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> Textualists are trying to ignore the fact that there's a difference between intent and implementation.

I would say that they are not so much trying to ignore the fact as acknowledging the fact but taking the position that it the court's role to interpret the implementation, not to guess at the intent.



And to complete their viewpoint, it is the legislature’s job to patch “exploits” by rewriting the code (laws).


Lower courts: "Wait, did you mean LESS THAN, or LESS THAN OR EQUAL?"

Supreme Court: "For now, we'll presume LESS THAN OR EQUAL."

Legislature: "Wait, we meant LESS THAN."

We need a decision NOW. The Supreme Court supplies a decision NOW. The Legislature can change it.

Interpreting the implementation demands guessing at the intent on the edge cases. It can't not. Even if your preference is to always pretend the language is absolute.


The legislature can't fix all bugs. Case Law exists for a very good reason.


Case law doesn't exist in a majority of the world and somehow these legal systems work nonetheless, in at least some instances even arguably better.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_legal_syste...




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