Posted by Todd Zywicki:
Interesting Alabama Supreme Court Opinion:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_01-2005_05_07.shtml#1115397728
I just came across an interesting concurring opinion by Justice Parker
from the Alabama Supreme Court from just a couple of days abo. Justice
Parker's opinion begins as follows:
�It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial
department to say what the law is.� Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1
Cranch) 137, 177 (1803). In these words, which enshrined the
principle of judicial review, Chief Justice John Marshall noted
that constitutional interpretation is emphatically the
responsibility of the judiciary. He did not say that constitutional
interpretation is exclusively the responsibility of the judiciary.
Justice Parker then goes on to argue that each of the branches of
government have an independent obligation to interpret the
constitution, and that as a result, the court should defer to a
longstanding constitutional interpretation by the legislature:
[T]he Alabama Legislature has consistently followed the third
interpretation for at least three decades. I believe the
Legislature is within its authority to interpret § 63 in this way,
and I therefore conclude that this Court should defer to that
interpretation. By so deferring, we show proper respect to a
coordinate branch of government.
Interesting opinion that invokes, among other sources, Andrew
Jackson's veto of the Bank of the United States on the ground that it
was unconstitutional, notwithstanding the Supreme Court's holding in
McCullough.
Very interesting opinion.
I haven't been able to locate the opinion anywhere but on Westlaw, at
2005 WL 1023157. The case name is Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center
Authority v. City of Birmingham.
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