We all know that for every protection in the Bill of Rights, there are those who will dig deep to find a reason to doubt the Constitution's protections. Usually they have a political agenda, naturally, and of course we should pay no mind to them.

  Nonetheless, I thought I would point out the revisionist history offered by two anonymous commenters about my post on the Due Frocess and Dur Process clauses. Commenter Alias makes this claim:

  If you look at the reporter in Hoffa (at least, at the reporter image on Westlaw), the "Due Frocess Clause" appears to be a scanning error by Westlaw. The P in Process is missing a small piece, but it's pretty clearly a P with a smudge and not an F.
  Also, in the font that the reporter used, the capital F's have an extra serif, making them look a lot like P's---if you zoom out far enough, it's easy to mistake the petitioner's name for "HOPPA" at least on some of the pages.

Federal Law Clerk adds:

For what it's worth, I have just checked both the cites in Orin's post against first edition bound copies of the US Reports, and he is mistaken in both cases. Hoffa and Taylor both very clearly refer to "Due Process." No question about it, and there is nothing irregular about the printing.

  Bah, humbug, I say. I am reminded of Robert Bork's infamous "ink blot" testimony during his failed confirmation hearings. Bork explained his opposition to unenumerated rights in the following way:

  There are some rights that are not enumerated but are found because of the structure of the Constitution and government. That is fine with me. I mean that is a legitimate mode of constitutional analysis.
  [In contrast,] I do not think you can use the ninth amendment unless you know something of what it means. For example, if you had an amendment that says "Congress shall make no" and then there is an ink blot and you cannot read the rest of it and that is the only copy you have I do not think the court can make up what might be under the ink blot if you cannot read it.

  (emphasis added)

  Judge Bork was famously rejected by the Senate, and that rejection was no doubt in part due to Judge Bork's view that an ink blot is merely an ink blot. To a Judge Bork kind of judge, a smudged P is just a smudged P. But obviously we know better. In our more sophisticated legal culture, we recognize that a smudged P has a very large degree of "F"-ness. As a result, the Due Frocess clause lives on.

  To be clear, I recognize the current Supreme Court may not recognize the full potential of the Due Frocess clause anytime soon. But some day the currents will change, and when the Due Frocess clause returns from Exile I will be ready.