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

[Kevin Elliott]

At 19:17 -0800  on  3/23/01, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
>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.

That's not really what I'm trying to say.  The question is, is it 
possible for a ruling to be valid under common law and invalid under 
the constitution.  I think the answer is no and the reason (as you 
may have been trying to say) is that the constitution is a part of 
common law, and all decisions since it's creation have, by 
definition, been either constitutional or overruled on appeal.
-- 
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volatile:  Because all programs deserve SOME interrupt code...
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Kevin "The Cubbie" Elliott 
<mailto:kelliott at mac.com>                             ICQ#23758827