Testing Textualism’s “Ordinary Meaning”

Tara Leigh Grove 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1053 The statutory interpretation literature has taken an empirical turn. One recent line of research surveys the public to test whether textualist opinions reached the “right answer” in specific cases—that is, whether textualist judges correctly identified the “ordinary meaning” of federal statutes. This Foreword uses this literature...
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Rectifying Wrongful Convictions Through the Dormant Grand Jury Clause

Colin Miller 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 927 In 1995, Lamar Johnson was convicted of a murder in St. Louis. Twentytwo years later, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner created a Conviction Integrity Unit (“CIU”) to review possible wrongful convictions. After reviewing Johnson’s case, the CIU concluded that Johnson was innocent. Then, consistent with her...
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The Making of the Supreme Court Rules

Scott Dodson 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 866 The reality that rules define institutions is no less applicable to the Supreme Court. Yet the literature on the Supreme Court Rules, and the rulemaking process behind them, is practically nonexistent. Part of the reason is that the rulemaking process for the Supreme Court Rules is a...
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Unoriginal Textualism

Frederick Schauer 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 825 The burgeoning debates about constitutional interpretation show no signs of abating. With surprisingly few exceptions, however, those debates involve a contrast between textualism understood as some form of originalism, on the one hand, and various varieties of less textually focused living constitutionalism on the other. In conflating...
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