ABA Journal has a quiz to take to sort out the textualists from the purposivists, the consequentialists, the confused, and the uncommitted. The quiz was developed by Bryan Garner, coauthor with Justice Antonin Scalia of the new legal thriller Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, but Scalia's lack of concurrence in its inclusion left the quiz on the cutting room floor. Example:
1. A statute prescribes that to convict a person, the charging instrument must allege that the defendant acted “against the peace of the state.” A defendant’s indictment omitted the second definite article and instead alleged that the felonious act was “against the peace of state.” Does the defendant go free?
