Simple English definitions for legal terms
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Constitutional avoidance is when the Supreme Court tries to avoid making decisions about the Constitution if they can. Instead, they try to solve cases using other laws. This means that if there are two ways to understand a law, and one way is clearly okay with the Constitution, while the other way might not be, the Supreme Court will choose the way that is okay with the Constitution. This is to avoid having to make hard decisions about the Constitution. For example, in one case, the Supreme Court said that a law that said people had to have a jury trial for breaking a court order only applied to criminal cases, not civil cases. This was because having a jury trial for civil cases might not be okay with the Constitution.
Constitutional avoidance is a legal principle that suggests that the Supreme Court should avoid ruling on constitutional issues if possible. Instead, they should try to resolve cases based on other grounds, such as statutory interpretation.
For example, if the Supreme Court is faced with two possible interpretations of a law, one of which is clearly constitutional and the other of which is questionable, the court will choose the interpretation that is constitutional to avoid having to make a difficult constitutional decision.
One example of constitutional avoidance is the case of Michaelson et al v. United States ex rel. Chicago. In this case, the court interpreted the Clayton Act's requirement of a jury trial for contempt of court charges to apply only to criminal contempt charges. This was because legislation mandating jury trials for civil contempt of court raises constitutional questions.
Another example of constitutional avoidance is the case of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate as a tax, rather than as a regulation of interstate commerce. This allowed the court to avoid ruling on the constitutionality of the individual mandate under the Commerce Clause.
These examples illustrate how the Supreme Court uses constitutional avoidance to avoid making difficult constitutional decisions. Instead, they try to resolve cases based on other grounds, such as statutory interpretation or tax law.