avoidance of constitutional questions
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 353 U.S. 364 - Government & Civic Employees Organizing Committee v. Windsor · 1957Most cited · 375 citing opinions
One policy served by that practice is that of not passing on constitutional questions in situations where an authoritative interpretation of state law may avoid the constitutional issues.
How often courts cite the case defining “avoidance of constitutional questions”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “avoidance of constitutional questions” — 372 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.