Law Commons^™

Felony Murder And Mens Rea Default Rules: A Study In Statutory Interpretation, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

The Model Penal Code's influential approach to culpability included default rules assigning a culpable mental state to every conduct, circumstance and result element of each offense. Such rules have been enacted in half of the American states. The Code's drafters also rejected what they understood to be the felony murder rule's imposition of "a form of strict liability for... homicide." Yet almost every state has retained some form of the felony murder rule and so repudiated the Model Penal Code's proposed reform. Because the Model Penal Code's disapproval of felony murder flows from its general disapproval of strict liability, the …

Textualism's Failures: A Study Of Overruled Bankruptcy Decisions, Daniel J. Bussel

Vanderbilt Law Review

Judges and legal scholars are engaged in a contentious, wide- ranging, and long-running debate over methods of statutory interpretation. Stripping the debate of some of its nuance without misrepresenting its essence, there are two camps: the "textualists" and the "pragmatists." Cass Sunstein recently argued that the question of interpretive method should be considered in light of evidence whether textualist methods work better or worse than pragmatic ones. To date, however, only limited empirical evidence has been systematically brought to bear on this question.

This Article presents new empirical evidence gleaned from twenty years of interpretation of the United States Bankruptcy …

Statutory Interpretation In The Courtroom, The Classroom, And Canadian Legal Literature, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

In recent years, judges and scholars in Canada and the United States are devoting more attention to the theory and techniques involved in statutory interpretation. Although some advocate "foundational" theories to answer all theories of interpretation, most difficult cases require a pragmatic approach that requires analysis of the statutory text, original legislative intent, and legislative purpose in light of modern circumstances. Moreover, the most difficult cases may not be answerable by any of these approaches. In difficult cases, judges often resort to "normative canons" - rules they created to further a jurisprudence they desire. These canons need to be closely …

Evolutionary Statutory Interpretation: Mr. Justice Scalia Meets Darwin, Jeffrey G. Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This paper examines the seeming contrast between the legal doctrines that the interpretation of statutes can evolve over time and that the interpretation of statutes must be grounded only in their texts, which never change unless amended by Congress. That examination is illuminated by complexity and meme theories. The examination is concluded by applying both doctrines and theories to the question of whether the term “navigable water” in a water pollution control statute includes underground water.

The New Textualism And The Rule Of Law Subtext In The Supreme Court's Bankruptcy Jurisprudence, Alan Schwartz

NYLS Law Review

The Supreme Court is thought to use a method of statutory interpretation called "the new textualism" when construing Federal Statutes, including the Bankruptcy Code. The new textualism, in brief, ties interpreters more closely to the text than more traditional interpretative methods. This Essay inquires into the justifications for the new textualism, but its primary goal is to argue that the Court prefers an important justification of this interpretative method to the method itself. The justification holds that interpretation should advance the rule of law virtues of certainty and predictability. A court that is committed to the new textualism would construe …

No More Clowning Around: Ringling Bros.-Barnum & (And) Bailey Combined Shows, Inc. V. Utah Division Of Travel Development Evaluates The Federal Trademark Dilution Act, Christina M. Bidlingmaier

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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 …

Are Mental States Relevant For Statutory And Constitutional Interpretation, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Judges in the United States must interpret statutes and constitutions. Largely because these texts are framed in the English language, a language shared by legislators, judges, and other citizens, judges employ sufficiently common techniques to sustain a coherent practice. Lawyers can often say with some confidence how judges will construe particular legal provisions, and, when they have serious doubts, they can sketch the likely alternatives. But we are now in an era of sharp theoretical disagreement over what judges do when they interpret authoritative texts.

In difficult cases of statutory interpretation, are judges mainly trying to give language its ordinary …

The Toleration Of Unjustified Distinctions Between The Mentally And Physically Disabled In Lewis V. Kmart Corp. Makes One Thing Clear: Not All Disabilities Were Created Equal, Donna M. Orzell

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Reconceptualization Of Legislative History In The Supreme Court, Charles Tiefer

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1995, the Supreme Court began to embrace a approach to interpreting Congressional intent. From that year forward, the Breyers-Stevens model of legislative history, or "institutional legislative history," has seen significant success, emerging in the shadows of the success Justice Scalia's enjoyed while promoting his brand of textualism in the early 1990s. In developing a new way to view Congressional intent, Justices Breyers and Stevens synthesize information gathered from congressional report details, preferably attached to bill drafting choices, thereby renouncing Scalia's reliance on the purposes espoused by the Congressional majority. This new approach, the author contends, rejuvenated the court's approach …

Weak Legs: Misbehavior Before The Enemy, William I. Miller

Articles

Making cowardice a capital offense strikes us as a kind of barbaric survival from a rougher age, a time, that is, when few doubted that courage ranked higher than pity or prudence in the scale of virtues. And if many of us today believe that capital punishment cannot be justified even for the sadistic torturer, what a shock to discover that, as an official matter at least, Congress reserves it for the person who cannot kill at all.

In Re Silicon Graphics Inc.: Shareholder Wealth Effects Resulting From The Interpretation Of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act's Pleading Standard, Marilyn F. Johnson, Karen K. Nelson, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

This Article presents an empirical study of changes in shareholder wealth resulting from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in In re Silicon Graphics Inc. Securities Litigation, which interpreted the pleading provision established in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Reform Act"). Congress passed the Reform Act as part of an ongoing effort to protect corporations from abusive suits alleging "fraud by hindsight." In such suits, plaintiffs claimed that a sudden drop in a company's stock price was evidence that the issuer and its management covered up the bad news that led to the price drop. …