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Full-Text Articles in Law
Advisory Opinions And The Problem Of Legal Authority, Christian R. Burset
Advisory Opinions And The Problem Of Legal Authority, Christian R. Burset
Journal Articles
The prohibition against advisory opinions is fundamental to our understanding of federal judicial power, but we’ve misunderstood its origins. Discussions of the doctrine begin not with a constitutional text or even a court case, but a letter in which the Jay Court rejected President Washington’s request for legal advice. Courts and scholars have offered a variety of explanations for the Jay Court’s behavior. But they all depict the earliest Justices as responding to uniquely American concerns about advisory opinions.
This Article offers a different explanation. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources, it shows that judges throughout the anglophone world—not only …
Substantive Canons And Faithful Agency, Amy Coney Barrett
Substantive Canons And Faithful Agency, Amy Coney Barrett
Journal Articles
Federal courts have long employed substantive canons of construction in the interpretation of statutes. For example, they apply the rule of lenity, which directs that ambiguous criminal statutes be interpreted in favor of the defendant, and the avoidance canon, which directs that statutes be interpreted in a manner that prevents the court from having to address serious constitutional questions. They also apply so-called “clear statement” rules — for example, absent a clear statement from Congress, a federal court will not interpret a statute to abrogate state sovereign immunity. While some commentators have attempted to rationalize these and other substantive canons …