Talk:US Constitutional Law

NOTE: Legal scholars delimit this field to discussion of constitutional provisions that do not primarily govern the process of imposing punishment for crimes.

I recommend a macro structure that begins by examining the Constitution Article by Article up through Article 6, a special section on the Bill of Rights, and then individual sections on the later amendments.

Much attention must be paid to the 14th Amendment: some care must be taken to ensure lay readers get that the 14th Amendment is possibly the most important Amendment in American history, at least from the perspective of how much it has shaped American life. It is the 14th, after all, that made most of the Bill of Rights operable against the states.

If no one objects, I am going to begin editing the content of this book, shaping it into the form of a modern casebook. This is a rough outline of what I want to add over the next several months. Judge Narragansett 05:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Introduction
 * History and ratification process
 * Bill of Rights
 * Judicial Review
 * Introduction
 * Dr. Bonham’s Case
 * Policy Analysis
 * The Federalist # 78
 * Why The Federalist Matters
 * Marbury v. Madison
 * Analysis & Background
 * Criticisms
 * Jefferson/Madison/Calhoun
 * The Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty

Object?
No one objects, just do it. Please.JeffEverhard (discuss • contribs) 22:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Simplify the Case Method?
My question about formatting the book into something akin to a case book is the concern that it may somewhat jade lay readers and may not properly explain some jargon often used by constitutional scholars and lawyers. The benefit of law school is the ability to summarize and to introduce the jargon. Some readers may not have the time to do that, so I suggest we add a "preamble," per se, or an "analysis of the source" proceeding or following after the primary source, respectively.

For example, when introducing Lemon v Kurtzman, 411 U.S. 192 (1973), one may discuss the introduction of the Lemon test to the Supreme Court's tools in determining if any part of the federal government violated the establishment clause.

Also, in the case that interpretation of the law may be different now than previously, do we talk about the history and then introduce the current doctrine through the appropriate SCOTUS case, or do we use the original source for each doctrine of the time? I am asking this because this may be an issue when discussing the "free exercise" clause.

Musical Inquisit (discuss • contribs) 10:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)


 * My favorite law textbook was case-based, but the cases were super easy fabricated or boiled-down real cases, just to explain the core principles in the chapter at hand. To be fair, this book was on criminal law, I’m not sure how well this adapts to constitutional law, since here the decisive points tend to be quite abstract in nature. Usually a new doctrine is still largely based on the earlier doctrine, therefore you’ll still need to (to some extent) explain the previous considerations. I think particularly in constitutional law is particularly important to consider and present many points of view. This includes a historic POV. ‑‑Kai Burghardt (discuss • contribs) 00:24, 1 February 2022 (UTC)