Statutory Interpretation in State Courts—A Study of Indiana Opinions
Year: 1991
Type: article
Abstract: Background Prior to 1980, statutory interpretation seemed to be a moribund academic field.The dominant academic approach was established by the Hart & Sacks Legal Process materials,' which reconciled the tra- ditional creative power of common law courts with the policy of deference to legislation.The Legal Process '^solution'* was to presume that statutes were texts with a purpose, that the purpose was what reasonable people would pursue, and that courts, sharing in that reasonable vision, could apply that purpose to resolve uncertainties within statutory gaps.Statutes therefore set the framework within which courts engaged in reasoned elaboration of legislative purpose.This system preserved both legislative supremacy and judicial creativity.Wide acceptance of the Legal Process solution appeared to end academic debate about statutory interpretation.Except for Reed Dickerson's efforts to keep the subject alive,^the literature was sparse.That changed in the last decade, and statutory interpretation became a subject of intense academic interest.In retrospect, it appears that the Legal Process solution matured around the time when new legislative tensions were beginning to render its vision of the legislative process obsolete.The romanticized idea of a reasonable legislature whose pur- pose(s) the court discerns now seems almost quaint after the recent political turmoil over civil rights, income redistribution, budgets, and deregulation.By the 1980s, the literature on statutory interpretation began to catch up with the reality of the legislative process and to put forth new visions of the judicial role.^Two modern academic movements undermined the Legal Process perspective.The Law and Economics perspective described the legislative process as anything but reasonable and purposive.Instead, it depicted the legislative process as one of bargaining by private interests producing
Source: Indiana Law Review
DOI: 10.18060/2923
Author: William D. Popkin
Institution: Indiana University
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1547194773