OrCon Law

Some notes on Antonin Scalia's book A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law, Princeton Univ. Press (1997)

In 1997, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote an essay on judicial interpretation that was then responded to by the historian, Gordon S. Wood, and by law professors, Laurence Tribe, Mary Ann Glendon, and Ronald Dworkin.  The editor and author of the preface was political scientist, and now President of Princeton, Amy Gutmann.  I have tried to summarize Scalia's essay (not the respondents' pieces) and you can access that summary just ahead. The words and thoughts in the summary are Scalia's unless they appear in [brackets].Download con_law_scalia_a_matter_of_interpretation.doc

"Book Review" of Stephen Breyer's new book, "Active Liberty"

This isn't exactly a book review of Justice Breyer's new book, Active Liberty:  Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution, Knopf (2005), but it is an interpretive summary of the kind that I sometimes do for my own files of a book that I think is worth understanding.  So, if you would like a preview of the book or a sort of Cliff (Les) Notes version then click here to Download con_law_active_liberty.doc