Digital Commons Network^™

Family Law, Wei Jing Tricia Ho, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Two salient trends emerge from the decisions issued by the Singapore courts in 2019. First, cases with international elements are featured increasingly, with the Court of Appeal adjudicating its first case on financial relief consequential on foreign divorces and the High Court releasing a decision on sham marriages to obtain an immigration advantage. It is evident that the law is evolving to cater to the needs of a changing community in Singapore. There is a recognition of the increase in the number of Singapore citizens working abroad and marrying non-Singaporeans, which has prompted certain legislative changes that seek to provide …

The Effects Of A Powerful Military On Compliance With International Human Rights Tribunals, Ian Z. Sheppard

Honors College Theses

Are states with a powerful military force less likely to comply with European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) judgements and rulings? The main foundation of the paper is built upon Hillebrecht’s definition of compliance and why a particular state complies with the rulings of the ECtHR and IACtHR. Domestic institutions are the driving force behind a state’s willingness to comply because of the significant lack of enforcing power behind these international institutions. The goal of the paper is to expand upon what Hillebrecht started by looking past the basic domestic institutions like executive …

Law School News: Rwu Law Professors, Aclu Seek Release For All Ice Detainees At Wyatt 05-18-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Professor Of The Year: Tara Allen 05-14-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Justice Diseased Is Justice Denied: Coronavirus, Court Closures, And Criminal Trials, Ryan Shymansky

West Virginia Law Review Online

This Article aims to consider the immediate impacts of the novel coronavirus on criminal defendants’ access to speedy trials by jury. In particular, it aims to examine whether court closures and delays could affect the substantive rights of criminal defendants—and particularly pretrial detainees—to a speedy and public trial by jury. To date, very little scholarship has considered this question. Yet the ideal of a speedy trial by jury is deeply embedded in our Constitution and our judicial system, and the potential for a pandemic to limit or negate that right should ring scholastic and judicial alarm bells.

This analysis proceeds …

Perceptions Of Judicial Bias In The Mississippi Judiciary, Allyson Avant

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore Mississippians’ opinions towards the Mississippi state judiciary and further examine any differences in such opinions across race, gender, knowledge, and education levels. In doing so, it is possible to gain further understanding of the ways that historical context and knowledge influence perceptions of the state judiciary. Data collected from an anonymous survey of approximately 500 individuals shed some light on the perceptions Mississippians have towards the state judiciary. While many of the results were generalizable across various demographics, African Americans consistently held more negative views of their state judiciary than their White …

Teaching Badminton Techniques And Organizing The Process In Physical Education Classes, S.R. Qazoqov

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

The article highlights the following information, badminton is the second most popular sport in the world after football. Every fiftieth person on the planet plays badminton. It is also the most energy-intensive sport and is included in the astronaut training program. Sports badminton is a great way to burn calories. Playing for an hour burns 480 calories, the highest of any sport. In addition, physical education classes cover the problems and requirements that can be encountered in teaching badminton techniques.

Saving The United States From Lurching To Another Sentencing Crisis: Taking Proportionaltiy Seriously And Implementing Fair Fixed Penalties, Sandeep Gopalan

Journal of Legislation (University of Notre Dame)

Unabated tough-on-crime policies in the United States for the past two decades in response to a crime problem have now produced another crisis: too many prisoners. Prison gates are currently literally being opened to release prisoners in a bid to ameliorate the unsustainable cost of detaining more than two million Americans. More than 40,000 drug offenders may be released early from prison pursuant to retrospective sentence reductions which have been implemented for no greater reason than the prison walls are crumbling from overuse. Sentencing is the sharp end of the criminal law. It is the domain where the State acts …

Statistical Precedent: Allocating Judicial Attention, Ryan W. Copus

Faculty Works

Suffering from a well-covered “crisis of volume,” the United States Courts of Appeals have patched together an ad hoc system of triage in an effort to provide cases with sufficient attention. For example, only some cases are assigned to central staff, analyzed by law clerks, orally argued, debated over by judges, or decided in published opinions. The courts have evaded overt disaster by increasing the number of active, senior, and visiting judges, but the additional personnel poses its own demands on attention—judges must also pay attention to one another in order to coherently develop and apply the law. With too …

Were Justices Lawyers?, Thomas J. Mcsweeney

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Legal Genres, Thomas J. Mcsweeney

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Who Are The "We"?, Thomas J. Mcsweeney

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Doctrine Of Wilful Blindness In Drug Offences: Adili Chibuike Ejike V Public Prosecutor [2019] 2 Slr 254, Rennie Whang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In Adili Chibuike Ejike v Public Prosecutor [2019] 2 SLR 254, the Court of Appeal clarified the operation of the wilful blindness doctrine in the context of knowing possession for drug offences. In particular, it affirmed wilful blindness as a doctrine of substantive rather than evidential law, which applies as a limited extension to the legal requirement of actual knowledge. The court then articulated a three-part test for the finding of wilful blindness in relation to knowledge as an ingredient of possession. However, it left open the content of the doctrine as applied to the element of knowledge in drug …

Public Defenders' Offices In Brazil: Access To Justice, Courts, And Public Defenders, Alexandre Dos Santos Cunha

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This essay discusses the impact of public defenders' offices in promoting equality through the enforcement of the right to access to justice in Brazil. To achieve this goal, this note is divided into two parts.

Part I presents the Brazilian public defenders' offices, their history, institutional design, rights, and prerogatives. Part II discusses the role played by public defenders in the enforcement of the right to access to justice in Brazil, as well as the relations established between public defenders and courts. The Conclusion attempts to assess the sustainability of the Brazilian model, in order to determine if there is …

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 …

Here There Be Dragons: The Likely Interaction Of Judges With The Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem, Fredric I. Lederer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Jurisprudence—Merely Judgment: A Fallibilist Account Of The Rule Of Law, Bruce K. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

How should judges decide the cases presented to them? In our system the answer is, “according to law,” as opposed to the judges’ preferred outcomes. But for at least a century, skeptics have cast doubt on whether adjudication under law is possible. Judge Richard Posner, now retired from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, has, for example, argued that the indeterminacy of legal argument and the influence of judges’ predispositions show that it is not. Judge Posner thus recommends that judges give up on the rule of law in contested cases and instead candidly base their decisions …

Death By Virus: Why The Prison Litigation Reform Act Should Be Suspended, Divya Sriharan

Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics

In order to save the lives of inmates, as well as redress some of the harms the prison system and the pandemic have caused them, Congress must pass a bill to temporarily suspend the Prison Litigation Reform Act. As of August 13, 2020, 95,398 inmates have contracted COVID-19. Prisons refuse to adapt or implement measures to save lives. Because of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, it is near impossible for inmates to take their cases to court. The Prison Litigation Reform Act’s requirements include: exhausting all internal administrative remedies before filing in court, not allowing suits based on mental or …

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 …

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 …

The Inherent And Supervisory Power, Jeffrey C. Dobbins

Georgia Law Review

Parties to litigation expect courts to operate both
predictably and fairly. A core part of this expectation is
the presence of codified rules of procedure, which ensure
fairness while constraining, and making more
predictable, the ebb and flow of litigation.
Within the courts of this country, however, there is a
font of authority over procedure that courts often turn to
in circumstances when they claim that there is no
written guidance. This authority, referred to as the
“inherent” or “supervisory” power of courts, is an almost
pure expression of a court’s exercise of discretion in that
it gives courts the …

#Sowhitemale: Federal Procedural Rulemaking Committees, Brooke D. Coleman

Faculty Articles

Of the 630 members of a specialized set of committees responsible for drafting the federal rules for civil and criminal litigation, 591 of them have been white. That is 94 percent of the committee membership. Of that same group, 513—or 81 percent—have been white men. Decisionmaking bodies do better work when their members are diverse; these rulemaking committees are no exception. The Federal Rules of Practice and Procedure are not mere technical instructions, nor are they created by a neutral set of experts. To the contrary, the Rules embody normative judgments about what values trump others, and the rulemakers—while experts—are …

Jurisprudence—Merely Judgment: A Fallibilist Account Of The Rule Of Law, Bruce K. Miller

Western New England Law Review

How should judges decide the cases presented to them? In our system the answer is, “according to law,” as opposed to the judges’ preferred outcomes. But for at least a century, skeptics have cast doubt on whether adjudication under law is possible. Judge Richard Posner, now retired from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, has, for example, argued that the indeterminacy of legal argument and the influence of judges’ predispositions show that it is not. Judge Posner thus recommends that judges give up on the rule of law in contested cases and instead candidly base their decisions …

The Law Of Obscenity In Comic Books, Rachel Silverstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Packing And Unpacking State Courts, Marin K. Levy

Faculty Scholarship

When it comes to court packing, questions of “should” and “can” are inextricably intertwined. The conventional wisdom has long been that federal court packing is something the President and Congress simply cannot do. Even though the Constitution’s text does not directly prohibit expanding or contracting the size of courts for political gain, many have argued that there is a longstanding norm against doing so, stemming from a commitment to judicial independence and separation of powers. And so (the argument goes), even though the political branches might otherwise be tempted to add or subtract seats to change the Court’s ideological makeup, …

Bankruptcy Courts Ill-Prepared For Tsunami Of People Going Broke From Coronavirus Shutdown, Paige Marta Skiba, Dalié Jiménez, Michelle Miller, Pamela Foohey, Sara Sternberg Green

Economics Faculty Works

As more Americans lose all or part of their incomes and struggle with mounting debts, another crisis looms: a wave of personal bankruptcies. Bankruptcy can discharge or erase many types of debts and stop foreclosures, repossessions and wage garnishments. But our research shows the bankruptcy system is difficult to navigate even in normal times, particularly for minorities, the elderly and those in rural areas.

Reign Of Error: District Courts Misreading The Supreme Court Over Rooker–Feldman Analysis, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Edward L. Baskauskas

Faculty Scholarship

Seventeen decisions in nine U.S. district courts from 2006 through 2019 have taken a demonstrably misgrounded starting point for Rooker–Feldman analysis. The cases have read language from a 2006 Supreme Court opinion, in which the Court quoted criteria stated by the lower court, as their guideline. But the Court summarily vacated the lower court’s judgment, and it had previously articulated, and has repeated, different criteria for federal courts to follow. The district-court decisions all appear to have reached correct results, but the mistake about criteria should be recognized and avoided as soon as possible before it creates potential mischief. And …

The Friday Night “Who Is Driving?” Debate Will Soon Come To An End: How Autonomous Vehicles Are Changing Our Lives And Societal Norms, Nicholas Calabria

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keeping Faith With Nomos, Steven L. Winter

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Usury And Its Impact On New York Business Transactions, Christopher Basile

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.