Kevin, You wrote:
I disagree. If some judge were to make a ruling that went against the constitution, even if the case law in question was entirely within common law, his ruling would be unconstitutional and thus null an void (after it was filtered through the appellant process and invalidated of course...). However, in practice I can think of no situation where this could occur- civil law (the primary area where common law rules) simply does not involve anything the constitution says anything about.
The reason you cannot think of such a situation is because there is none. The common law is derived from appellate rulings. If a lower court goes against the common law, it will be overruled when it reaches the appellate level (assuming it is appealed; lots of cases aren't, but they have no bearing on similar future cases; only appealed cases do). If they conform to the common law, they will be affirmed on appeal and that will stand since the issue has already been adjudicated once before and upheld on appeal. Also as you figured out, there is little or no overlap between the common law and constitutional admonitions against government action. If you can come up with a concrete example, we can discuss it. S a n d y