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51 Imperfect Solutions

51 Imperfect Solutions PDF Author: Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190866063
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
When we think of constitutional law, we invariably think of the United States Supreme Court and the federal court system. Yet much of our constitutional law is not made at the federal level. In 51 Imperfect Solutions, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton argues that American Constitutional Law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal constitution, in protecting individual liberties. The book tells four stories that arise in four different areas of constitutional law: equal protection; criminal procedure; privacy; and free speech and free exercise of religion. Traditional accounts of these bedrock debates about the relationship of the individual to the state focus on decisions of the United States Supreme Court. But these explanations tell just part of the story. The book corrects this omission by looking at each issue-and some others as well-through the lens of many constitutions, not one constitution; of many courts, not one court; and of all American judges, not federal or state judges. Taken together, the stories reveal a remarkably complex, nuanced, ever-changing federalist system, one that ought to make lawyers and litigants pause before reflexively assuming that the United States Supreme Court alone has all of the answers to the most vexing constitutional questions. If there is a central conviction of the book, it's that an underappreciation of state constitutional law has hurt state and federal law and has undermined the appropriate balance between state and federal courts in protecting individual liberty. In trying to correct this imbalance, the book also offers several ideas for reform.

51 Imperfect Solutions

51 Imperfect Solutions PDF Author: Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190866063
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
When we think of constitutional law, we invariably think of the United States Supreme Court and the federal court system. Yet much of our constitutional law is not made at the federal level. In 51 Imperfect Solutions, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton argues that American Constitutional Law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal constitution, in protecting individual liberties. The book tells four stories that arise in four different areas of constitutional law: equal protection; criminal procedure; privacy; and free speech and free exercise of religion. Traditional accounts of these bedrock debates about the relationship of the individual to the state focus on decisions of the United States Supreme Court. But these explanations tell just part of the story. The book corrects this omission by looking at each issue-and some others as well-through the lens of many constitutions, not one constitution; of many courts, not one court; and of all American judges, not federal or state judges. Taken together, the stories reveal a remarkably complex, nuanced, ever-changing federalist system, one that ought to make lawyers and litigants pause before reflexively assuming that the United States Supreme Court alone has all of the answers to the most vexing constitutional questions. If there is a central conviction of the book, it's that an underappreciation of state constitutional law has hurt state and federal law and has undermined the appropriate balance between state and federal courts in protecting individual liberty. In trying to correct this imbalance, the book also offers several ideas for reform.

Interpreting State Constitutions

Interpreting State Constitutions PDF Author: James A. Gardner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Constitutional law
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
Interpreting State Constitutions examines and proposes a solution to a problem central to contemporary debates over the enforcement of civil liberties: how courts, government officials, and lawyers should go about interpreting the constitutions of the American states. With the Supreme Court's retreat from the aggressive protection of individual rights, state courts have begun to interpret state constitutions to provide broader protection of liberties. This development has reversed the polarity of constitutional politics, as liberals advocate unimpeded state power while conservatives lobby for state subordination to a constitutional law controlled centrally by the Supreme Court. James A. Gardner here lays out the first fully developed theory of subnational constitutional interpretation. He argues that states are integral components of a national system of overlapping and mutually checking authority and that the purpose of this system is to protect liberty and defend against federal domination. The resulting account provides valuable prescriptive advice to state courts, showing them how to fulfill their responsibilities to the federal system in a way that strengthens American constitutional discourse.

Understanding State Constitutions

Understanding State Constitutions PDF Author: G. Alan Tarr
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691070667
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
The distinctiveness of state constitutionalism -- Explaining state constitutional development -- Eighteenth-century state constitutionalism -- Nineteenth-century state constitutionalism -- Twentieth-century state constitutionalism -- State constitutional interpretation.

Interpreting the Constitution

Interpreting the Constitution PDF Author: Kent Greenawalt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190606479
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 512

Book Description
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.

Who Decides?

Who Decides? PDF Author: Jeffrey S. Sutton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197582184
Category : LAW
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
"51 Imperfect Solutions told stories about specific state and federal individual constitutional rights, and explained two benefits of American federalism: how two sources of constitutional protection for liberty and property rights could be valuable to individual freedom and how the state courts could be useful laboratories of innovation when it comes to the development of national constitutional rights. This book tells the other half of the story. Instead of focusing on state constitutional individual rights, this book takes on state constitutional structure. Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? The goal of this book is to tell the structure side of the story and to identify the shifting balances of power revealed when one accounts for American constitutional law as opposed to just federal constitutional law. The book contains three main parts-on the judicial, executive, and legislative branches-as well as stand-alone chapters on home-rule issues raised by local governments and the benefits and burdens raised by the ease of amending state constitutions. A theme in the book is the increasingly stark divide between the ever-more democratic nature of state governments and the ever-less democratic nature of the federal government over time"--

Active Liberty

Active Liberty PDF Author: Stephen Breyer
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307424618
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution’s primary role is to preserve and encourage what he calls “active liberty”: citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitution’s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.

An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States PDF Author: Charles A. Beard
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486140458
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
This classic study — one of the most influential in the area of American economic history — questioned the founding fathers' motivations and prompted new perceptions of the supreme law of the land.

The Law of American State Constitutions

The Law of American State Constitutions PDF Author: Robert Forrest Williams
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190068813
Category : Constitutional law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The second edition of The Law of American State Constitutions provides complete coverage of the legal doctrines surrounding, applying to, and arising from American state constitutions and their judicial interpretation.

United States constitutional law. State constitutions. Statutory construction

United States constitutional law. State constitutions. Statutory construction PDF Author: Albert Hutchinson Putney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Book Description


Interpreting Florida's Constitution

Interpreting Florida's Constitution PDF Author: Patrick John McGinley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781389110306
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
This law school casebook analyzes the Constitution of the State of Florida. It begins with the idea of a state being a "laboratory of democracy" where rights may be expanded or invented within the minimum requirements of the federal constitution. It explores the question of how a state constitution can produce its own jurisprudence in light of the supremacy of the United States Constitution. It outlines the canons of construction for the Florida Constitution. It introduces the concept that a state constitution can be a source of heightened civil liberties and fundamental rights. It explores this issue in greater detail by using the Florida Constitution as an example. It identifies Florida Constitutional rights without an exact parallel to those in the text of the US Constitution and asks whether Florida has taken its own path in interpreting or implementing the identified constitutional rights. It introduces rights enumerated in the text of the Florida Constitution that are not embodied in the text of the US Constitution. In so doing, it compares Florida's approach to those of other state constitutions. It addresses the familiar refrain that unlike the federal constitution a state's constitution is a restriction upon power not a grant of power. It looks at state constitutional criminal procedure by examining the ancient origin of the jury and the recent origin of Florida criminal procedure. Finally, it examines the US Supreme Court's acceptance of a state's inherent police power, and state-by-state differences in zoning and nuisance law, so as to better understand how eminent domain and inverse condemnation may differ under state constitutions such as Florida's. Paperback, approx. 354 pages.