Law Commons^™

As 24.25.065, A Statute Devolved From Aristotle's Rhetoric, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

The legislative council shall annually examine, AS 24.20.065(a) provides in paraphrase, published opinions of state courts that rely on state statutes if the opinions indicate unclear or ambiguous statutes. Our Constitutional Logic examines the collaboration theory of lawmakers, on the codelaw and caselaw side of the ledger.

Holdings, Dicta, And The Paradigms Of Precedent, Randy J. Kozel

Randy J Kozel

In United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In doing so, it raised significant questions about the power of states to limit the institution of marriage to opposite-sex couples. That issue was not presented in Windsor itself, but Windsor’s reasoning and rhetoric have already begun to play a pivotal role in ensuing challenges to state laws. Determining the future effects of Windsor, or of any other Supreme Court decision, requires defining the scope of judicial precedent. One account of precedent is restrictive: Only a court’s holdings must …

Against Constitutional Mainstreaming, Bertrall L. Ross

Bertrall L Ross

Courts interpret statutes in hard cases. Statutes are frequently ambiguous, and an enacting legislature cannot foresee all future applications of a statute. The Supreme Court in these cases often chooses statutory interpretations that privilege the values that it has emphasized in its recent constitutional jurisprudence. In doing so, the Court rejects alternative interpretations that are more consistent with the values embodied in more recently enacted statutes. This is constitutional mainstreaming—an interpretive practice that molds statutes toward the Court’s own preferred values and away from values favored by legislative majorities.

In addition to providing a novel descriptive framework for what the …