This book argues that the Supreme Court performs two functions. The first is to identify the Constitution's idealized "meaning." The second is to develop tests and doctrines to realize that meaning in practice. Bridging the gap between the two--implementing the Constitution--requires moral vision, but also practical wisdom and common sense, ingenuity, and occasionally a willingness to make compromises. In emphasizing the Court's responsibility to make practical judgments, "Implementing the Constitution" takes issue with the two positions that have dominated recent debates about the Court's proper role. Constitutional "originalists" maintain that the Court's essential function is to identify the "original understanding" of constitutional language and then apply it deductively to current problems. This position is both unwise and unworkable, the book argues. It also critiques well-known accounts according to which the Court is concerned almost exclusively with matters of moral and constitutional principle. "Implementing the Constitution" bridges the worlds of constitutional theory, political theory, and constitutional practice. It illuminates the Supreme Court's decision of actual cases and its development of well-known doctrines. It is a doctrinal study that yields jurisprudential insights and a contribution to constitutional theory that is closely tied to actual judicial practice.
Harvard law professor Richard H. Fallon introduces non-lawyers to the workings of American constitutional law. He writes with clarity about leading constitutional doctrines and issues, including the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the guarantee of equal protection, rights to fair procedures, and rights to privacy and sexual autonomy.
What does it mean to have a constitutional right in an era in which most rights must yield to 'compelling governmental interests'? After recounting the little-known history of the invention of the compelling-interest formula during the 1960s, The Nature of Constitutional Rights examines what must be true about constitutional rights for them to be identified and enforced via 'strict scrutiny' and other, similar, judge-crafted tests. The book's answers not only enrich philosophical understanding of the concept of a 'right', but also produce important practical payoffs. Its insights should affect how courts decide cases and how citizens should think about the judicial role. Contributing to the conversation between originalists and legal realists, Richard H. Fallon, Jr explains what constitutional rights are, what courts must do to identify them, and why the protections that they afford are more limited than most people think.
In this revised and updated second edition of The Dynamic Constitution, Richard H. Fallon, Jr., provides an engaging, sophisticated introduction to American constitutional law. Suitable for lawyers and non-lawyers alike, this book discusses contemporary constitutional doctrine involving such issues as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rights to privacy and sexual autonomy, the death penalty, and the powers of Congress. Through examples of Supreme Court cases and portraits of past and present Justices, this book dramatizes the historical and cultural factors that have shaped constitutional law. The Dynamic Constitution, Second Edition combines detailed explication of current doctrine with insightful analysis of the political culture and theoretical debates in which constitutional practice is situated. Professor Fallon uses insights from political science to explain some aspects of constitutional evolution and emphasizes features of the judicial process that distinguish constitutional law from ordinary politics.
In this revised second edition of The Dynamic Constitution, Richard H. Fallon, Jr provides an engaging, sophisticated introduction to American constitutional law.
The book addresses questions about the roles of law and politics and the challenge of legitimacy in constitutional adjudication in the Supreme Court. With all sophisticated observers recognizing that the Justices' political outlooks influence their decision making, many political scientists, some of the public, and a few prominent judges have become Cynical Realists. In their view Justices vote based on their policy preferences, and legal reasoning is mere window-dressing. This book rejects Cynical Realism, but without denying many Realist insights. It explains the limits of language and history in resolving contentious constitutional issues. To rescue the notion that the Constitution is law that binds the Justices, the book provides an original account of what law is and means in the Supreme Court. It also offers a theory of legitimacy in Supreme Court adjudication. Given the nature of law in the Supreme Court, we need to accept and learn to respect reasonable disagreement about many constitutional issues. If so, the legitimacy question becomes: how would the Justices need to decide cases so that even those who disagree with the outcomes ought to respect the Justices' processes of decision? The book gives a fresh and counterintuitive answer to that vital question. Adapting a methodology made famous by John Rawls, it argues that the Justices should strive to achieve a "reflective equilibrium" between their interpretive principles, framed to identify the Constitution's enduring meaning, and their judgments about appropriate outcomes in particular cases, evaluated as prescriptions for the nation to live by in the future. The book blends the perspectives of law, philosophy, and political science to answer theoretical and practical questions of pressing national importance"--
Peter MacTeague, president of Brewster College, is a right-wing Economist who once advocated allowing the sale of babies "just like beer and soap." While pressing to make worship of free markets the college creed, as he was handpicked to do, he also launches a campaign for the Senate. Polls show him ahead in his effort to unseat one of the dying breed of Republican moderates by running to his right in the Maine primary on a platform that calls for abolishing the income tax. MacTeague's undoing begins late one night when some drunken students impulsively "kidnap" White, Brewster College's renowned mascot mule, and deposit him on the front porch of the president's house. MacTeague is not home, and his efforts to cover up his whereabouts at the time of the braying mule's delivery start him skidding down the slope to political ruin. Connected plot lines spoof worship of unregulated markets, "politically correct" academic culture, sensation-mongering journalism, and networking among the privileged as this comic romp unfolds. About the author: Richard Fallon has been a professor at Harvard Law School since 1982. He has written numerous books and articles on law, primarily focusing on constitutional law. Stubborn as a Mule is his first novel.
This 2008 Supplement updates the main text with recent developments. Topics discussed include the development and structure of the federal judicial system; cases and controversies; the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court; the distribution of judicial power among federal and state courts; review of state court decisions by the Supreme Court; civil actions in the district courts; federal common law; jurisdiction of the district courts; suits challenging official action; limitations on district court jurisdiction; federal habeas corpus; problems of district court jurisdiction; and appellate review of federal decisions.
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