Full Description
In this book, James R. Maxeiner takes on the challenge of demonstrating that historically American law makers did consider a statutory methodology as part of formulating laws. In the nineteenth century, when the people wanted laws they could understand, lawyers inflicted judge-made, statute-destroying, common law on them. Maxeiner offers the cure for common law, in the form of sensible statute law. Building on this historical evidence, Maxeiner shows how rule-making in civil law jurisdictions in other countries makes for a far more equitable legal system. Sensible statute laws fit together: one statute governs, as opposed to several laws that even lawyers have trouble disentangling. In a statute law system, lawmakers make laws for the common good in sensible procedures, and judges apply sensible laws and do not make them. This book shows how such a system works in Germany and how it would be a solution for the American legal system as well.
Contents
Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction: of governments and laws; 2. Common law is not an option; Part II. What Americans Sought: A Government of Laws, Not of Men: 3. America's exceptionalism in 1876: systematizing of laws; 4. Founding a government of laws; 5. Building a government of laws in the first century of the republic; Part III. What Americans Got: Deranged Laws: 6. A rule of lawyers: two centennials; 7. From the gilded age to Google; 8. Inviting comparison: a gift horse in two lands; Part IV. What Americans Can Do: Improve Legal Methods: 9. Systematizing and simplifying statutes; 10. Making laws for a government of laws; 11. Federalism and localism; 12. Constitutional review; 13. Applying laws; 14. Appendix: place of foreign law in American legal scholarship; Suggestions for further reading; Index.
