2022 Legal Opinions
Court Opinion | New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn, Inc. v. Bruen
New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 US 1 – Supreme Court 2022
New York residents Koch and Nash, applying for unrestricted licenses to carry a handgun in public, fail because they are seen as not meeting the “proper cause” requirement of New York laws; alongside the NRA, they sue the NYPD Chief, Kevin Bruen. Reference is made to District of Columbia v. Heller where “bear arms” as in a “right to bear arms” was interpreted as only having a literal meaning. This interpretation is challenged as corpus analyses after the case showed that “bear arms” did seem to have an idiomatic meaning at that time.
Court Opinion | United States v. Rice
United States v. Rice
36 F.4th 578 (4th Cir. 2022).
Rice argues that assault by strangulation is not a “crime of violence” and a categorical approach is taken in classifying Rice’s offense. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (“COCA”) is determined to be a relevant tool in gauging the level of understanding of the “ordinary speaker” of English and the term “strangulation” is searched. It is noted that, “Although relatively new, corpus linguistics is gaining traction as an interpretive tool.”
Court Opinion | Jones v. Bonta
Jones v. Bonta
34 F.4th 704 (9th Cir. 2022).
Thought corpus linguistics isn’t ultimately applied to the case, it is noted as a powerful tool.
Court Opinion | United States v. Carson
United States v. Carson
55 F.4th 1053 (6th Cir. 2022).
Carson, having previously robbed a bank and incarcerated, argues that the district court violated his judgement and repayment agreement’s terms. The term “substantial” becomes of interest in regards to Carson’s prison wages which were used to repay his debt. Searches for “substantial” in COCA (BYU’s Corpus of Contemporary American English) are used to understand its meaning; results associate “substantial” with several other adjectives used to argue for Carson.
Court Opinion | Fulkerson v. Unum Life Insurance Company of America
Fulkerson v. UNUM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA
No (6th Cir. June 3, 2022).
Fulkerson, whose son passed away in a reckless driving car accident, is challenged by his insurance company because of her claiming accidental death benefits; Fulkerson appeals. The phrase “reckless driving” is searched in COCA to argue that “reckless driving” is “illegal act for which one can be punished by law” and therefore a “crime”, thus triggering the insurance’s crime exclusion in his life insurance policy.
Court Opinion | Matthews v. The Industrial Commission of Arizona
Matthews v. The Industrial Commission of Arizona
No. CV-21-0192-PR (Ariz. Nov. 23, 2022).
Matthews, a retired police detective, seeks workers compensation for PTSD acquired while working for the Tucson police department. To interpret the meaning of “injury” as understood in the Arizona state constitution, a dictionary definition and COHA (Corpus of Historical American English) are used in tandem to argue against Matthews that stress-related illness would not have been considered injury at the time of the adoption of the state constitution.
Court Opinion | Gulf Shores City Board of Education v. Mackey
GULF SHORES CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION v. Mackey
No. 1210353 (Ala. Dec. 22, 2022).
This case does not include the direct use of corpus linguistics, but Alabama’s Justice Mitchell closes by remarking on the usefulness of corpus linguistics in future cases, even inviting future parties who will appear before the Court to use corpus linguistics analyses to wrestle with original public meaning. He states, “Corpus linguistics will often serve only as a method to ‘check our work’ and confirm the results of the underlying textual analysis, “but ‘[i]n future cases where the ordinary meaning is debatable, … the results [of a corpus-linguistics analysis] could be determinative.”
Court Opinion | Rouch World v. Department of Civil Rights
ROUCH WORLD v. DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS
987 N.W.2d 501, 510 Mich. 398 (2022).
Rouch World, accused of violating the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (“ELCRA”) on the grounds of sex-based discrimination, seeks to appeal claims against them. The question becomes whether discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is considered discrimination “because of … sex,” according to the ELCRA. Searches are performed on COHA (Corpus of Historical American English) to argue that the public at that time would have understood discrimination because of sex to be based on an individual’s sex rather than sexual orientation.
Court Opinion | State v. Carter
State v. Carter
504 P.3d 179, 2022 U.T. App 9 (Utah Ct. App. 2022).
Carter appeals his conviction for aggravated arson, asserting that his original trial counsel provided ineffective assistance. Carter uses dictionaries and corpus linguistics tools to contend that a “habitable structure” refers to a structure’s current rather than intended use; but, the court determines this analysis to be irrelevant to Carter’s claims, stating, “we have no occasion to undertake such a thorough analysis and interpretation of the true meaning of the admittedly confusing statutory scheme.”
Court Opinion | Health Freedom Defense Fund Inc. v. Biden
Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc. v. Biden
599 F. Supp. 3d 1144 (M.D. Fla. 2022).
In response to the COVID-19 mask mandate, Pope, Daza, and the Health Freedom Defense Fund sue various government officials and the CDC, declaring it unlawful and requesting that it be set aside. To address this, the word “sanitation” becomes of interest and the Corpus of Historical American English (“COHA”) is used to search this term’s use between 1930 and 1944. Corpus linguistics is described in the case as, “A search returns the desired word as well as its context and, with a sufficient sample size, search results permit inferences on how a word was used.”
Court Opinion | United States v. Seefried
United States v. SEEFRIED
No. 21-cr-287 (TNM) (D.C. Oct. 31, 2022).
Seefried, a rioter from the January 6 United States Capitol Riot, faces the reality of a prison sentence. Understanding these three words, “administration of justice” determines the difference between a two and six year sentence. Because sentencing guidelines’ primary linguistic community is mostly an informed legal community, our own Caselaw Access Project (“COCAP”) is searched alongside the Corpus of Historical American English (“COHA”) to understand “administration of justice”.