Circuit Judge Discusses Originalism During W&L Visit

Judge Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr., of the 4th Circuit discusses originalism’s importance.

“Don’t just look at the surface. Don’t just look at the labels, but think hard about what those things mean.” Judge Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, stressed this message to W&L Law students on Friday, October 4.

Quattlebaum’s discussion, titled “Originalism: Why and How?” was held at the Millhiser Moot Court Room at Sydney Lewis Hall.

Judge Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. is originally from Durham, NC and received his undergraduate degree from Rhodes College and his law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law. After law school, he worked in private practice in Greenville, SC for the law firm Nelson Mullins.

In 2017, President Trump nominated him to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. After serving for six months, President Trump nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, where he currently sits.

During his presentation, Judge Quattlebaum stressed the importance of originalism in the work of federal judges. Originalism is a legal philosophy that supports interpreting laws based on the meaning of the law which its creators had in mind.

For example, the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen pertains to originalism in the Second Amendment context because a core tenet of the ruling was the importance of historically interpreting the law.

From the onset of the talk, Judge Quattlebaum made it clear that his goal was not to convince the students that originalism is the best way to interpret the law. The purpose of the talk was for him to advise W&L Law students on how to go about legal interpretation in their careers. He also discussed his approach to his job as a federal judge, including his view on the role of the judicial branch and the importance of restraint.

“The Constitution lays out what’s the legislative role, what's the executive role, and what’s the judicial role. And I think that matters. And so if I'm in the judiciary, I shouldn't do the legislature’s role or I shouldn't do the executive’s role. And so I felt like separation of powers was important in how I would go about being a judge,” he explained.

Judge Quattlebaum then proceeded to give the students specific case examples where he could explain his legal philosophy as it applied to real-time cases. Regarding the case King v. David, a case about bankruptcy, he stressed the importance of impartiality and excluding emotion from legal decisions, stating “The code said how to do it, and my job was to follow what the law said. And so I did that even though I didn’t really like that result.”

Discussing Williams v. Kincaid, a case about gender dysphoria and its relation to The Americans with Disabilities Act, Quattlebaum elaborated on why he believes that originalism was appropriate for the case. He stated, “Culture changes all the time. I interpret the words that Congress passed to mean what they meant when they passed it, and if things change, it’s Congress’s responsibility, not mine, to rewrite the statute.”

Quattlebaum continued, saying, “My view on the rule of law was if any particular judge could rewrite the statute based on those terms … [we’d] be kind of getting outside of our role under separation of powers, but be into a situation where the law might change or mean a different thing depending on who was looking at it.”

Quattlebaum repeatedly encouraged the students to pursue deeper meanings of the law because doing so would help solve legal problems that just looking at “the label” would not.

Quattlebaum then transitioned to the second part of his talk, discussing how to institute originalism. He began this part of the presentation by discussing some of the more well-known tools for legal interpretation. These tools include examining the actual words of the law, a strategy emphasized by textualists, the context of the law’s adoption, semantics, history, and tradition.

He then explained a less common, but effective tool called corpus linguistics, which, as he described, “is the study of language through bodies of assimilation of that language.”

Essentially, corpus linguistics discovers the meaning of words and phrases by examining their uses in everyday media, such as in literature, television, and dialogue. From this, someone can decide which “form,” or corpus, fits the given situation of the word or phrase best.

In describing the utility of corpus linguistics, Judge Quattlebaum said the technique is “just like almost any searchable database: you get responses, and you get those words and phrases in the context that they were used, in the source they were used. And it helps you understand what people meant or how they use those terms, so that’s a way of interpreting words and phrases in statutes, constitutions, [or] contracts that has gained traction.”

Judge Quattlebaum then gave a case law example where he used corpus linguistics. The case dealt with examining whether strangulation could be committed negligently, as one person who had been convicted of assault by strangulation tried to argue.

Judge Quattlebaum noted the seemingly implausible explanation but then went on to show how he used corpus linguistics to conclude that the word “strangulation” always involved some sort of intent in the action.

He concluded by stressing the importance of having clear-cut legal tools at one’s disposal. Without consistent tools, Quattlebaum stressed, a person can easily revert to their personal beliefs when resolving legal matters, going against the duty of a judge.