Download or read book The Politics of Judicial Interpretation written by Robert J. Kaczorowski and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark work of Constitutional and legal history is the leading account of the ways in which federal judges, attorneys, and other law officers defined a new era of civil and political rights in the South and implemented the revolutionary 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments during Reconstruction.
Download or read book Keeping Faith with the Constitution written by Goodwin Liu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a constitution "requires that only its great outlines should be marked [and] its important objects designated." Ours is "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." In recent years, Marshall's great truths have been challenged by proponents of originalism and strict construction. Such legal thinkers as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argue that the Constitution must be construed and applied as it was when the Framers wrote it. In Keeping Faith with the Constitution, three legal authorities make the case for Marshall's vision. They describe their approach as "constitutional fidelity"--not to how the Framers would have applied the Constitution, but to the text and principles of the Constitution itself. The original understanding of the text is one source of interpretation, but not the only one; to preserve the meaning and authority of the document, to keep it vital, applications of the Constitution must be shaped by precedent, historical experience, practical consequence, and societal change. The authors range across the history of constitutional interpretation to show how this approach has been the source of our greatest advances, from Brown v. Board of Education to the New Deal, from the Miranda decision to the expansion of women's rights. They delve into the complexities of voting rights, the malapportionment of legislative districts, speech freedoms, civil liberties and the War on Terror, and the evolution of checks and balances. The Constitution's framers could never have imagined DNA, global warming, or even women's equality. Yet these and many more realities shape our lives and outlook. Our Constitution will remain vital into our changing future, the authors write, if judges remain true to this rich tradition of adaptation and fidelity.
Download or read book Judicial Interpretation of Political Theory written by William Bennett Bizzell and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Constitutional Interpretation written by Keith E. Whittington and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its detailed and wide-ranging explorations in history, philosophy, and law, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in how the Constitution ought to be interpreted and what it means to live under a constitutional government."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book A Matter of Interpretation written by Elizabeth Mac Donald and published by . This book was released on 2021-06 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 13th-century Europe and a young monk, Michael Scot, has been asked by the Holy Roman Emperor to translate the works of Aristotle and recover his "lost" knowledge. The Scot sets to his task, traveling from the Emperor's Italian court to the translation schools of Toledo and from there to the Moorish library of Córdoba. But when the Pope deems the translations heretical, the Scot refuses to desist. So begins a battle for power between Church and State--one that has shaped how we view the world today.
Download or read book Politics and the Constitution written by Judith A. Baer and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Politics of Judicial Independence written by Bruce Peabody and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2011 Winner of the Selection for Professional Reading List of the U.S. Marine Corps The judiciary in the United States has been subject in recent years to increasingly vocal, aggressive criticism by media members, activists, and public officials at the federal, state, and local level. This collection probes whether these attacks as well as proposals for reform represent threats to judicial independence or the normal, even healthy, operation of our political system. In addressing this central question, the volume integrates new scholarship, current events, and the perennial concerns of political science and law. The contributors—policy experts, established and emerging scholars, and attorneys—provide varied scholarly viewpoints and assess the issue of judicial independence from the diverging perspectives of Congress, the presidency, and public opinion. Through a diverse range of methodologies, the chapters explore the interactions and tensions among these three interests and the courts and discuss how these conflicts are expressed—and competing interests accommodated. In doing so, they ponder whether the U.S. courts are indeed experiencing anything new and whether anti-judicial rhetoric affords fresh insights. Case studies from Israel, the United Kingdom, and Australia provide a comparative view of judicial controversy in other democratic nations. A unique assessment of the rise of criticism aimed at the judiciary in the United States, The Politics of Judicial Independence is a well-organized and engagingly written text designed especially for students. Instructors of judicial process and judicial policymaking will find the book, along with the materials and resources on its accompanying website, readily adaptable for classroom use.
Download or read book Are Judges Political written by Cass R. Sunstein and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007-02-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past two decades, the United States has seen an intense debate about the composition of the federal judiciary. Are judges "activists"? Should they stop "legislating from the bench"? Are they abusing their authority? Or are they protecting fundamental rights, in a way that is indispensable in a free society? Are Judges Political? cuts through the noise by looking at what judges actually do. Drawing on a unique data set consisting of thousands of judicial votes, Cass Sunstein and his colleagues analyze the influence of ideology on judicial voting, principally in the courts of appeal. They focus on two questions: Do judges appointed by Republican Presidents vote differently from Democratic appointees in ideologically contested cases? And do judges vote differently depending on the ideological leanings of the other judges hearing the same case? After examining votes on a broad range of issues--including abortion, affirmative action, and capital punishment--the authors do more than just confirm that Democratic and Republican appointees often vote in different ways. They inject precision into an all-too-often impressionistic debate by quantifying this effect and analyzing the conditions under which it holds. This approach sometimes generates surprising results: under certain conditions, for example, Democrat-appointed judges turn out to have more conservative voting patterns than Republican appointees. As a general rule, ideology should not and does not affect legal judgments. Frequently, the law is clear and judges simply implement it, whatever their political commitments. But what happens when the law is unclear? Are Judges Political? addresses this vital question.
Download or read book A Matter of Interpretation written by Antonin Scalia and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are all familiar with the image of the immensely clever judge who discerns the best rule of common law for the case at hand. According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a judge like this can maneuver through earlier cases to achieve the desired aim—"distinguishing one prior case on his left, straight-arming another one on his right, high-stepping away from another precedent about to tackle him from the rear, until (bravo!) he reaches the goal—good law." But is this common-law mindset, which is appropriate in its place, suitable also in statutory and constitutional interpretation? In a witty and trenchant essay, Justice Scalia answers this question with a resounding negative. In exploring the neglected art of statutory interpretation, Scalia urges that judges resist the temptation to use legislative intention and legislative history. In his view, it is incompatible with democratic government to allow the meaning of a statute to be determined by what the judges think the lawgivers meant rather than by what the legislature actually promulgated. Eschewing the judicial lawmaking that is the essence of common law, judges should interpret statutes and regulations by focusing on the text itself. Scalia then extends this principle to constitutional law. He proposes that we abandon the notion of an everchanging Constitution and pay attention to the Constitution's original meaning. Although not subscribing to the “strict constructionism” that would prevent applying the Constitution to modern circumstances, Scalia emphatically rejects the idea that judges can properly “smuggle” in new rights or deny old rights by using the Due Process Clause, for instance. In fact, such judicial discretion might lead to the destruction of the Bill of Rights if a majority of the judges ever wished to reach that most undesirable of goals. This essay is followed by four commentaries by Professors Gordon Wood, Laurence Tribe, Mary Ann Glendon, and Ronald Dworkin, who engage Justice Scalia’s ideas about judicial interpretation from varying standpoints. In the spirit of debate, Justice Scalia responds to these critics. Featuring a new foreword that discusses Scalia’s impact, jurisprudence, and legacy, this witty and trenchant exchange illuminates the brilliance of one of the most influential legal minds of our time.
Download or read book Interpreting the Constitution written by Kent Greenawalt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-04 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third volume about legal interpretation focuses on the interpretation of a constitution, most specifically that of the United States of America. In what may be unique, it combines a generalized account of various claims and possibilities with an examination of major domains of American constitutional law. This demonstrates convincingly that the book's major themes not only can be supported by individual examples, but are undeniably in accord with the continuing practice of the United States Supreme Court over time, and cannot be dismissed as misguided. The book's central thesis is that strategies of constitutional interpretation cannot be simple, that judges must take account of multiple factors not systematically reducible to any clear ordering. For any constitution that lasts over centuries and is hard to amend, original understanding cannot be completely determinative. To discern what that is, both how informed readers grasped a provision and what were the enactors' aims matter. Indeed, distinguishing these is usually extremely difficult, and often neither is really discernible. As time passes what modern citizens understand becomes important, diminishing the significance of original understanding. Simple versions of textualist originalism neither reflect what has taken place nor is really supportable. The focus on specific provisions shows, among other things, the obstacles to discerning original understanding, and why the original sense of proper interpretation should itself carry importance. For applying the Bill of Rights to states, conceptions conceived when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted should take priority over those in 1791. But practically, for courts, to interpret provisions differently for the federal and state governments would be highly unwise. The scope of various provisions, such as those regarding free speech and cruel and unusual punishment, have expanded hugely since both 1791 and 1865. And questions such as how much deference judges should accord the political branches depend greatly on what provisions and issues are involved. Even with respect to single provisions, such as the Free Speech Clause, interpretive approaches have sensibly varied, greatly depending on the more particular subjects involved. How much deference judges should accord political actors also depends critically on the kind of issue involved.
Download or read book The Rise of Modern Judicial Review written by Christopher Wolfe and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 1994-03-29 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This major history of judicial review, revised to include the Rehnquist court, shows how modern courts have used their power to create new "rights with fateful political consequences." Originally published by Basic Books.
Download or read book Judgment Calls written by Daniel A. Farber and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Judgment Calls, Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry present a fresh perspective on judicial review, taking aim at those who see only two types of approaches to judicial decisions: one based on constitutional law and one based on raw politics. Building on their previous book Beyond All Reason, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, this volume is a similarly incisive challenge to some of the dominant tenets in mainstream legal studies and is sure to inspire debate. The authors aim to reconcile the democratic rule of law with the recognition that judges have discretion. The book takes on the problem of how the Supreme Court can operate in a principled way even in hard, politically charged cases where the legal materials fail to point unambiguously to a single outcome. Throughout, they describe the inherent constraints that keep judges from merely imposing their will, suggest standards for evaluating judicial performance, and make substantial suggestions for improvement. They close with a careful examination of the Supreme Court's controversial cases on the most pressing sociopolitical issues of recent times: the War on Terrorism, abortion, and affirmative action. Timely, trenchant, and carefully argued, Judgment Calls is a welcome addition to the literature on the intersection of constitutional interpretation and American politics.
Download or read book The United States Supreme Court written by Robert McKeever and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-04 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US Supreme Court is arguably the most controversial institution in the American political system. Decisions on such 'hot-button' issues as abortion, race equality, the death penalty and gay marriage have sharply divided the Court, politicians and public opinion. Some say that the Justices are merely politicians in judicial robes, while others insist that the Court simply does its best to interpret the Constitution for a society that differs drastically from the late eighteenth century when it was written. All those studying or simply interested in American politics must therefore get to grips with the nature, power and role of the Supreme Court in American politics. This book provides a comprehensive and balanced account, written and organised in an accessible style. It assumes no prior knowledge of the Court or constitutional law, and will help readers to gain a full appreciation of this much-criticised and important institution.
Download or read book The Judicial Interpretation of Political Theory written by William Bizzell and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Party conviction has always been "recognized as an essential qualification for the supreme bench in addition to legal learning and public service." In substantiation of this general observation, the author, in his introduction, points out that "only ardent supporters of a strong federal system were elevated to the bench by Washington and Adams." Unanimity in the early opinions herein finds its explanation. The only apparent exception to the conclusion that party conviction was an essential qualification to a position on the supreme bench the author finds to be in the offer of the chief justiceship to Patrick Henry by President Washington in the fall of 1795-96, despite the fact that Henry had been the ablest and most influential opponent of constitutional ratification in Virginia. The volume reviews the partisan character of many leading cases, including such typical instances as Hepburn v. Griswold, a reversal by the supreme court for which political influence has been held responsible, and the "decisions in the insular cases and the decisions growing out of the Inter-State Commerce Act" which have "carried loose construction to its ultimate limit." Criticisms of the supreme court have been made from the time of the earlier cases on the power of the courts to declare congressional acts unconstitutional, through the Dred Scott case, the prize cases, the legal tender cases, the income tax decisions, to the criticism of the Democratic platform of 1904 in which the Republican party is held responsible for forcing "strained, unnatural constructions upon the statutes by virtue of its control of the judiciary." The respective chapters include intimate and thorough-going discussions of the judicial power over legislative enactments: theory of constitutional construction; nature of the federal Union; imperialism v. expansion; the theory of internal improvements; the theory of the United States bank; the theory of legal tender; the theory of a protective tariff; the theory of an income tax; the theory of direct legislation; and the theory of the recall of judicial decisions. Of these important and far-reaching problems of our national life, the constitutionality of internal improvements and the constitutionality of the recall of judicial decisions only have not been officially determined by the supreme court of the United States. The volume contains few new facts but it does contain an interesting array of facts, cogently put and interestingly related. "The courts have been able to settle the metes and bounds of practically every [party] issue considered, with the exception of that of slavery." The author extols the "supreme confidence" that the American people have imposed in their federal courts, and finds that "it is fortunate that this confidence exists for it insures the country against riots and civil strife, resulting from heated debate and party antagonism." The volume is valuable because it brings together the legal and constitutional phases of the most prominent planks in partisan platforms, and indicates through its every page the close relation between the federal judicial tribunals and the solution of political, social and economic problems. -Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science [1915]
Download or read book Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy written by Keith E. Whittington and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should the Supreme Court have the last word when it comes to interpreting the Constitution? The justices on the Supreme Court certainly seem to think so--and their critics say that this position threatens democracy. But Keith Whittington argues that the Court's justices have not simply seized power and circumvented politics. The justices have had power thrust upon them--by politicians, for the benefit of politicians. In this sweeping political history of judicial supremacy in America, Whittington shows that presidents and political leaders of all stripes have worked to put the Court on a pedestal and have encouraged its justices to accept the role of ultimate interpreters of the Constitution. Whittington examines why presidents have often found judicial supremacy to be in their best interest, why they have rarely assumed responsibility for interpreting the Constitution, and why constitutional leadership has often been passed to the courts. The unprecedented assertiveness of the Rehnquist Court in striking down acts of Congress is only the most recent example of a development that began with the founding generation itself. Presidential bids for constitutional leadership have been rare, but reflect the temporary political advantage in doing so. Far more often, presidents have cooperated in increasing the Court's power and encouraging its activism. Challenging the conventional wisdom that judges have usurped democracy, Whittington shows that judicial supremacy is the product of democratic politics.
Download or read book The Judicial Process written by Christopher P. Banks and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Judicial Process: Law, Courts, and Judicial Politics is an all-new, concise yet comprehensive core text that introduces students to the nature and significance of the judicial process in the United States and across the globe. It is social scientific in its approach, situating the role of the courts and their impact on public policy within a strong foundation in legal theory, or political jurisprudence, as well as legal scholarship. Authors Christopher P. Banks and David M. O’Brien do not shy away from the politics of the judicial process, and offer unique insight into cutting-edge and highly relevant issues. In its distinctive boxes, “Contemporary Controversies over Courts” and “In Comparative Perspective,” the text examines topics such as the dispute pyramid, the law and morality of same-sex marriages, the “hardball politics” of judicial selection, plea bargaining trends, the right to counsel and “pay as you go” justice, judicial decisions limiting the availability of class actions, constitutional courts in Europe, the judicial role in creating major social change, and the role lawyers, juries and alternative dispute resolution techniques play in the U.S. and throughout the world. Photos, cartoons, charts, and graphs are used throughout the text to facilitate student learning and highlight key aspects of the judicial process.
Download or read book Reading Law written by Antonin Scalia and published by West Publishing Company. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking book, Scalia and Garner systematically explain all the most important principles of constitutional, statutory, and contractual interpretation in an engaging and informative style with hundreds of illustrations from actual cases. Is a burrito a sandwich? Is a corporation entitled to personal privacy? If you trade a gun for drugs, are you using a gun in a drug transaction? The authors grapple with these and dozens of equally curious questions while explaining the most principled, lucid, and reliable techniques for deriving meaning from authoritative texts. Meanwhile, the book takes up some of the most controversial issues in modern jurisprudence. What, exactly, is textualism? Why is strict construction a bad thing? What is the true doctrine of originalism? And which is more important: the spirit of the law, or the letter? The authors write with a well-argued point of view that is definitive yet nuanced, straightforward yet sophisticated.
