Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Judges Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Constitutional law

University of Richmond

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Judges

God, Civic Virtue, And The American Way: Reconstructing Engel, Corinna Barrett Lain Jan 2015

God, Civic Virtue, And The American Way: Reconstructing Engel, Corinna Barrett Lain

Law Faculty Publications

If ever a decision embodied the heroic, counter majoritarian function we romantically ascribe to judicial review, it was the 1962 decision that struck down school prayer-Engel v. Vitale. Engel provoked more outrage, more congres- sionalattemptsto overturnit, andmoreattackson theJusticesthanperhapsany other decision in Supreme Court history. Indeed, Engel's counter majoritarian narrative is so strong that scholars have largely assumed that the historical record supports our romanticized conception of the case.Itdoesnot. Usingprimary source materials, this Article reconstructs the story of Engel, then explores the implicationsof this reconstructednarrative. Engel is not the countermajoritarian case it seems, but recognizing that allows us to see Engel …


Edmund Pendleton, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 2003

Edmund Pendleton, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

Judge Edmund Pendleton, was the head of the Virginia judiciary from its professionalization upon independence from Great Britain until his death. It was in his court and under his eye that John Marshall, Bushrod Washington, St. George Tucker, Spencer Roane, and the other lawyers of the first period of republican Virginia refined their legal skills. His steady example influenced in one way or another a remarkable generation of lawyers and judges.