Digital Commons Network^™

First, Do No Harm: The Use Of Covert Video Surveillance To Detect Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy–An Unethical Means Of "Preventing" Child Abuse,, Michael T. Flannery

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reproducing A Fit Citizenry: Dependency, Eugenics, And The Law Of Marriage In The United States, Matthew Lindsay

All Faculty Scholarship

Between the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, American state legislatures enacted a series of new laws that delineated a class of citizens who were deemed ineligible to participate in the institution of marriage. Scholars have characterized this development as evidence that lawmakers had lost faith in a laissez-faire approach to nuptial governance, and thus transformed marriage into an object of public regulation. This essay argues that behind the ostensible nuptial privatism of the mid-nineteenth century lay a self-conscious policy. of judicial governance. Judges invoked the language of nuptial privacy and the common law of contract strategically to advance their …

May Fault Be Considered In Deciding Financial Issues In Divorce Cases? Yes, When A Fault-Based Divorce In Granted, Steve Leben

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

'M' Is For The Many Things That 'Mother' Means Family Life Has Changed, But Family Law Hasn't Kept Pace, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Where We Stand: An Analysis Of America's Family Law Adjudicatory Systems And The Mandate To Establish Unified Family Courts, Barbara A. Babb

All Faculty Scholarship

The volume and scope of family law cases in contemporary American society, as well as their unending nature both individually and systemically, exacerbate the difficulty of their resolution. To address this crisis, the American Bar Association and others have recommended court reform, specifically, the establishment of unified family courts in all jurisdictions. A unified family court is a single forum within which to adjudicate the full range of family law issues, based on the notion that court effectiveness and efficiency increase when the court resolves a family's legal problems in as few appearances as possible. The model is based on …

Adoption Of Children In Missouri, Mary M. Beck

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Article is to investigate the effect of Missouri law on adoption and to determine whether its provisions adequately protect the parties to adoption and whether its degree of clarity properly forestalls litigation.

The New Marriage Contract And The Limits Of Private Ordering, Gregory S. Alexander

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fashioning An Interdisciplinary Framework For Court Reform In Family Law: A Blueprint To Construct A Unified Family Court, Barbara A. Babb

All Faculty Scholarship

Family law cases focus on some of the most intimate, emotional, and all-encompassing aspects of parties' personal lives. Based on its study of unmet legal needs of children and their families, the American Bar Association has recommended the establishment of unified family courts in all jurisdictions. This article evaluates how America's courts adjudicate family law matters and advocates systemic change by offering an interdisciplinary ecological and therapeutic approach to the creation of unified family courts. The author presents a comprehensive overview of the results of her nationwide survey determining how each state's courts handle family law matters. The results of …

"The New Yuppie Female Lawyer": The Impact Of Women On Divorce Law Practice, Lynn M. Mather

Other Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Assembly Bill To Speed Divorce After Abuse Will Save Many Lives, Bring Needed Reform, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Autonomy Or Community? An Evaluation Of Two Models Of Parental Obligation, Marsha Garrison

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"Toward A Contractarian Account Of Family Governance", Marsha Garrison

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Images Of Motherhood: Conflicting Definitions From Welfare "Reform," Family And Criminal Law, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

Part I of this Article explores the traditional idealized view of motherhood that child placement statutes and court decisions reflect. These laws include statutes and case law in custody disputes between parents and in child protection proceedings under civil and criminal laws where the dispute is between the parent and the state. Part II contrasts the legal construct of motherhood that child placement laws embody with the legal image of mothers in child support and welfare law.

Part III examines the impact of these conflicting images of motherhood on a particular group of mothers -- battered women. Battered women illuminate …

Susanna And The Elders: A Note On The Regulation Of Families, Carol Weisbrod

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Property Rules Meet Feminist Needs: Respecting Autonomy By Valuing Connection, Katharine K. Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Crime Or Punishment: The Parental Corporal Punishment Defense - Reasonable And Necessary, Or Excused Abuse, Kandice Johnson

Faculty Publications

The parental right to use physical force to discipline and restrain children is a privilege firmly rooted in the American system of jurisprudence. This privilege is often asserted as a defense when parents are charged with a crime of aggression against their child. While the privilege to use disciplinary force is universally recognized as a defense in criminal actions, it is equally acknowledged that child abuse is a pervasive reality of American life. This article postulates that current laws, addressing assertion of the parental privilege defense in criminal actions, fail either to provide adequate guidance to parents or to sufficiently …

Commercializing Marriage: A Proposal For Valuing Women's Work Through Premarital Security Agreements, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reconstructing Marriage: An Intersexional Approach, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Comments On Dark Numbers: Research On Domestic Violence In Central And Eastern Europe, Isabel Marcus

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Guardian Ad Litem In Child Custody Cases: The Contours Of Our Judicial System Stretched Beyond Recognition, Raven Lidman, Betsy Hollingsworth

Faculty Articles

This article discusses the role of the guardian ad litem, as Part I dissects each of the five potential guardian ad litem roles: Lawyer, Expert Witness, investigator/Lay Witness, Mediator/Facilitator, and Party. For each role, this section explores: how the well-known role is typically performed within the court system as a whole; how that role might be performed in a custody case, consistent with its occurrence elsewhere in the judicial system; and how that role, when held by a guardian ad litem, actually is performed in a custody context. Part II endeavors to explain how the guardian ad litem figure has …

American Family Law: History -- Whostory, Ana M. Novoa

Faculty Articles

Family law should be rooted in preserving and protecting intimate relationships; instead, it is rooted in preserving those domestic systems that created or expanded the economic empire of the "Founding Fathers," the white males of the colonial northeast. This northeastern colonial perspective continues to underpin most of the basic assumptions in family law. Concurrently, with the increased privatization of the cooperative virtues, Americans have developed an excessive preoccupation with self and a cult of consumerism.

Consumerism has driven American society toward increased individualism and narcissism. A by-product of the increased individual-consumer culture is the mistaken belief that our personal values …

Sex And The Social Order: The Selective Enforcement Of Colonial American Adultery Laws In The English Context, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

No abstract provided.

Lesbian Divorce: A Commentary On The Legal Issues, David L. Chambers

Articles

Lesbian couples who break up will find themselves in an awkward position under the law for two separable but related reasons. The first is that, because they were unmarried, they are subjected by the law to much the same uneven and ambivalent treatment to which unmarried heterosexual couples are subjected. The second, of course, is that they are gay or lesbian and thus regarded with special disfavor even in some states that have become more tolerant of unmarried heterosexual relationships. As a law teacher who is gay and who writes about family law issues relating to gay men and lesbians, …

Law, Life, And Literature: A Critical Reflection Of Life And Literature To Illuminate How Laws Of Domestic Violence, Race, And Class Bind Black Women Based On Alice Walker's Book The Third Life Of Grange Copeland, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Consider Law, Life and Literature. Which of the three is the most real, honest, and inclusive? Many would answer the law because it takes into consideration all of the facts and circumstances to formulate a clear and consistent rule, and literature is the most unreal, the most fictional of the three. However, that is not accurate. Of the three, literature is actually the most real, honest, and inclusive. It is real because, with brutal honesty, it deals with all of our realities. It is more honest than life, for often in our outer (and even inner) lives we are afraid …

Same-Sex Marriage And Simulacra: Exploring Conceptions Of Equality, Heather Hughes

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

1998 Amendments To The Oklahoma Adoption Code: The Third Round Of Adoption Reform, Marianne Blair

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Brief Amicus Curiae Of Ohio Psychological Association, National Association Of Social Workers And Ohio Chapter, American Academy Of Child And Adolescent Psychiatry, Ohio Human Rights Bar Association And The Lesbian/Gay Community Service Center Of Greater Cleveland In Support Of Appellants, In Re Adoption Of Jane Doe, Ohio Ninth District Case No. 19017, Susan J. Becker

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

I. THE BEST INTERESTS OF CHILDREN ARE PROMOTED BY ALLOWING UNMARKED COUPLES TO BE ABLE TO PETITION TO ADOPT CHILDREN.

II. CHILDREN RAISED BY GAY AND LESBIAN PARENTS ARE AS HAPPY AND HEALTHY AS OTHER CHILDREN AND ARE NOT ADVERSELY AFFECTED BY THEIR PARENTS' SEXUAL ORIENTATION.

III. SECURING A HAPPY AND STABLE HOME LIFE FOR THE CHILD, NOT FALSE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT LESBIAN AND GAY FAMILIES, SHOULD BE THE COURT'S DETERMINING CONSIDERATION.

Kentucky Law Survey: Family Law, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article addresses some of the family law developments occurring since the Kentucky Law Journal last published a Kentucky law survey. Space limitations preclude discussion of every post-1985 change. Instead, this Article focuses on general trends, significant cases, and legislative developments.

Inquiry into family law developments in Kentucky is timely, not only because of the social importance of family relations, but also because of other contemporaneous efforts at family law reform. The American Law Institute ("ALl") is currently considering a final draft of principles governing family dissolution. That draft, and the discussions that surround its ultimate acceptance or rejection by …

Family (Proper)Ty, Richard H. Chused

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Prosecutorial Use Of Expert Testimony In Domestic Violence Cases: From Recantation To Refusal To Testify, Audrey Rogers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article discusses the use of expert testimony in prosecuting those charged with domestic abuse. Part I provides a background on the need and nature of expert testimony in domestic violence cases and the requirements for the admission of such expert testimony. It traces the development of the role of expert testimony in domestic violence cases from its initial exclusive use as a defense tool to support self-defense claims to its present use by prosecutors to explain a complainant's recantation or other puzzling behavior. Part II discusses the appellate cases that have addressed the admissibility and scope of expert testimony …