by Matt Barr

Not "exclusively"

Todd Zywicki notes an interesting Alabama Supreme Court opinion from this week.

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[.]

This will enlather the vanguard against "armed agents of the state" and also the commenter from Case Western who dropped in on my "Sullivan Award" post the other day to tell me I "might want to think about things first and write a something that actually makes sense" in response to my saying this very thing, but don't shoot the messenger: It's true.

UPDATE: The opinion is available as a 14-page, 72KB PDF here.

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