Saturday, April 01, 2006

Podcasts from the National Constitution Center The latest podcast from the National Constitution Center, an interview with Justice Stephen Breyer talking about his new book Active Liberty: Interpreting our Democratic Constitution, is available here. He speaks about how he decided the two 10 Commandments cases last year, one from Texas and another from Kentucky, where he held that the Texas display was constitutional and the Kentucky one was not. Breyer makes a distinction between a reason and an argument when deciding a case (around 45 min.) In response to the question "Is there any decision that you would, in retrospect, now change?" (50:22), he describes the psychology of the transformation of initial doubt into final certainty in deciding cases. Other podcasts available on the same page include the Dover Intelligent Design Case and Yale Law Professon Akhil Reed Amar talking about his new book The Constitution: A Biography.