Michael Hernandez
According to Professor Michael Hernandez, judicial activists on the nation’s high court are oblivious to the impact their rulings have on society when they substitute their personal policy preferences for the written text of the U. S. Constitution.
After graduating from the University of Virginia and practicing at two firms in Richmond, Va., Hernandez began teaching at Regent Law School in 1992. He is particularly concerned about recent court decisions involving the power of eminent domain and its impact on the property rights of average American citizens.
In June 2005, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled against property owners in the case of Kelo v. City of New London. In a 5-4 decision the majority of justices said it was permissible for local governments, acting under the authority of eminent domain, to compel home owners to sell their property to private developers. Hernandez said the ruling violates the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects against the seizing of property for anything other than a public use.
Although the Kelo decision is indefensible as a matter of law in his view, Hernandez also said the outcome was predictable in light of the court’s penchant for activism. “What the court has done with the takings clause is to use the text as a launching pad to go in whatever direction it wants to rather than seeing itself bound by the words of the text,” said Hernandez.
He believes this approach to jurisprudence, which eschews methodology in exchange for social engineering, is antithetical to Republican government. He felt called into the teaching profession, in part, because he wanted to train lawyers who would execute the laws as they are written, rather than imposing their own policy preferences.
Hernandez is also driven by a strong desire to serve as a mentor to students who are eager to rediscover the Christian foundations of law. “The challenge is to make sure we thoroughly instruct students in the law while also giving them a Christian perspective on the law,” he said. “We want to do both with excellence. We do not sacrifice legal instruction for the sake of Christian integration, nor do we sacrifice Christian integration for the sake of legal instruction.”
