Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 397-419). Also available online through Digital Dissertations.

Textualism is the doctrine of statutory interpretation propounded by a small group of US federal court judges, including the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Whilst the doctrine has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, few have considered its historical development. In this dissertation, textualism is analysed in order to uncover the core principles and sets of rules from which it is comprised. Then, the development of these principles and sets of rules is traced back through the treatises on statutory interpretation published in England and America in the Victorian era, which were well-known to and frequently cited by Justice Scalia. Textualism is revealed to be an Anglo-American doctrine that emerged over the course of the nineteenth century; and it was made explicit in the treatises on statutory interpretation, which developed via a transatlantic scholarly dialogue. The doctrine fell out of favour in the US as the nineteenth century drew to a close; and around the same time, the rule prohibiting recourse to legislative history, a core feature of textualism, became subject to significant judicial challenge in England. The matter was resolved by a landmark decision in 1906, after which time the doctrine became firmly entrenched in England until approximately the 1980s. Textualism's long tenure in England demonstrates how a doctrinal common law theory typical of the late Victorian era persisted for more than a century despite variations in judicial application of the rules from which the doctrine is comprised, criticism from within the legal community, and significant social change over time. The modern US revival of this doctrine is further testament to textualism's tenacity. Whilst many scholars have found the doctrine to be problematic, it has remained attractive to common law judges from the time of its emergence in the middle of the nineteenth century through to the present. This is so because textualism was developed and refined through doctrinal legal scholarship, and as a result, it is consistent with traditional common law modes of reasoning, and it is tailor-made to meet the needs of judges deciding cases.

After falling out of favor during the twentieth century, originalism has returned as a compelling and popular interpretive theory. Modern originalism is typically associated with political conservatives. In Reexamining Originalism, I argue that a progressive form of originalism is both more faithful to the Constitution and more similar to early originalism than conservative originalism. The key difference is that progressive originalism respects the Constitution's status as secondary law, whereas conservative originalism is overly concerned with preserving primary applications of law.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-222).

The aim of this thesis is to explore the differences and similarities between Justice Antonin Scalia’s textualist approach to interpreting the Constitution and Justice Stephen Breyer’s Living Constitution approach (also called the evolutionist approach) by applying these disparate legal theories to Schwarzenegger v Entertainment Merchants Association, a case currently pending before the Supreme Court whose resolution centers on the interpretation of the First Amendment. The textualist approach relies primarily on interpreting the original meaning of the text of the Constitution, and attempting to decide cases in a way that is faithful to an amendment’s words as written (Rossum et al. 4). The Living Constitution, or evolutionist approach to constitutional interpretation, contends that the meaning of the Constitution evolves with the standards of society, and the purpose or intent behind the Constitution or an amendment is as important, if not more so, than the literal language when interpreting a Constitutional amendment as it applies to actual cases as they arise (8). These two approaches are fundamentally oppositional, and Justices Scalia and Breyer are the very embodiment of these approaches on the Supreme Court today; each man avidly defends his respective approach in his opinions and other written works, and each exhibits the logic of these approaches in his decisions. The purpose of choosing a case that is undecided (at the time of this writing) is to explore and flesh out the actual decision-making process of both Justices and their constitutional theories, rather than merely critiquing their decisions and holdings in a case that has already been adjudicated. This exploration is particularly useful because it allows one to decipher how these approaches are similar and different in interpreting the Constitution.

This thesis looks at the Confrontation Clause from the Sixth Amendment in light of the decision made in Maryland v. Craig. It examines the opinions of Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Antonin Scalia, and determines if their judicial philosophies were consistent with their opinion. It does so by examining the history of the Confrontation Clause from ancient history to the present, and by enumerating the judicial philosophies of O'Connor and Scalia. In conclusion, while O'Connor's majority opinion is consistent with her pragmatic philosophy, Scalia's dissent is not consistent with his originalist views.

For the last half-century, American politics has been ravaged by a war for control of the courts. While conflict between the courts of law and the elected branches of government has been a recurrent theme in American history, this conflict has taken on a heightened importance beginning with the rights revolution ushered in by the Warren Court. Judicial originalism was born as part of a backlash against Warren and Burger Court expansions of constitutional rights in areas as disparate as First Amendment protections for individual speech and the expansion of substantive due process to cover contraception and abortion. By the end of the Trump Administration, the judicial backlash against this expansion of constitutionalized rights appears to have gained the upper hand as the Supreme Court and lower courts of appeals, especially the Fifth Circuit, have begun a substantial counteroffensive. Roe v. Wade has been overturned, a longstanding goal of legal conservatives, and the groundwork has been set for a rollback of the federal administrative state, which has often seen by legal conservatives as a political foe. This dissertation discusses the theoretical underpinnings of contemporary conservative jurisprudence, with a particular focus on the formalistic interpretive methodologies of originalism and textualism. It argues that textualism, at least as advanced by Justices Scalia and Gorsuch, is philosophically confused, and it argues that originalism is insufficient to its purported task of weakening the judiciary through a limitation of judicial discretion. Because legal conservatives often defend their views as a natural outgrowth of a commonsense picture of political morality, grounded in the concepts of the rule of law, democracy, and the separation of powers, I also discuss the interplay between those concepts within legal conservative discourse. Contemporary legal conservative conceptions of these ideological constructs are compared to historical predecessors in the works of John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, Hans Kelsen, and others. I argue that the legal conservative versions of these constructs are defective and seriously imperiled by the threat of legal indeterminacy. I conclude that they should be reconfigured to meet this challenge.

Cam phasers allow improvements to the efficiency and emissions of internal combustion engines. The usage of hydraulic vane type cam phasers for heavy-duty applications have shown problems with oscillations during testing at Scania CV. To investigate the root cause of the oscillations a detailed 1-d simulation model has been created. The 1-d simulation model was calibrated and compared against measurements of a cam phaser system mounted on a physical engine. The 1-d simulation model of the cam phaser system was shown to be able to reproduce the oscillatory behavior seen in engine tests. But there are some concerns regarding the model's reliability, due to its dependence on the integration time step. It was determined that free air in the phaser chambers is causing the excessive oscillations. The source of the free air present in physical phasers are not yet fully understood, but the movement of the phaser control valve, opening and closing of the phaser chamber vents, in conjunction with motion of the phase oscillations has a significant effect on the phaser's chamber pressure, resulting in reduce pressures. The reduced pressures result in air being sucked in to the phaser, form both the oil control valve vent and external chamber leakages. Another potential sources of free air is dissolved air in the oil supply being released due to low pressures from oil pressure fluctuations. A potential solution to increase the stability of the phaser is to reduce the sources of air, by having an oil accumulator at the vent, limiting leakage, having a high and steady oil supply pressure, modifying the oil control valve ports to have a more gradual initial opening area and controlling the oil control valve appropriately. How to implement these implementations and evaluate them are left as future work. Potential improvements to get rid of the 1-d simulation model's dependence on the time step, increasing the model's reliability, are discussed, but not tested.