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Interpreting the constitution
Constitution ambiguity and interpretation
Constitutional interpretation
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Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton N.J. on March 11, 1936. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1960 and later taught law at the University of Virginia from 1967 to 1971. He was also a professor at the University of Chicago from 1977 to 1982. He was appointed to the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan. Four years later he was nominated to the United States Supreme Court by Reagan, taking the seat previously held by William Rehnquist ascended to the position of chief justice. Scalia was sometimes referred to as the first chief justice of Italian-American descent, but he is also known as the first Roman Catholic to be appointed to the nation's highest court since William J. Brennan. Scalia …show more content…
This was in direct conflict with the more commonly held view that the Constitution is a "living document," allowing courts to take into account the views of contemporary society. In Justice Scalia's view, the Constitution was not supposed to facilitate change but to obstruct change to citizens' basic fundamental rights and responsibilities. Justice Scalia despised "judicial activism," which is when judges substitute their own political opinions for the law, or when judges act like a legislature from the bench rather than a traditional court. Scalia believed the place for implementing change was in the legislature, where the will of the people are …show more content…
Basically, the principles in the Constitution are vague. It would have been impossible for the framers to have written out every possible situation and explained how the principles applied to that situation. Furthermore, such a complex code would barely be understood by the public. For that reason they are general principles and from there we infer particular applications. For example, although the First Amendment only explicitly mentions speech and press, we include things like handwritten letters and now
An interesting chief of justice is John Roberts. Reason for this being is that he has participated in many important case in which have related to the violation of the first amendment. Chief Justice Roberts has had a successful start to his career and will be known for his very interesting cases and arguments.
After the American Revolution, America had earned it’s freedom from Britain. In order to govern this new country the Articles of Confederation was created. This document was flawed by the colonists fear of putting too much power into a central government. Knowing the document needed to be fixed a constitutional convention was called. The document created at this convention has been our constitution ever since. But even the Constitution was meet with criticism. One major concern when writing the constitution was how to protect the citizens rights. The Constitution did this through the preamble, the legislative process, the limit of presidential terms, the judicial branch, and the bill of rights.
The Bill of Rights the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, ratified in 1791 and guaranteeing such rights as the freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship. These were the basic principles of the Bill of rights. These were the principles that American people was fighting for in the Revolutionary war. In the summer of 1787 thirteen delegates got together and came up with the Constitution. As things progressed they found out that the Constitution was deeply flawed and they needed to find a way to correct the problems that they had.
To this day, Americans have many rights and privileges. Rights stated in the United States constitution may be simple and to the point, but the rights Americans have may cause debate to whether or not something that happens in society, is completely reasonable. The Texas v. Johnson case created much debate due to a burning of the American Flag. One may say the burning of the flag was tolerable because of the rights citizens of the United States have, another may say it was not acceptable due to what the American flag symbolizes for America. (Brennan and Stevens 1). Johnson was outside of his First Amendment rights, and the burning of the American flag was unjust due to what the flag means to America.
Judicial Restraint- judges should decide cases on the basis of the original intent of those who wrote the Constitution
The Great Chief Justice: John Marshall and the Rule of Law by Charles F. Hobson examines the judicial career of John Marshall, as well as the legal culture that helped to shape his political beliefs and his major constitutional opinions. The author sources much of his information from the formal opinions that Marshall issued during his judicial career. From these writings, Hobson presents Marshall 's views on law and government and provides explanations for what in Marshall 's life influenced those beliefs.
There are two major ways that the Constitution is interpreted. One of which is called the “Strict Constitution” of national law, an example of this would be the “Dred Scott decision. The other way is the federalist position, where the Constitution grants broad power to the federal government. Two great examples of this type of interpretation were Chief Justices John Marshall and Earl Warren.
...to which Constant referred. Breyer explained that things can be defined in themes so he said that his theme is “active liberty” – which resonates throughout the Constitution. While on the other hand Justice Antonin Scalia believes that a text should be construed strictly, and it should be not be construed leniently; it should be construed reasonably, to contain all that it fairly means. Scalia also stated that if that logic fails to produce what in the view of the current Supreme Court is the desirable result for the case at hand, then, like good common law judges, the court will distinguish its precedents, or narrow them, or if all else fails overrule them, in order that the Constitution might mean.
There are several key constitutional principles, such as popular sovereignty, federalism, republicanism, individual rights, and so on. The United States is a democracy and residences are considered the source of the government powers. Since America is well known for freedom, it is obvious that the government does not have powers to control everything. Limited government is another type of the constitutional principles as well.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Chief Justice John Marshall affected the American Judicial System. The reader will therefore first find a brief biography of John Marshall. Then the paper will explain in detail the origins of the Judicial Power to subsequently...
Judicial disagreements, conservative versus liberal or restraint versus activism, will continue to characterize the nature of the land’s highest court. Regardless, the Supreme Court will continue to serve as a “referee” regarding the actions of the executive and legislative branches. The battle between judicial restraint and judicial activism has been a significant part of United States Supreme Court history, and the conflict will epitomize President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination
The framers of our great nation all had their own interpretation of how the States should run and after many proceedings, debates and ratifications; the Constitution was born. Too many, there are aspects of the law that cannot be understood simply by reading that document. Much of the confusing interpretations to this document are in part because of customs in the early establishments of the States. Additionally, state and federal laws have been filled in due to the absence of details that were left vague or because the meaning of words and phrases have changed over time. Because of this, the Constitution is continually reinterpreted as it is applied to concrete situations. There are numerous methods for interpreting the Constitution. Through the centuries, legal scholars and justices have advocated to fit the needs of specific cases. The most prominent methods include those that rely on textual interpretation, original intent, precedent, constitutional principles, logical reasoning, or the living constitution. Many judges rely on a combination of these methods to reach their decisions. (Constitutional Interpretation, 2015). In American History. Retrieved from
In today 's world, there are a lot of hot topics in the world of politics and social standings. Some that have been issues for decades. A great example is gun control that can be traced back to the 1939 case of "US vs Miller" that dealt with the where the line was drawn for the 2nd amendment. Some, however, are debates that have sparked up more recently like cell phone privacy. Regardless, many of these cases that are talked about so much today can be traced back to court cases dating back to 1857. All of them hold something in common, the fact that they attempt to most perfectly define the writing of the constitution. All Supreme Court decisions try their best to balance the two sides of a cases: Individual rights and the common good of everyone.
The United States constitution is said to be unique compared to any other forms of law. There are four ideal concepts that set the constitution apart from any other law. The four ideal concepts is representative-democracy, federalism, separation of powers, and interpretation (Marks; 9/8/16). All of these concepts were different from the other world governments at the time in 1787. Most likely taking influence from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke, the U.S. constitution tries to establish trust between the people and the government. It sets up limitations, functions, hierarchies, and constant debate. The constitution serves as a benchmark and a reference point to see what the government can and cannot do.
The term ‘judicial activism’ means a court decision suspected of being built or based on individual, political or private reflections instead of the actual law. In America, judicial activism is considered either as conventional or as plentiful. The original retro of American legitimate antiquity was categorized by traditional justice involvement where the Central Supreme Law court was reluctant to allow the conditions or the assembly to permit lawmaking that would control social or financial businesses. Judges should not read between the lines or add their own experiences when it comes to determining what the verdict will be. The United States Constitution is direct, with plainly written sentences and all judges should follow those guidelines.