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Against Dictionaries: Using Analogical Reasoning To Achieve A More Restrained Textualism, Jason Weinstein
Against Dictionaries: Using Analogical Reasoning To Achieve A More Restrained Textualism, Jason Weinstein
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note argues that new textualists should abandon dictionaries as a source for legal interpretation. Textualists believe in restricting judges to the intent discernible from the words of a statute and contend that legislative history is unacceptable as a source of this intention. Both of these sentiments lead textualists to dictionaries as the intuitively correct solution for ambiguities in a text. The author argues, however, that dictionaries by their very nature cannot help discern between reasonable definitions at the margins of meaning. The use of dictionaries in these situations allows for a sham formalism, unrestrictive in result and unrevealing of …
Justice Scalia's Constitution--And Ours, Kermit Roosevelt Iii
Justice Scalia's Constitution--And Ours, Kermit Roosevelt Iii
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.