The Yale Law Journal

Stephen E. Sachs

Forum

Supreme Court as Superweapon: A Response to Epps & Sitaraman

Stephen E. Sachs

Daniel Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman propose radical reforms to restore a moderate Supreme Court. Unfortunately, their proposals might destroy the Court’s legitimacy in order to save it. A Court unbound by legal principle is too powerful a weapon to leave around in a democracy; we should start thinking …

Essay

Originalism Without Text

Stephen E. Sachs

Originalism is not about the text. A society can be recognizably originalist without any words to interpret: without a written constitution, written statutes, or any writing at all. What originalism generally is about is our present constitutional law and its dependence on a crucial moment in the pa…