DUE 12 AM CST TODAY! Written assignment. Write a short paper (3-4 double-spaced pages) identifying and critiquing the interpretive principles utilized by different Supreme Court justices in the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions in the Kelo case. In your paper, you will need to identify the constitutional text being litigated, as well as how the different justices viewed, interpreted, and applied that text in the various opinions of the case. Then, make an argument as to which interpretive method is most persuasive. Note, we are not asking you whether the Supreme Court reached the right decision; rather we are asking you to identify and critique methods of interpretation. Make use of the readings for the week related to originalism and living document theory in writing your paper. Highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of these two major schools of interpretation, and the way the strengths/weaknesses play out in the case.

Instructions: Background. One of the critical questions the Supreme Court is often called on to answer is what a particular passage of Constitutional or statutory text means. How the justices interpret legal texts usually ends up being one of the hinges on which Supreme Court decisions turn. Consider the famous--or perhaps infamous--exemplar question of whether there is a Constitutional right to privacy. The word “privacy” never appears in the text of the document, yet certain provisions of the Constitution are probably understood correctly only if there is some notion of privacy rights behind the text, like the Fourth Amendment provision that people are “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The presumption is that people have a right to be secure in their own private spheres (their “persons, houses, papers, and effects”) and that government may not intrude therein without some compelling justification. Thus, a Constitutional right to privacy exists, even though a textualist might argue for a lack of textual support, and debate will surely ensue as to how far the privacy right extends. (Notice: Roe v. Wade is premised on there being a right to privacy in one’s own person.) This example is one among thousands of possible interpretive disputes that animate how courts read and apply legal texts. This assignment asks students to examine interpretive methods in a different context, the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Preparation. Start by reading Kelo v. City of New London, (Links to an external site.) a Supreme Court case from 2005. As you read, notice the different ways the various justices interpret the language of the Constitution in their various opinions. Consider also what unstated concerns might be motivating the justices’ interpretive schemes. In other words, what are their sometimes subconscious habits of mind that drive the way they read legal texts like statutes and the Constitution? Written assignment. Write a short paper (3-4 double-spaced pages) identifying and critiquing the interpretive principles utilized by different Supreme Court justices in the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions in the Kelo case. In your paper, you will need to identify the constitutional text being litigated, as well as how the different justices viewed, interpreted, and applied that text in the various opinions of the case. Then, make an argument as to which interpretive method is most persuasive. Note, we are not asking you whether the Supreme Court reached the right decision; rather we are asking you to identify and critique methods of interpretation. Make use of the readings for the week related to originalism and living document theory in writing your paper. Highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of these two major schools of interpretation, and the way the strengths/weaknesses play out in the case.