Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Decision Theory And Babbitt V. Sweet Home: Skepticism About Norms, Discretion, And The Virtues Of Purposivism, Victoria Nourse
Decision Theory And Babbitt V. Sweet Home: Skepticism About Norms, Discretion, And The Virtues Of Purposivism, Victoria Nourse
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In this writing, the author applies a “decision theory” of statutory interpretation, elaborated recently in the Yale Law Journal, to Professor William Eskridge’s illustrative case, Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon. In the course of this application, she takes issue with the conventional wisdom that purposivism, as a method of statutory interpretation, is inevitably a more virtuous model of statutory interpretation. First, the author questions whether we have a clear enough jurisprudential picture both of judicial discretion and legal as opposed to political normativity. Second, she argues that, under decision theory, Sweet Home is …
The Constitutionality Of The Federal Sentencing Reform Act After Mistretta V. United States, Charles R. Eskridge Iii
The Constitutionality Of The Federal Sentencing Reform Act After Mistretta V. United States, Charles R. Eskridge Iii
Pepperdine Law Review
No abstract provided.
Faithful Agency Versus Ordinary Meaning Advocacy, James J. Brudney
Faithful Agency Versus Ordinary Meaning Advocacy, James J. Brudney
Faculty Scholarship
This Article contends that ordinary meaning analysis based on dictionaries and language canons cannot be reconciled with the faithful agent model. Fidelity to Congress as a principal entails fidelity to its lawmaking enterprise, not to words or sentences divorced from that enterprise. Congress has indicated that it does not value dictionaries as part of its lawmaking process, and it ascribes at most limited weight to language canons in that process. Further, Justices advocating ordinary meaning analysis too often use dictionary definitions, and language canons such as the rule against surplusage, the whole act rule, and ejusdem generis, in ways that …