This thorough study shows that the courts do not hold though they often so say that an unconstitutional statue is void in the sense that it never has any effect upon legal relations professor field says in some instances all courts federal and state decide cases by giving effect to unconstitutional statutes and giving effect to them directly as such for the case under consideration in other instances all courts agree that effect shall be given to such statutes by use of other . A study of the effect of an unconstitutional statute or of decisions on constitutionality is a study of one phase of the operation of judicial review some observations upon judicial review as a device o government rather than as a purely legal doctrine may therefore not be amiss although they should be taken as suggestive fragments only pending further studies that will furnish more reliable data and generalizations. Effect of unconstitutional statute simply a statute in form is not a law and under every circumstance or condition lacks the force of law in accord with this doctrine that a statute which is declared un constitutional is void ab initio it has been held that a person accused. The effect of an unconstitutional statute was first published in 1935 minnesota archive editions uses digital technology to make long unavailable books once again accessible and are published unaltered from the original university of minnesota press editions