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Interpretation Nuggets in Heller

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

When reading Supreme Court opinions, I like to keep track of "nuggets," particularly nice statements of basic principles that may be useful in other contexts. The Heller opinion has a number of nuggets on the interpretation of enactments, applicable both to statutes and the Constitution. "It is always perilous to derive the meaning of an adopted provision from another provision deleted in the drafting process." (slip op. at 16) "But where the text of a clause itself indicates that it does not have operative effect, such as 'whereas' clauses in federal legislation or the Constitution’s preamble, a court has no license to make it do what it was not designed to do. Or to put the point differently, operative provisions should be given effect as operative provisions, and prologues as prologues...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on June 26, 2008 (boomark / email).