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Assessing The New Judicial Minimalism, Christopher J. Peters
Assessing The New Judicial Minimalism, Christopher J. Peters
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In this article, which has been published in slightly revised form at 100 Colum. L. Rev. 1454 (2000), I critique some recently prominent arguments for "judicial minimalism" in constitutional decisionmaking. Current minimalist arguments, I contend, are primarily "policentric," that is, focused on the role the judiciary can play in bolstering the accountability and deliberativeness of the political branches. Drawing in part on a previous article, I offer an alternative approach to minimalism that is "juricentric" - focused on the inherent democratic legitimacy of the adjudicative process and the unique competence of that process to produce decisions about individual rights. I …
Variations On Some Themes Of A Disporting Gazelle And His Friend: Statutory Interpretation As Seen By Jerome Frank And Felix Frankfurter, Kent Greenawalt
Variations On Some Themes Of A Disporting Gazelle And His Friend: Statutory Interpretation As Seen By Jerome Frank And Felix Frankfurter, Kent Greenawalt
Faculty Scholarship
In 1947, this Review published two lectures on statutory interpretation by Jerome Frank and Felix Frankfurter. Both jurists were concerned with a basic question: How constrained are judges when they interpret legislation? The answers each gives, while similar in some respects, differ strikingly. In arguing that interpretation necessarily involves a creative element, Frank analogizes the role of a judge in interpreting legislation to that of a performer in interpreting a musical composition. Although he argues that judicial creativity is constrained, Frank views statutory interpretation as "a kind of legislation." For Frankfurter, by contrast, in construing a statute, a judge is …