Those in today's majority usually insist on tying constitutional rulings to the document's text or to historical tradition.
But if criminal charges are the goal, the investigative methods must be in accord with constitutional rulings on suspects' rights.
In its potential impact on the legal systems of the 50 states, the case could produce one of the most important constitutional rulings in years.
Regrettably, however, she also managed to deliver a constitutional ruling that has no roots in the Constitution.
According to Nelson, when the highest court makes a constitutional ruling, all other courts must follow it.
Beyond the federal situation, any constitutional ruling will apply to all criminal proceedings, state as well as federal.
If they had wanted to, they had the opportunity to blow the whistle over the constitutional ruling.
The Supreme Court agreed to consider that question in what could become one of the most important constitutional rulings in years.
The trouble is that the court's Miranda decision was a constitutional ruling, which Congress cannot overturn merely by passing a law.
The term informational self-determination was first used in the context of a German constitutional ruling relating to personal information collected during the 1983 census.