Basic Vocab

Question 1

majority law

Answer 1

principles of criminal law applicable in a majority of modern American jurisdictions

Question 2

Model Penal Code (MPC)

Answer 2

• a draft model code prepared under the aegis of the American Law Institute
• has NOT been adopted in its entirety
• HAS been adopted piecemeal in a variety of ways all over U.S.
• IS influential to legislatures and judges all over the U.S. in enacting and interpreting criminal law

Question 3

textualism

Answer 3

school of thought in statutory interpretation that limits interpretation to the meaning a statutory text had for a reasonable reader when it was enacted, and nothing further (Justice Scalia)

Question 4

tradition/eclectic approach

Answer 4

• an approach to statutory interpretation that aims to ascertain the enacting legislature’s intent by means of the text, legislative history, statutory purpose, and the canons of statutory interpretation
• NOT a highly developed or organized “theory” or “school of thought”
• most prevalent approach to/theory of statutory interpretation

Question 5

legal process school

Answer 5

• school of thought in statutory interpretation that places great emphasis upon the statutory purpose of the democratically elected enacting legislature
• came about in reaction to legal realism
• agrees with legal realism that statutes are often ambiguous and, thus, that judges have interpretive discretion in many cases
• disagrees with legal realism about jurists’ intuition and their being influenced by extralegal factors when interpreting statutory law
• asserts that judicial discretion ought to be constrained by the explicit or implicit purposes that undergird statutory law
• can be thought of as a variation of the tradition/eclectic approach with a significant emphasis upon statutory purpose