Is that Legal? Researching Legal Interpretations from the Perspective of a Judge

Faculty Advisor: Professor, University of Michigan; Licensed attorney, Michigan

Research Program Introduction

When on your phone, you may have observed behavior on the internet that caused you to ask a question: Is that even legal? For example, the police pull over a car with a man found with an AR-15 rifle. Did he violate the state’s concealed weapons law? Or, a woman, who is abandoned by her spouse, and attempts to marry another person. Did she violate the state’s anti-bigamy statute? What’s more, is the statute constitutional based on precedent?

Answers to questions like these are not necessarily intuitive; rather, they are answered through settled rules of legal interpretation. In this program, you will be encouraged to think like a judge. We will explore the tools of statutory interpretation that interpreters consult when analyzing legal problems. Students will be asked to consider the text, history, and purpose of certain laws. Specifically, you will also explore selected textual canons of interpretation, and we will apply those principles to particular hypothetical situations.  We will also explore global questions about legal interpretation. Can there be a general theory of interpretation? Do the tools of interpretation provide concrete answers to ambiguous legal texts? Do the tools conflict with each other at times?

At the end of our program, you will each be asked to write your 6-page individual response to a legal problem that we discussed in our sessions. A list of hypotheticals that you can select from will be provided to you. All readings will be provided to you as well. You will receive questions on the readings each week prior to meetings. Please be prepared to discuss readings during our sessions.

Possible Topics For Final Project:

• The Holy Trinity Problem: What is the precise spirit of a law?

• Is an airplane a “motor vehicle” as defined under the statute?

• Does the Anti-picnic statute violate personal freedoms?

• Can a former President be impeached 10 years after office?

• Does assault with a frying pan constitute aggravated assault?

• Or other topics in this subject area that you are interested in, and that your professor approves after discussing it with you.

Program Detail

• Cohort size: 3 to 6 students

• Workload: Around 4 to 5 hours per week (including class and homework time)

• Target students: 9 to 12th graders interested in Law, Political Science, Debate, History, Philosophy, Sociology, and other related fields.

• Schedule: TBD. Meetings will take place for around one hour per week, with a weekly meeting day and time to be determined a few weeks before the start date.