United States-Supreme Court -- United States-Constitutional Law-interpretation and construction -- Judicial opinions

Indeks : p. 195-201 ; In the Intelligible constitution, Goldstein makes a compelling argument that, in a democracy based upon informed consent, the SUpreme Court has an obligation to communicate clearly and candidly to We the People when it interprets the Constitution. After a fascinating discussion of the language of the Constitution and Supreme Court opinions (including the analysis of Webster), he present a series of opinion studies in important cases, focusing not thought and expression. Using the two Brown v. Board of Education cases, Cooper v. Aaron, Regents of the University of Californiav. Bakke, and others as his examples, Goldstein demonstrates the pitfalls to which the Court has succumbed in the past: Writing deliberately ambiguos decisions to win the votes of colleagues, challenging each others opinon in private but not in public, and not speaking honeslty when the writer knows a concurring Justice misunderstands the opinion which he or she is supporting. Even some landmark decisions, he writes, have featured seriously flawed opinions-preventing We the People from understanding why the justice reasoned as they did, and why they disagreed with each other. He goes on to suggest five "cannons of comprehensibility" for Supreme Court opinios, to ensure that the justice explain themselves clearly, honstly, and unambigously, so that all the various opinios in each case would constitute a comprehensible message about their accord and discord in interpreting the Constitution. Both a fascinating look how the Court shapes oits opinions and a clarion call to action, this book provides an important addition to our understanding of how to maintain the Constitution as a living document, by and for the People, in its third century.