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The Original Understanding of Original Intent

TL;DR: Powell as mentioned in this paper examined the historical validity of the claim that the framers of the Constitution expected future interpreters to seek the meaning of the document in the framer's intent.
Abstract: When interpreting the Constitution, judges and commentators often invoke the “original intent of the framers” in support of their positions. Many claim that such an interpretive strategy is not only currently desirable, but indeed was the expectation of the Constitution’s drafters and early interpreters. In this Article, Professor Powell examines the historical validity of the claim that the framers of the Constitution expected future interpreters to seek the meaning of the document in the framers’ intent. He first examines the various cultural traditions that influenced legal interpretation at the time of the Constitution’s birth. Turning to the history of the Constitution’s framing, ratification, and early interpretation, Professor Powell argues that although early constitutional discourse did contain references to “original intention” and the “intent of the framers,” the meaning of such terms was markedly different from their current usage. He concludes that modern resort to the “intent of the framers” can gain no support from the assertion that such was the framers’ expectation, for the framers themselves did not believe such an interpretive strategy to be appropriate.
Citations
More filters
Book
27 Mar 2005

188 citations

Book
31 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this article, the text, editions, and translations introduction chronology selected readings table of regnal years index is presented. But they do not provide translations of the selected readings tables.
Abstract: Note on the text, editions, and translations introduction chronology selected readings table of regnal years index.

78 citations

Book
10 May 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the role of various legal mechanisms, norms, and concepts in shaping, legitimizing, and responding to the Israeli control regime has been studied, while shedding new light on the subject.
Abstract: Israel's half-a-century long rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and some of its surrounding legal issues, have been the subject of extensive academic literature. Yet, to date, there has been no comprehensive, theoretically-informed, and empirically-based academic study of the role of various legal mechanisms, norms, and concepts in shaping, legitimizing, and responding to the Israeli control regime. This book seeks to fill this gap, while shedding new light on the subject. Through the format of an A-Z legal lexicon, it critically reflects on, challenges, and redefines the language, knowledge, and practices surrounding the Israeli control regime. Taken together, the entries illuminate the relation between global and local forces - legal, political, and cultural - in Israel and Palestine. The study of the terms involved provides insights that are relevant to other situations elsewhere in the world, particularly with regard to belligerent occupation, the law's role in relation to state violence, and justice.

68 citations

DissertationDOI
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a series of acknowledgments and acknowledgments for the work of this paper. But they do not discuss the authorship of the authors' work.
Abstract: ................................................................................................................................i Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................ii Nota Bene ...........................................................................................................................iii Preamble: ..............................................................................................................................

67 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: Shapiro et al. as mentioned in this paper presented a list of the 100 most cited legal articles of all time, the top twenty most cited articles of the last twenty years, and some additional rankings.
Abstract: This Essay updates two well-known earlier studies (dated 1985 and 1996) by the first coauthor, setting forth lists of the most-cited law review articles. New research tools from the HeinOnline and Web of Science databases now allow lists to be compiled that are more thorough and more accurate than anything previously possible. Tables printed here present the 100 most-cited legal articles of all time, the 100 most-cited articles of the last twenty years, and some additional rankings. Characteristics of the top-ranked publications, authors, and law schools are analyzed as are trends in schools of legal thought. Data from the all-time rankings shed light on contributions to legal scholarship made over a long historical span; the recent-article rankings speak more to the impact of scholarship produced in the current era. The authors discuss alternative tools and metrics for measuring the impact of legal scholarship, running selected articles from the rankings through these tools to serve as points of illustration. The authors then contemplate how these alternative tools and metrics intersect with traditional citation studies and how they might impact legal scholarship in the future.I. Previous Studies and Rationale (Shapiro)This is the third in a series of studies that I have authored enumerating the most-cited legal articles-that is, the articles most often cited within other articles.1 The two previous installments attracted considerable attention in both the legal community and the general media. Jack Balkin and Sanford Levinson wrote, "Fred Shapiro can lay claim to be the founding father of a new and peculiar discipline: 'legal citology.' "2 The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page profile of me based on the citation rankings,3 popularizing Balkin and Levinson's term "citology" to the point where Britain's Guardian newspaper included the term in a glossary of new words of the 1990s.4 Herma Hill Kay, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, hailed my work:Footnotes nowadays are not phony excrescences; they are the raw data used by the hottest new school of legal scholarship, the citation analysts. These bibliotechs have shown once and for all that nobody reads the text of other people's articles anyway. Anybody who is anybody in any field you care to name has already said the same thing in different words a dozen times before. There is nothing new under the sun. The only thing that is important is who cites whom. If you're cited, that means you're identified as a player in the game: a scholar of significance.5I also published a more specific "most-cited" compilation listing the top thirty articles from the Yale Law Journal on the occasion of that law review's centennial.6 Without claiming too much significance for citology, I described citology as more than a mere parlor game and as a potentially useful tool for studying the impact of scholarship:Citation analysis is now extensively used by information scientists and sociologists to study the history and structure of the natural sciences and other disciplines . . . .. . . Authors too have been evaluated through tabulation of citations to their writings. Citation counts have been utilized in assessing scholars' work for purposes of grant awards, tenure, or promotion decisions.Those using citation data for evaluative purposes have justified such use by pointing to research demonstrating a high correlation between the total of citations to a scientist's or scholar's writings and judgments by peers of the " 'productivity,' 'significance,' 'quality,' 'utility,' 'influence,' 'effectiveness,' or 'impact' of scientists and their scholarly products." One investigator has gone so far as to say that "citations and peer ratings appear to be virtually the same measurement."Almost all citation analysts, however, are careful to note that citation counts measure a "quality" which is socially defined, reflecting the utility of the writing in question to other scholars, rather than gauging its intrinsic merit. …

63 citations

References
More filters
Book
27 Mar 2005

188 citations

Book
31 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this article, the text, editions, and translations introduction chronology selected readings table of regnal years index is presented. But they do not provide translations of the selected readings tables.
Abstract: Note on the text, editions, and translations introduction chronology selected readings table of regnal years index.

78 citations

Book
10 May 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the role of various legal mechanisms, norms, and concepts in shaping, legitimizing, and responding to the Israeli control regime has been studied, while shedding new light on the subject.
Abstract: Israel's half-a-century long rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and some of its surrounding legal issues, have been the subject of extensive academic literature. Yet, to date, there has been no comprehensive, theoretically-informed, and empirically-based academic study of the role of various legal mechanisms, norms, and concepts in shaping, legitimizing, and responding to the Israeli control regime. This book seeks to fill this gap, while shedding new light on the subject. Through the format of an A-Z legal lexicon, it critically reflects on, challenges, and redefines the language, knowledge, and practices surrounding the Israeli control regime. Taken together, the entries illuminate the relation between global and local forces - legal, political, and cultural - in Israel and Palestine. The study of the terms involved provides insights that are relevant to other situations elsewhere in the world, particularly with regard to belligerent occupation, the law's role in relation to state violence, and justice.

68 citations

DissertationDOI
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a series of acknowledgments and acknowledgments for the work of this paper. But they do not discuss the authorship of the authors' work.
Abstract: ................................................................................................................................i Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................ii Nota Bene ...........................................................................................................................iii Preamble: ..............................................................................................................................

67 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: Shapiro et al. as mentioned in this paper presented a list of the 100 most cited legal articles of all time, the top twenty most cited articles of the last twenty years, and some additional rankings.
Abstract: This Essay updates two well-known earlier studies (dated 1985 and 1996) by the first coauthor, setting forth lists of the most-cited law review articles. New research tools from the HeinOnline and Web of Science databases now allow lists to be compiled that are more thorough and more accurate than anything previously possible. Tables printed here present the 100 most-cited legal articles of all time, the 100 most-cited articles of the last twenty years, and some additional rankings. Characteristics of the top-ranked publications, authors, and law schools are analyzed as are trends in schools of legal thought. Data from the all-time rankings shed light on contributions to legal scholarship made over a long historical span; the recent-article rankings speak more to the impact of scholarship produced in the current era. The authors discuss alternative tools and metrics for measuring the impact of legal scholarship, running selected articles from the rankings through these tools to serve as points of illustration. The authors then contemplate how these alternative tools and metrics intersect with traditional citation studies and how they might impact legal scholarship in the future.I. Previous Studies and Rationale (Shapiro)This is the third in a series of studies that I have authored enumerating the most-cited legal articles-that is, the articles most often cited within other articles.1 The two previous installments attracted considerable attention in both the legal community and the general media. Jack Balkin and Sanford Levinson wrote, "Fred Shapiro can lay claim to be the founding father of a new and peculiar discipline: 'legal citology.' "2 The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page profile of me based on the citation rankings,3 popularizing Balkin and Levinson's term "citology" to the point where Britain's Guardian newspaper included the term in a glossary of new words of the 1990s.4 Herma Hill Kay, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, hailed my work:Footnotes nowadays are not phony excrescences; they are the raw data used by the hottest new school of legal scholarship, the citation analysts. These bibliotechs have shown once and for all that nobody reads the text of other people's articles anyway. Anybody who is anybody in any field you care to name has already said the same thing in different words a dozen times before. There is nothing new under the sun. The only thing that is important is who cites whom. If you're cited, that means you're identified as a player in the game: a scholar of significance.5I also published a more specific "most-cited" compilation listing the top thirty articles from the Yale Law Journal on the occasion of that law review's centennial.6 Without claiming too much significance for citology, I described citology as more than a mere parlor game and as a potentially useful tool for studying the impact of scholarship:Citation analysis is now extensively used by information scientists and sociologists to study the history and structure of the natural sciences and other disciplines . . . .. . . Authors too have been evaluated through tabulation of citations to their writings. Citation counts have been utilized in assessing scholars' work for purposes of grant awards, tenure, or promotion decisions.Those using citation data for evaluative purposes have justified such use by pointing to research demonstrating a high correlation between the total of citations to a scientist's or scholar's writings and judgments by peers of the " 'productivity,' 'significance,' 'quality,' 'utility,' 'influence,' 'effectiveness,' or 'impact' of scientists and their scholarly products." One investigator has gone so far as to say that "citations and peer ratings appear to be virtually the same measurement."Almost all citation analysts, however, are careful to note that citation counts measure a "quality" which is socially defined, reflecting the utility of the writing in question to other scholars, rather than gauging its intrinsic merit. …

63 citations