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Resorting To External Norms And Principles In Constitutional Decision-Making, Alvin L. Goldman
Resorting To External Norms And Principles In Constitutional Decision-Making, Alvin L. Goldman
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
Given the very significant role of constitutional law in the American political system and the fact that Supreme Court Justices are appointed through a political process, it is understandable that the appropriate judicial approach to resolving constitutional issues often is the subject of political commentary. Unfortunately, discourse by politicians concerning this issue seldom rises to the deserved level of wisdom. One of President George W. Bush's public mantras is illustrative of political commentary respecting federal judicial appointments: "I'm going to put strict constructionists on the bench." On its face, and as understood by politically naive audiences, the statement appears to …
Communis Opinio And The Methods Of Statutory Interpretation: Interpreting Law Or Changing Law, Michael P. Healy
Communis Opinio And The Methods Of Statutory Interpretation: Interpreting Law Or Changing Law, Michael P. Healy
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
Interpretive methodology lies at the core of the Supreme Court's persistent modern debate about statutory interpretation. Supreme Court Justices have applied two fundamentally different methods of interpretation. One is the formalist method, which seeks to promote rule-of-law values and purports to constrain the discretion of judges by limiting them to the autonomous legal text. The second is the nonformalist or antiformalist method, which may consider the legislature's intent or purpose or other evidence as context for understanding the statutory text. The debate within the current Court is commonly framed and advanced by Justices Stevens and Scalia. Justice Scalia is now …
Interpretation Of The Kentucky Rules Of Evidence—What Happened To The Common Law?, Robert G. Lawson
Interpretation Of The Kentucky Rules Of Evidence—What Happened To The Common Law?, Robert G. Lawson
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
The Kentucky Rules of Evidence, which became effective on July 1, 1992, dramatically transformed the method by which lawyers and judges address evidence issues. Before the adoption of the Rules, the law of evidence consisted mostly of a vast collection of common law rulings, accumulated over two centuries and inaccessible to lawyers and judges for all practical purposes. In addressing an evidence issue, participants had to first deal with the problem of "finding" the law-distilling from a morass of conflicting common law precedents the ones applicable to the issue at hand, a task regularly producing contention rather than agreement and, …