An Analysis of Legal Reasoning

There is no concept so central to philosophy than Reason. It is reason that is the very focal point of all discovery and knowledge, for a philosopher to achieve any kind of enlightenment without the use of reason is impossible. Reason is, arguably, that which separates man from beast, that consciousness and ability to analyze and comprehend. It has been through reason that societies and governments have been created: our own through the reasoning of our founders utilizing the reasoning of John Locke and other liberal thinkers of the "Enlightened" period.

In terms of our American Government we have three essential branches the Executive, Legislative; and the Judicial. The Executive branch of the U.S. Government consists of the Office of the President and surrounding bureaucracy, charged with executing the laws of America. The Legislative branch consisting of the Congress made up of a House of Representatives and Senate, maintaining the power of the purse, is charged with the creation of laws and statutes. Finally the Judicial branch consists of a great body of Courts from the Supreme Court, the highest in the land, all the way down to local Courts. This body, the way that our constitution was crafted, acts as the representative of Society in interpreting and translating the laws. They are the finders of fact: the seekers of Truth.

All philosophy in and of itself is the pursuit of Truth. The Judiciary is no different from Philosophy in its ultimate tool being that of reason. Thus, at the center of all that is judicial thought there stands reason above all else. Whereas philosophy tends to be viewed as thought dealing with abstracts and universal principles, legal reasoning, though based upon the same grounds, is viewed, popularly, as dealing with concrete and solid instances mainly.

Legal reasoning is a complex form of thought. It is as we have established somewhat similar to philosophy and could be considered a philosophy in and of itself; however, its reliance so much on precedent is something that sets it apart. Legal reasoning tends to focus on past decisions as a paradigm for future decisions, as well as focusing on legislative intent.

Let us briefly look at legislative intent. It is easily understood as posited in the article by C. Gordon Post that, "There are two chief sources of law: statutes and precedents" (p.81). Statutes come from our legislative branch of elected representatives, as outlined above. Precedents come from our court system in juxtaposition with many administrative bodies involved in the Executive branch. Precedent is essentially a derivation of a statute. As the finders of fact it is the duty of the court to establish translation and application of the laws or statutes to individual cases. Precedent aids greatly there, but it is created through analysis of the law and the situation. The situation is looked at by the court in light of the statute; the statute's meaning is decided by what it states and, to a great extent, legislative intent in determining the exact meaning of the words making up the law.

From the very beginning legislative intent has been essential to legal decision making. The roots of legislative intent can be traced to the very beginnings of the Supreme Court; however, the most significant early case was Marbury v. Madison. The Court in Marbury declared the a section of the Judiciary Act of 1793 exceeded limits placed by the constitution and declared that section null and void(5 U.S. 137 (1803)). Thereby, using legislative intent based in the constitution Chief Justice Marshall created a precedent: judicial review. Another good example of legislative intent being utilized is in the concept of the right to privacy in American law. Not so much the concept of privacy under the sole protection of the 4th amendment, looking at criminal action, but the right to privacy which has to do with protection of personhood or protecting the state from entering into decisions having to do with our relationships and selves. The Supreme Court first really announced this kind of privacy in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut citing the right to privacy being encompassed, through intent, under the penumbras of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th Amendments to the Constitution(381 U.S. 479 (1965)).

This precedent was used and expanded upon with legislative intent in cases such as Loving v. Virginia, dealing with interracial marriage; Eisenstadt v. Baird, dealing with the provision of contraception to unmarried individuals; and Roe v. Wade, as well, of course dealing abortion. Legislative intent was a particular factor in the case of Bowers v. Hardwick, another privacy case where privacy was restricted as opposed to the previous trend. In this case the Supreme Court declined to encompass homosexual sodomy within the protective scope of the right to privacy. Their reasoning was based strongly around the first tenant announced by the majority in their opinion, which was a listing of laws from the 1700's up through the 1900's in which sodomy was criminalized, stating that the values of society, whom they represent, have never supported sodomy, thereby, it society does not deem it protected (478 U.S. 186 (1986)).

Another brief example of a use of legislative intent is the 1798 case of Calder v. Bull. This case utilized the 9th Amendment's protection of unenumerated rights to hold that the legislative intent behind the constitution could overrule legislation. This was described in Justice Chase's opinion where he wrote, "I cannot subscribe to the omnipotence of a State legislature... although its authority should not be expressly restrained by the constitution... An act of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority"(3 U.S. 386 U.S. Supreme Ct. (1798)).

For further explanation of legal intent, the text relies on an article entitled "Rules of Interpretation," by William Blackstone. The forward to this article explains how the American system of law is based, logically, on Britain's and that a major source of our knowledge of English law was from this man's book Commentaries on the Laws of England. Blackstone, in this article, sets out five rules for interpreting law.

Blackstone's first rule simply states that "Laws are generally to be understood in their usual and most known signification; not so much regarding the propriety of grammar, as their general and popular use"(p.90) Meaning that laws should be understood by their intended effect not just wording. The example that Blackstone used had to do with a law forbidding someone laying hands on a priest, thought it did not specifically say it, logic could easily allow one