Constitutional Law Commons^™

False Positivism: The Failure Of The Newest Originalism, Guha Krishnamurthi

BYU Law Review

Originalism is a juggernaut. It pervades our constitutional discourse and it has become a fort and font of constitutional legitimacy. A number of our most prominent jurists and legal thinkers are self-described originalists and, in myriad constitutional cases, originalist argumentation demands our serious attention. Notwithstanding, originalists have struggled to forge any meaningful consensus on the most foundational issues. Among the serious problems, originalist theories have each struggled to navigate between preserving core features and fixed stars of our law and remaining a distinctive theory with fidelity to "original meaning."The newest effort in this struggle is the so called "positive" turn …

Dignity And Discrimination, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

Delivered as the Dignity in Law Symposium keynote address, this essay surveys uses of “dignity” in U.S. constitutional law, with a focus on conflicts between the dignities attached to citizenship and religious conscience. Parts I and II discuss dignity as state sovereignty and hierarchical status. Part III examines the collision of dignities in the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. Part IV argues that attention to the public or private nature of the site where religious accommodation is demanded clarifies when accommodation is appropriate, using a house of worship and a government office as illustrations. Part V lists other sites of accommodation and …

The Little Statute That Gets No Respect: How Courts Have Ignored The Administrative Procedure Act With Respect To Whether Pre-Enforcement Challenge Provisions Are Exclusive, Arthur Sapper

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Re-Victimization Of Domestic Violence Victims, Angela De La Garza

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

A Constitutional Right To A Functioning United States Government? Are Government Shutdowns Unconstitutional?, Allen Shoenberger

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Clark Memorandum: Fall 2020, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• A Feast of Fat Things
• And When He Came to Himself
• No Other Gods Before Me
• The Economics of Goodness

Read on Issuu

State Enforcement In A Polycentric World, David A. Hyman, William E. Kovacic

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Corpus Linguistics And Gun Control: Why Heller Is Wrong, Kyra Babcock Woods

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

It’S Whose Party? Accurately Defining Political Parties In First Amendment Cases, Makade Claypool

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Invasion Of The Content-Neutrality Rule, William D. Araiza

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Clark Memorandum: Spring 2020, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• Of Rights and Responsibilities: The Social Ecosystem of Religious Freedom
• I am the Woman Who Can
• Flashes of Light: Thoughts on Circumstantial Evidence
• Capital Markets and Human Flourishing

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Presidential Immunity From Prosecution: Tolling The Statute Of Limitations, Margit Livingston

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The Decline Of Denali’S Wolves: Federal Options In The Face Of Non-Cooperative Wildlife Federalism, Catherine Danley

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Association, Extreme Partisan Gerrymandering, Justiciability And The Unmistakable Political Question Controversy, L. Darnell Weeden

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The Case Of The Exemption Claimants: Religion, Conscience, And Identity, Steven D. Smith

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Rhetorical Revolution: The Antithesis Of The First Amendment, Eimi Priddis Yildirim

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Fixing Congress, Samuel A. Marcosson

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

A Modest Proposal On Supreme Court Unanimity To Constitutionally Invalidate Laws, Kyle S. Mckay

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

A Modest Proposal On Supreme Court Unanimity To Constitutionally Invalidate Laws, Dwight G. Duncan

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Semantic Originalism, Moral Kinds, And The Meaning Of The Constitution, Ash Mcmurray

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Evidence-Based Jurisprudence Meets Legal Linguistics—Unlikely Blends Made In Germany, Hanjo Hamann, Friedemann Vogel

BYU Law Review

German legal thinking is renowned for its hair-splittingly sophisticated dogmatism. Yet, some of its other contributions to research are frequently overlooked, both at home and abroad. Two such secondary streams recently coalesced into a new corpus-based research approach to legal practice: Empirical legal research (which had already developed in Germany by 1913) and research on language and law (following German pragmatist philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work of 1953). This Article introduces both research traditions in their current German incarnations (Evidence-Based Jurisprudence and Legal Linguistics) and shows how three common features—their pragmatist observation of social practices, their interest in dissecting legal authority, …

Comments On James C. Phillips & Jesse Egbert, Advancing Law And Corpus Linguistics: Importing Principles And Practices From Survey And Content-Analysis Methodologies To Improve Corpus Design And Analysis, Edward Finegan

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Corpus Linguistics As A Tool In Legal Interpretation, Lawrence M. Solan, Tammy Gales

BYU Law Review

In this paper, we set out to explore conditions in which the use of large linguistic corpora can be optimally employed by judges and others tasked with construing authoritative legal documents. Linguistic corpora, sometimes containing billions of words, are a source of information about the distribution of language usage. Thus, corpora and the tools for using them are most likely to assist in addressing legal issues when the law considers the distribution of language usage to be legally relevant. As Thomas R. Lee and Stephen C. Mouritsen have so ably demonstrated in earlier work, corpus analysis is especially helpful when …

A Lawyer’S Introduction To Meaning In The Framework Of Corpus Linguistics, Neal Goldfarb

BYU Law Review

Corpus linguistics is more than just a new tool for legal interpretation. Work in corpus linguistics has generated new ways of thinking about word meaning and about the interpretation of words in context. These insights challenge the assumptions that lawyers and judges generally make about words and their meaning. Although the words that make up a sentence are generally regarded as the basic units of meaning, corpus analysis has shown that in many cases, the meaning of a word as it is used in a given context is a function, not of the word by itself, but of the word’s …

Ordinary Meaning And Corpus Linguistics, Stefan Th. Gries, Brian G. Slocum

BYU Law Review

This Article discusses how corpus analysis, and similar empirically based methods of language study, can help inform judicial assessments about language meaning. We first briefly outline our view of legal language and interpretation in order to underscore the importance of the ordinary meaning doctrine, and thus the relevance of tools such as corpus analysis, to legal interpretation. Despite the heterogeneity of the judicial interpretive process, and the importance of the specific context relevant to the statute at issue, conventions of meaning that cut across contexts are a necessary aspect of legal interpretation. Because ordinary meaning must in some sense be …

Datamining The Meaning(S) Of Progress, Jake Linford

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dictionary As A Specialized Corpus, Jennifer L. Mascott

BYU Law Review

Scholars consider reliance on dictionary definitions to be the antithesis of objective, big-data analysis of ordinary meaning. This Article contests that notion, arguing that when dictionaries are treated as a specialized database, or corpus, they provide invaluable textured understanding of a term. Words appear in dictionaries both as terms being defined and as terms defining other words. Examination of every reference to a contested term throughout a dictionary’s definitional entries of other words may substantially benefit statutory and constitutional interpretation. Because dictionaries catalog language, their use as a specialized corpus provides invaluable insight into the ways a particular word is …

Advancing Law And Corpus Linguistics: Importing Principles And Practices From Survey And Content Analysis Methodologies To Improve Corpus Design And Analysis, James C. Phillips, Jesse Egbert

BYU Law Review

The nascent field of law and corpus linguistics has much to offer legal interpretation. But to do so, it must more fully incorporate principles from survey and content-analysis methodologies used in the social sciences. Importing such will provide greater rigor, transparency, reproducibility, and accuracy in the important quest to determine the meaning of the law. This Article highlights some of those principles to provide a best- practices guide to those seeking to perform law and corpus linguistic analysis.

Triangulating Public Meaning: Corpus Linguistics, Immersion, And The Constitutional Record, Lawrence B. Solum

BYU Law Review

This Article contributes to the development of an originalist methodology by making the case for an approach that employs three distinct methods, each of which serves as a basis for confirming or questioning the results reached by the other two. This approach will be called the Method of Triangulation. The three component techniques are as follows: 1. The Method of Corpus Linguistics: The method of corpus linguistics employs large-scale data sets (corpora) that provide evidence of linguistic practice. 2. The Originalist Method of Immersion: The method of immersion requires researchers to immerse themselves in the linguistic and conceptual world of …

The Original Meaning Of “Religion” In The First Amendment: A Test Case Of Originalism’S Utilization Of Corpus Linguistics, Lee J. Strang

BYU Law Review

Originalism is the theory of constitutional interpretation that identifies the constitutional text’s public meaning when it was ratified as its authoritative meaning. Corpus linguistics is the study of word-use regularities and patterns, primarily in written texts. In a prior article, I argued that originalists should utilize corpus linguistics to facilitate originalism’s capacity to accurately uncover this original meaning. However, my arguments there were theoretical; this Essay provides a “test case” of corpus linguistics’ capacity to increase originalism’s methodological accuracy. This Essay accomplishes three modest goals. First, it provides a practical example of the application of corpus linguistics to originalism. This …