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Vertical Stare Decisis And Three-Judge District Courts, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

Three-judge federal district courts have jurisdiction over many issues central to our democratic system, including constitutional challenges to congressional and legislative districts, as well as to certain federal campaign-finance statutes. They are similarly responsible for enforcing key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Litigants often have the right to appeal their rulings directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Because of this unusual appellate process, courts and commentators disagree on whether such three-judge district court panels are bound by circuit precedent or instead are free to adjudicate these critical issues constrained only by U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

The applicability of court …

In The Shadows: Third-Party Litigation Funding Agreements And The Effect Their Nondisclosure Has On Civil Trials, Jeffrey James Grosholz

Florida State University Law Review

Third-party litigation funding ("TPLF") has become an increasingly common practice in the United States in recent years, especially in the field of civil litigation. In civil practice, TPLF entails a third party funding the litigation costs of an actual party to a case and in turn the third party receives a share of any damages if the suit is successful. Often, the court and jury are not aware of any TPLF agreement, as there are currently few rules requiring disclosure of the existence of such agreements or the identity of TPLF financiers. And while generally entities engaged in TPLF have …

Moderating The Use Of Lay Opinion Identification Testimony Related To Surveillance Video, George Bach

Florida State University Law Review

Traditionally, under the "silent witness" theory, when video surveillance recordings are authenticated and admitted at trial, the video "speaks for itself." However, with increasing frequency, courts have permitted witnesses to provide lay opinion identification testimony about individuals in the surveillance video. The testimony is offered as lay opinion testimony that assists the jury, particularly in cases where the video is of poor quality, the subject's face is difficult to see, or the subject's appearance has changed by the time of trial. Recent state court opinions (including several state supreme courts as a matter of first impression) have upheld the admission …

The Federal Equity Power, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

Throughout the first century and a half of our nation’s history, federal courts treated equity as a type of general law. They applied a uniform, freestanding body of principles derived from the English Court of Chancery to all equitable issues that came before them, regardless of whether a case arose under federal or state law. In 1945, in Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, the United States Supreme Court held that, notwithstanding the changes wrought by the Erie Doctrine, federal courts may continue to rely on these traditional principles of equity to determine the availability of equitable relief, such as injunctions, …

Nationwide Injunctions, Rule 23(B)(2), And The Remedial Powers Of The Lower Courts, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Reverse Nullification And Executive Discretion, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

The President has broad discretion to refrain from enforcing many civil and criminal laws, either in general or under certain circumstances. The Supreme Court has not only affirmed the constitutionality of such under-enforcement, but extolled its virtues. Most recently, in Arizona v. United States, it deployed the judicially created doctrines of obstacle and field preemption to invalidate state restrictions on illegal immigrants that mirrored federal law, in large part to ensure that states do not undermine the effects of the President’s decision to refrain from fully enforcing federal immigration provisions.

Such a broad application of obstacle and field preemption is …

The Truth-Justice Tradeoff: Perceptions Of Decisional Accuracy And Procedural Justice In Adversarial And Inquisitorial Legal Systems, Justin Sevier

Scholarly Publications

Two studies provide empirical support for Thibaut and Walker’s (1978) theory that inquisitorial and adversarial dispute resolution systems are associated with different psychological values: the pursuit of truth and the pursuit of justice. Study 1 suggests that, in civil and criminal disputes, the adversarial system is perceived to produce less truth than it does justice, and less truth than does the inquisitorial system. Conversely, the inquisitorial system is perceived to produce less justice than it does truth, and less justice than does the adversarial system. Study 2 examines how legal outcomes moderate litigants’ perceptions of the truth and justice produced …

The Law Of Nations And The Offenses Clause Of The Constitution: A Defense Of Federalism, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.