Quote:
Originally Posted by kcbrown
No. The courts have the duty to discover the scope of the rights guaranteed by the BOR. The Constitution does not confer the power to define that scope, or to "interpret" it, or any other such nonsense that connotes some kind of power over that scope (even if it otherwise did, the fact that the BoR is a set of Amendments to the Constitution would put them beyond that power, as that power was conferred by the unamended Constitution). A court has the duty to properly (i.e., on the basis of formal logic applied to all relevant objective facts) decide the case in front of it on the basis of the facts available to it, and to discover the intended meaning of anything that is ambiguous by using methods that are standard for that purpose on the basis of all available information. The courts are not empowered to shrink from that duty.
To insist otherwise is to insist that it is the will of the courts, and not the Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights, that is the supreme law of the land, when it is the Constitution from which the courts derive their power in the first place, and to which they must be subservient.
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This is what is called "mincing words." There is no conceivable difference between "discovering the scope or intended meaning" of the BOR or any other provision of the Constitution and "interpreting" or ascertaining the scope of such laws. And as you silently agree, trial courts do this all the time unless directed by a particular interpretation dictated by a higher court. The ultimate, but not the sole power to interpret the Constitution is invested in the Supreme Court.