ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the use of corpora for the interpretation of statutes and constitutional provisions. It reports a number of examples, dating from the mid-1990s to the present, where corpus-based research has either been offered to American courts or initiated and used directly by judges themselves. Further, two detailed focal case studies will be provided: a very early corpus-based analysis on how to "use a firearm" could be interpreted in a federal criminal statute that appeared to influence an important decision by the United States Supreme Court, and an investigation in 2019 of how a term in the United States Constitution, emolument, was used in the late eighteenth century when the Constitution was drafted and ratified, which is a question of considerable topical importance in the United States at the time of writing, at issue in a series of lawsuits against President Donald Trump.
