PalePictures Loc: Traveling

One further note...For anyone looking to decipher the Founders intent....
Letter from Jefferson to Madison on the "Bill of Rights"
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0210

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

and that is what I mean by constitutionalist....
"Imagined rights"

ken hubert Loc: Missouri

Frosty Loc: Minnesota

So tell me why the Supreme Court decides the constitutionality of a law. Where does the constitution give the SCOTUS that authority? We have ways to amend the constitution. How was it amended so that they make this decision .....or has the constitution been amended in practice but not by the letter? Explain please?

The meaning and intents of the constitution have changed in many ways.

"The constitution is very vague on many items. For example it is not clear if the prohibitions in the bill of rights apply only to the federal government or does it extend to the other levels also, such as state county and city. We seem to have assumed that it does apply to all levels of government, but a strict interpretation of the constitution may lead to a contrary interpretation.

It is also, for example, vague on what authority the SCOTUS has other than being a court of appeals and some limited primary jurisdiction. Another example is that the constitution does not say that that the SCOTUS has the authority to overturn laws passed by congress, yet it has often done so.

According to a lecture series by Prof. John E. Finn, JD, Phd, of Wesleyan Univ., there are 7 ways the constitution can, is and has been interpreted. Some of these seem the same to me. They are:

1. Textualism---Plain words
2. Founders/Framers Intent--Problem, who wrote the constitution? Several prominent people of the time had input, including Madison, Hamilton, John Jay, some governors and maybe Jefferson although he was in France at the time, but wrote letters.
3. Federalist Papers--Same as above
4. Originalism---What original meaning? Should it reflect the meaning understood by the writer or the people who approved it?
this is also vague
5. Doctrinalism--Over time, doctrines has grown up from rulings in cases that are not in the constitution.
6. Precedent--Similar to the above. The court relies on rulings from previous cases and tries to maintain consistency.
7. Structuralism--No provision should be interpreted on it own. It should be examined in the context of pertaining sections within the entire document.

There is a lot more to say about each of these 7 items but that is not possible here.

In view of what the lecturer, Prof. John E. Finn says, a strict interpretation is not always possible. He says all of these methods have been used by the SCOTUS in making their rulings. A living document is probably the only and best description of the constitution's character."

Added: An example of a case that Prof. Finn uses is the situation where someone sues a city for putting up Christmas decorations. A strict interpretation of the constitution leaves one rather empty handed and the Federalist Papers aren't of much help either.

Frosty Loc: Minnesota

Most everything written here including letters from Jefferson, Madison, Saul Cornell, PalePictures, Frosty, you, Hubert and others is opinion. Why dismiss Cornell and myself by saying it is our opinion??

Frosty Loc: Minnesota

Yes we have imagined rights. The SCOTUS wrote into law that corporations have some of the rights of a person even though the term corporation does not appear in the constitution.
Thus, what rights a corporation has should be determined by the individual states..