John Doe vs. John Doe: Virginia Court's Decision in Online John Doe' Case Hailed by Free-Speech Advocates

[Aimee Farr]

She cannae take any more, Jim  ...sheeze breakink up! Choate constitutional
tribbles in here...<trekkie tribble noises>. "Laddy, don't you think you
should... rephrase that?" - Scotty, The Trouble with Tribbles.

>From Choate's 1L sig, the Fount of Fugue:

> If the law is based on precedence, why is the Constitution
> not the final precedence since it's the primary authority?

You gnaw at a branch and call it a root. You have common law (the law of
common men, lex communis), and legislative law (bringing the law of the
sovereign). Common law precedent is an aggregate body of knowledge
consisting not only decisions, but of logical constructs -- a way of
approaching and framing legal thought. Common law has never been codified in
a document, it's a body of relational knowledge. The Constitution is not the
primary authority, because constitutions (legislative law) are not the root
of what you see as law. Indeed, the US Const. finds root in common law and
common right.

Lex est ab eterno.

Athenian Constitution  -- Aristotle, 350 B.C.E.
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.html

"...and it is to this last, they say, that the masses have owed their
strength most of all, since, when the democracy is master of the
voting-power, it is master of the constitution. Moreover, since the laws
were not drawn up in simple and explicit terms .... disputes inevitably
occurred, and the courts had to decide in every matter, whether public or
private .... The Thesmothetae were many years afterwards, when these offices
had already become annual, with the object that they might publicly record
all legal decisions, and act as guardians of them with a view to determining
the issues between litigants."

~Aimee