Publication Date
12-2024
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Before a travel guide can be written, there has to be a map; before treatises can be written, there have to be surveys. This Article is a survey of Georgia textualism and every canon the Supreme Court of Georgia has recognized in its 180-year history. I begin with a general overview of textualism: the priority of plain meaning, legal context, and legal history (Part I). If there is no ambiguity, “our search for [legal] meaning is at an end.”
But of course, this frequently fails to be the case, so I have read nearly 4,000 cases in search of the canons making up Georgia’s “law of rules.” Included is a catalog of the seventy or so I have identified, accompanied by brief explanations and citations.
Recommended Citation
Cavedon, Matthew P.
(2024)
"Georgia’s Law of Rules: Textualism and a Survey of the Canons,"
Mercer Law Review: Vol. 76:
No.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr/vol76/iss1/4