MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA — Constitution Day observance this year at WVU Law will focus on the politics of judicial review.
WVU law professor Gerry Ashdown will deliver the annual Constitution Day lecture on September 16 at 12:30 p.m. in the Event Hall at the College of Law.
Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.
Ashdown will address Chief Justice John Marshall’s analysis of Constitutional judicial review in the 1803 U.S. Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison, including its flaws, contradictions and political motivations.
He will also discuss examples of how the Supreme Court’s power of substantive constitutional review has been used over the years to achieve policy goals favored by a majority of the court.
Ashdown is the James H. “Buck” and June M. Harless Professor of Law. A member of the WVU Law faculty since 1979, Ashdown is co-author of the widely-used textbook “Criminal Law Cases and Comments” (University Casebook Series, Foundation Press).
Former West Virginia senator Robert Byrd (1917-2010) sponsored the legislation that established Constitution Day in 2004. The law requires that all publicly funded educational institutions provide special programming on or near that day every year. The College of Law hosts the annual event that fulfills that responsibility for WVU.
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