September 2010

Twenty five years ago this month, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. engaged Attorney General Edwin Meese in a then unprecedented public debate on constitutional interpretation.

Brennan, who at 79 remained the Supreme Court's most vigorous proponent of a living constitution, never actually shared a stage with Meese, President Reagan's long time adviser and leading advocate of originalism. If they had, the ideal venue for this jurisprudential equivalent of the 1975 match, pitting Muhammad Ali against Joe Frazier and nicknamed the "Thrilla in Manila," might have been a boxing ring.

Meese had lobbed the first volley in a July, 1985 speech to the American Bar Association's annual convention in Washington, D.C. titled "Jurisprudence of Original Intention." He generated headlines by criticizing the Court for "a drift back toward the radical egalitarianism and expansive civil libertarianism of the Warren Court."

Meese later admitted he purposely chose the prominent venue - and provocative tone - to raise originalism's profile. The idea that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original understanding of the founding fathers had gained currency among conservative legal scholars in the previous decade but not yet seeped into the public consciousness.

A lawsuit filed against the State of New Hampshire alleges state budget cuts slashing millions of dollars from the court system violate the New Hampshire Constitution's guarantee of a prompt civil jury trial.

 Former Congressman and state Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas and eight other lawyers filed the suit on behalf of four plaintiffs, who claim that the state has canceled all civil schedules in several courts, and that "the denial of civil jury trials for almost a year on top of normal scheduling is unconstitutional," The National Law Journal reports. The petition also laments the impact of judicial vacancies, reduced hours and furlough days on the operation of the courts.

A letter from New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick Jr. posted on the court's website in June says the court system "has been hit especially hard." "[T]o families in crisis, prosecutors trying to protect communities and civil litigants trying to protect their rights and property, the budget resources we have now will not be enough," Justice Broderick wrote in the letter. "Please know that we are doing all we can to keep the system from failing further."

Douglas, who is asking that the court restore $4 million in funding, and adequately fund the system going forward, told the Eagle-Tribune he's never seen the system function this poorly, "where wholesale parts of the dockets are just canceled indefinitely and there's no light at the end of the tunnel."

Douglas said he is aware of only one similar case: In 1971, The Philadelphia Supreme Court upheld an order that the state pay $2.4 million to adequately fund the city's court system.