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Ernest A. Young
Brief Of Constitutional Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Ernest A. Young
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Roberts’ Rules: The Assertiveness Of Rules-Based Jurisprudence, Joseph Blocher
Roberts’ Rules: The Assertiveness Of Rules-Based Jurisprudence, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Further Reflections On Not Being “Not An Originalist”, H. Jefferson Powell
Further Reflections On Not Being “Not An Originalist”, H. Jefferson Powell
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
On Not Being “Not An Originalist”, H. Jefferson Powell
On Not Being “Not An Originalist”, H. Jefferson Powell
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Continuity Of Statutory And Constitutional Interpretation: An Essay For Phil Frickey, Ernest A. Young
The Continuity Of Statutory And Constitutional Interpretation: An Essay For Phil Frickey, Ernest A. Young
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay seeks to honor Phil by exploring the contributions of his Legal Process approach to a problem near and dear to his heart: the uses and legitimacy of canons of statutory construction. I focus, as Phil did in his most recent work, on the canon of constitutional avoidance—that is, the rule that courts should construe statutes to avoid significant ―doubt as to their constitutionality.
This Essay largely supports Phil‘s defense of the avoidance canon, but links that defense to another set of canons that Phil has criticized: the various clear statement rules of statutory construction that Phil and Bill …
A Constitutional Conundrum Of Second Amendment Commas: A Short Epistolary Report, William W. Van Alstyne
A Constitutional Conundrum Of Second Amendment Commas: A Short Epistolary Report, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
Prompted by the court’s decision in Parker v. District of Columbia, this series of correspondence discusses the effect possible forms of punctuation may have on the Second Amendment. The article makes comments on the important grammars during the founding and also two possible writings of the Second Amendment that contain different sets of punctuation.
The Executive And The Avoidance Canon, H. Jefferson Powell
The Executive And The Avoidance Canon, H. Jefferson Powell
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Constitutional Existence Conditions And Judicial Review, Matthew D. Adler, Michael C. Dorf
Constitutional Existence Conditions And Judicial Review, Matthew D. Adler, Michael C. Dorf
Faculty Scholarship
Although critics of judicial review sometimes call for making the entire Constitution nonjusticiable, many familiar norms of constitutional law state what we call "existence conditions" that are necessarily enforced by judicial actors charged with the responsibility of applying, and thus as a preliminary step, identifying, propositions of sub-constitutional law such as statutes. Article I, Section 7, which sets forth the procedures by which a bill becomes a law, is an example: a putative law that did not go through the Article I, Section 7 process and does not satisfy an alternative test for legal validity (such as the treaty-making provision …
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.
A Constitution For Every Man, William W. Van Alstyne
A Constitution For Every Man, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.