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Originalism
In the context of United States law, originalism is a theory of constitutional interpretation that asserts that all statements in the Constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding "at the time it was adopted". This concept views the Constitution as stable from the time of enactment and that the meaning of its contents can be changed only by the steps set out in Article Five.B. Boyce"Originalism and the Fourteenth Amendment" 33 ''Wake Forest L. Rev.'' 909. This notion stands in contrast to the concept of the Living Constitution, which asserts that the Constitution should be interpreted based on the context of current times, even if such interpretation is different from the original interpretations of the document. Originalism should not be confused with strict constructionism. The development of originalism was influenced by Herbert Wechsler's influential lecture on ''Neutral Principles''. The idea that judicial review was distinguished from ordinary pol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1991. After Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court and its longest-serving member since Anthony Kennedy's retirement in 2018. Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia. After his father abandoned the family, he was raised by his grandfather in a poor Gullah community near Savannah. Growing up as a devout Catholic, Thomas originally intended to be a priest in the Catholic Church but was frustrated over the church's insufficient attempts to combat racism. He abandoned his aspiration of becoming a clergyman to attend the College of the Holy Cross and, later, Yale Law School, where he was influenced by a number of conservative authors, notably Thomas Sowell, who dramatically shifted his worldview from progressive to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living Constitution
The Living Constitution, or judicial pragmatism, is the viewpoint that the United States Constitution holds a dynamic meaning that evolves and adapts to new circumstances even if the document is not formally amended. The Constitution is said to develop alongside society's needs and provide a more malleable tool for governments. The idea is associated with views that contemporary society should be considered in the constitutional interpretation of phrases. The Constitution is referred to as the living law of the land as it is transformed according to necessities of the time and the situation. Some supporters of the living method of interpretation, such as professors Michael Kammen and Bruce Ackerman, refer to themselves as organists. The arguments for the Living Constitution vary but can generally be broken into two categories. First, the pragmatist view contends that interpreting the Constitution in accordance with its original meaning or intent is sometimes unacceptable as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amy Coney Barrett
Amy Vivian Coney Barrett (born January 28, 1972) is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The fifth woman to serve on the court, she was nominated by President Donald Trump and has served since October 27, 2020. She was a U.S. circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 2017 to 2020. Before and while serving on the federal bench, she has been a professor of law at Notre Dame Law School, where she has taught civil procedure, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation.Amy Coney Barrett at the , a |
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative wing. For catalyzing an originalist and textualist movement in American law, he has been described as one of the most influential jurists of the twentieth century, and one of the most important justices in the history of the Supreme Court. Scalia was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018 by President Donald Trump, and the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University was named in his honor. Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey. A devout Catholic, he attended Xavier High School before receiving his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University. Scalia went on to graduate from Harvard Law School and spent six ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Bork
Robert Heron Bork (March 1, 1927 – December 19, 2012) was an American jurist who served as the solicitor general of the United States from 1973 to 1977. A professor at Yale Law School by occupation, he later served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the U.S. Senate rejected his nomination after a highly publicized confirmation hearing. Bork was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received both his undergraduate and legal education at the University of Chicago. After working at the law firms of Kirkland & Ellis and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, he served as a professor at Yale Law School. He became a prominent advocate of originalism, calling for judges to adhere to the Framers' original understanding of the United States Constitution. He also became an influential antitrust scholar, arguing that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers and that antit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Original Intent
Original intent is a theory in law concerning constitutional and statutory interpretation. It is frequently used as a synonym for originalism; while original intent is indeed one theory in the originalist family, it has some salient differences which has led originalists from more predominant schools of thought such as original meaning to distinguish original intent as much as legal realists do. Approach Original intent maintains that in interpreting a text, a court should determine what the authors of the text were trying to achieve, and to give effect to what they ''intended'' the statute to accomplish, the actual ''text'' of the legislation notwithstanding. As in purposivism, tools such as legislative history are often used. One example of original intent is in Freeman v. Quicken Loans Inc., 012 The plaintiffs took out mortgage loans from Quicken Loans. In 2008 they sued Quicken Loans arguing that that respondent had violated Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strict Constructionism
In the United States, strict constructionism is a particular legal philosophy of judicial interpretation that limits or restricts such interpretation only to the exact wording of the law (namely the Constitution). Strict sense of the term Strict construction requires a judge to apply the text only as it is written. Once the court has a clear meaning of the text, no further investigation is required. Judges—in this view—should avoid drawing inferences from a statute or constitution and focus only on the text itself. Jurist Hugo Black (1886–1971) argued that the First Amendment's injunction, that ''Congress shall make no law'' (against certain civil liberties), should be construed strictly: ''no law'', thought Black, admits ''no exceptions''. However, "strict construction" is not a synonym for textualism or originalism. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a major proponent of textualism, said that "no one ought to be" a strict constructionist, although to be a strict ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randy Barnett
Randy Evan Barnett (born February 5, 1952) is an American legal scholar. He serves as the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is the director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County States’ Attorney's Office in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize, Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School. Barnett's publications includes eleven books, more than one hundred articles and reviews, as well as numerous op-eds. His most recent book is ''The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit'' (2021) (with Evan Bernick). His other books on the Constitution are ''An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Kn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plain Meaning Rule
The plain meaning rule, also known as the literal rule, is one of three rules of statutory construction traditionally applied by English courts. The other two are the "mischief rule" and the " golden rule". The plain meaning rule dictates that statutes are to be interpreted using the ordinary meaning of the language of the statute. In other words, a statute is to be read word for word and is to be interpreted according to the ordinary meaning of the language, unless a statute explicitly defines some of its terms otherwise or unless the result would be cruel or absurd. Ordinary words are given their ordinary meaning, technical terms are given their technical meaning, and local, cultural terms are recognized as applicable. The plain meaning rule is the mechanism that prevents courts from taking sides in legislative or political issues. Additionally, it is the mechanism that underlies textualism and, to a certain extent, originalism. Meaning To avoid ambiguity, legislatures of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Textualism
Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is primarily based on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law.Keith E. Whittington, Constitutional Interpretation: Textual Meaning, Original Intent, and Judicial Review (2001) . Definition The textualist will "look at the statutory structure and hear the words as they would sound in the mind of a skilled, objectively reasonable user of words." The textualist thus does not give weight to legislative history materials when attempting to ascertain the meaning of a text. Textualism is often erroneously conflated with originalism, and was advocated by United States Supreme Court Justices such as Hugo Black and Antonin Scalia; the latter staked out his claim in his 1997 Tanner Lecture: " tis the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Original Meaning
{{Judicial interpretation In the context of United States constitutional interpretation, original meaning is the dominant form of the legal theory of originalism today. It was made popular by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and contends that the terms of the United States Constitution should be interpreted as meaning what they meant when they were ratified, which is to say, it asks the question: "What would a reasonable person living at the time of ratification have understood these words to mean?" The theory stands in equal opposition to interpretivist theories such as original intent, and legal realist theories such as that of the living Constitution. Theory Original meaning is a formalist theory, and a logical extension of textualism. Textualists believe that a statute means whatever the plain meaning of its words is, as opposed to other potential meanings, such as what those who drafted the law or voted for it ''intended'' it to say. Formalists would point out that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Berger
Raoul Berger (January 4, 1901 – September 23, 2000)Philip_Kurland.html" ;"title="ith Philip Kurland">ith Philip Kurland * ''The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights'' (1989) See also *Living Constitution Notes {{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Raoul 1901 births 2000 deaths 20th-century American Jews American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent American legal scholars American legal writers Harvard Law School faculty University of Cincinnati alumni Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law alumni UC Berkeley School of Law faculty Harvard Law School alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
