Louis D. Bilionis, On the Significance of Constitutional Spirit (March 15, 2010). North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 70, p. 1803, 1992; U of Cincinnati Public Law Research Paper No. 10-10. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1568322
America is experiencing a major realignment of the national constitutional order. The primary responsibility for defining and enforcing civil liberties is shifting from the federal courts and the Federal Constitution to the state judiciaries and their state constitutions. Judges who expound a state constitution must do so with devotion to its spirit – not the spirit of the Federal Constitution, and not the spirit that underlies the currently popular constitutional theory. In many states, North Carolina Among them, keeping faith with the constitutional spirit means interpreting individual rights liberally and enforcing them unflinchingly.
