Constitutional Law Unraveled: Bradbury’s “Matrix” of Legal Q&A

Constitutional Law Defined

The study of constitutional law touches on the roots of our legal system, allowing for a strong foundation and understanding of how the United States operates as a country with a set of core values. Above all, the purpose of a written constitution is to establish clear rules and guidelines as to how power is distributed and the limits on that power. It is not simply about the President, the Senate and the Supreme Court being defined by law, but the understanding that everything a person in a place of power does as a representative has constraints and consequences.
Constitutional jurisprudence (the theoretical study of law) usually centers around three different things: how power is distributed between the different branches and units of government, how the different units of government interact with each other, and where the position of the various kinds of governmental bodies sits in relation to the individual. While these will be repeated later in the post, we can take a quick look at examples for these questions. Separation of powers, for example, is at the heart of the executive and legislative branches, but the courts play a role here by being the deciders of whether any actions violate the powers of the other branches granted in the Constitution . The judicial power of the United States is in the Supreme Court, but a big part of its power comes from interactions with the other branches, such as the power granted to Courts by Congress through the creation of new courts. Finally, the rights of the individual are important as well, and the role of the Bill of Rights is to define the rights of private citizens against the power of the government.
All of these issues and their sub-issues are essential not just to understanding how things work — they are essential to understanding how people came to where they are now, from where they were before. For example, where is the line between state and federal power? The Constitution says, "The Congress shall have Power to . . . make Rules for the Government . . . of the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States." It does not say how that ruling would take shape, but that is something that is determined by a lot of different cases and rulings that have eroded "other Property" down to those which have been acquired in specific ways by the federal government.
Of course, this is a general overview of constitutional law. Constitutional law is a complex web of issues that can overlap, which is why it requires a lot of attention if you wish to understand it clearly.

The “Matrix”: Organizing Legal Responses

Now before we roll out the list of Constitutional Law questions and model answers, I want you to think about how a good lawyer goes about answering them. How many times have you heard one of your smart lawyer friends say that "the law is just a list of all the questions" – as if the goal of studying the law is to memorize a giant grab-bag of every possible legal issue? Well, in one sense that may be partly right for lawyers. But I never thought that was a reasonable way to study Constitutional Law. That’s why I prefer what I call a matrix approach to studying for exams in this field. The idea here is that you should visualize your answers to each exam question as a series of boxes (a matrix of issues ranging across rows and columns) – and that you should memorize the questions. But let’s break that down into parts – the rows and the columns. Remember, you are looking at a question-and-answer format where there are about ten or twelve issues in each row and the questions only vary in the individual facts and circumstance they pose within those issue areas. This means that once you’ve got your row set up with the right issues and know the questions, you can almost fill in the boxes with rote memorization. The columns represent the discrete relationships between the issue areas and the individual questions. Here, you get to be creative, because you have to tailor your answer to the individual question, but it’s a process – based largely on formulaic thinking. Here, you remember form and apply the equations and flow charts you have for each issue area. You just have to vary the disposition of each of the questions to whatever fact pattern they raise.

Constitutional Law Questions

Here are some of the most common questions encountered in the classroom and the courtroom. These questions, or very similar ones, have been posed to a wide range of lawyers and judges:

When is the answer to a constitutional law question "yes," and when is it "no"? (This is very much on autopilot….it’s a legal "blank").
Is the Constitution "living?" Or is it a dead document?
Does the Constitution have anything to say about torture?
Does the Constitution protect Native Americans’ rights to religious freedom?
Does the Constitution require the federal government to reimburse states for expenses involving homeless persons?
Must the government pay a debtor’s portion of a civil judgment?
Does the Constitution protect state employees from managers with whom they have sexual relations?
Does the Constitution forbid a bus company from refusing to hire smokers?
Can a general statute authorize a taking of private property?
Are homeowners’ insurance shedding continous tears when their policy does not provide coverage when request for reconsideration was not made?
Must a police department discuss what inmates had to say about their valuables during an investigation into thefts?
Is a federal administrative officer without authority to appoint people as members of a School Board an "agent" of that City?
Do courts have authority to award interest for the period during settlement negotiations?
Is a Department of Labor special investigator entitled to attorney fees when he takes action against a company on behalf of the state?
Must a public agency conduct an open meeting regarding a public transportation project?
Is it mandatory that a retirement board give a prior hearing to an employee before dismissing him or her for misconduct?

Answering Your Constitutional Law Queries

In the previous section, we discussed the types of questions and answers you may encounter in a constitutional law course. This section will focus on how to answer those questions effectively.
The key to answering questions in constitutional law, as in any law exam or paper, is to break them down into their component parts – in the case of a question, into its constituent issues – and to ensure that every part is addressed in your answer.
Focus your answer on the issues that the question represents. What that will be will depend on the question, but could include topics such as standing, the standard of review, the test for correctness or reasonableness, or many others. Your first paragraph should address the issues: when discretionary, always state the issue as being "whether" the answer is the first option or the second . If you’re 99% sure of the answer, say you are 99% sure. Explain briefly why you are so certain (i.e., the argument that would be used in the alternative).
Your subsequent paragraphs should directly address those issues. Each clause should point back to a relevant part of the question in the parlance of the law exam or paper. That is, you might wish to begin with a clause such as, "Firstly, I must determine …."
You may not have time as you preparation for finals goes on to review the entire charter from start to finish, so you can consider use of the table of contents to locate the relevant section. Be sure to double-check that you are reading the right section, though, as the sections of the charter are not numbered consecutively – sections 1 and 2 go from 1 to 226, but section 3 starts at 24.

Application: Cases & Precedents

Case studies and past precedents play a pivotal role in answering constitutional law questions. The case law that has evolved over time provides context and a framework with which one can understand the current state of constitutional interpretation.
For example, the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination has evolved over time. Prior to the 1960s, it was interpreted differently than after the famous 1966 case of Miranda v. Arizona. Prior to Miranda, you did not have the right to counsel; now you do. This landmark case made it so that law enforcement officers had to declare to a questioned criminal suspect that they had the right to legal representation before they could be questioned for a crime.
Another example is Roe v. Wade, a case decided in 1973 that declared the right of women to choose an abortion before the time where the fetus is viable to be a privacy right under the United States Constitution and therefore protected.
The evolution of constitutional law and the reliance on precedent are two things that help lawyers predict whether a case will or should be decided a certain way. As a lawyer, knowing whether the Supreme Court has decide similar cases a certain way or at least a way that might be applied to the current question is important for the success of the case.

Resources for Study

Once you know how to read a question and answer it, an important first part of the analysis, how do you get the answer right? For that, you need to understand the law, the doctrine, the rules. And for that you need resources. Add to this mix the evolving state of constitutional law, which involves the interpretive approaches of its interpreters, the judges and justices who decide the issues, and you have the lawyers’ dilemma concerning which resource to use in a particular case or issue.
In my view, there is no single best source of the law. Rather, there are probably ten or fifteen sources of the law that are collaboratively complete and comprehensive. So each law student or lawyer must choose among these resources, preferring the ones that suits their learning style, and be willing to accept the limitations of the rest.
There are free resources such as Conlawnow and Oyez that provide concise summaries of key constitutional issues . There are compendia, such as Floyd Mechem’s treatise on constitutional law, that cover specific topics (and thus are not truly comprehensive). There are dozens of textbooks, from constitutional law and constitutional rights and civil liberties tomes to the area-specific casebooks devoted to religious liberty, criminal procedure, procedure and evidence, civil rights, and state and local government law.
Online databases are now available, such as constitutional law profs and free sites at prominent law schools and universities. These are yet another set of resources to which students and lawyers can turn for help.
Existing resources might become obsolete as the product of a resource-rich community often takes a long time to compile, integrate, and then disseminate, but the big money has left the building when it comes to funding them. So the law will remain resource-rich for some time.