Digital Commons Network^™

Conflicts In Cross-Border Enforcement Of Tax Claims, Andrew Grossman

Andrew Grossman

Some recent academic studies have argued, with few provisos, for abandonment of the rule traditional in both common- and civil-law jurisdictions barring the enforcement of foreign tax claims and judgments in the absence of a specific treaty engagement to the contrary. To equate public-law debts with private debts, and to make judgments for such debts enforceable across borders in the manner of the Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act, without addressing the special nature of tax claims and the way in which they may arise in bankruptcy, involuntary liquidation of assets, and arise in tandem and across borders, is bound to …

Rule 3.8: The Not So Special Responsibilities Of Prosecutors, Ahmed M.T. Riaz

Ahmed M.T. Riaz

Prosecutors are obligated to fulfill responsibilities that stretch beyond the usual scope of duties retained by non-prosecuting attorneys. A broad generalization as to why such differences exist may be reasoned from the fact that a prosecutor is a government official, a position which necessarily carries a duty to “seek justice.” However, the differences may more specifically be categorized in four ways. First, because prosecutors are government officials, they are provided great access to government resources; second, prosecutors are subject to different legal obligations than any other type of attorney, such as being burdened by a reasonable doubt standard; third, the …

The Emotional Juror, Todd E. Pettys

Todd E. Pettys

Addressing the dichotomy often drawn between emotions and rationality, I argue that, while emotions sometimes exert undesirable influences in the courtroom, there are a variety of ways in which emotions aid rational decision-making by jurors.

Systematic Content Analysis Of Judicial Opinions, Ronald F. Wright, Mark A. Hall

Ronald F. Wright

Our article traces the use of “content analysis” — a standard research technique in political science, communications, and other fields — to study judicial opinions. As it turns out, this is a high-growth area that nobody has noticed. We collect over 130 examples of such research projects that other scholars performed between 1956 and 2006, and draw lessons from the ways that scholars have used this technique, for good and for bad. We document the growth of this research technique, and offer guidance to future scholars on how best to adapt the standard requirements of the technique to the specialized …

Crime Prospects And Prospect Theory, Ram Ranjan

Ram Ranjan

This paper models criminal behavior in a dynamic optimization setting where psychological factors such as subjective risk perception and time preferences play a key role in inducing illegal actions. When psychological perceptions over the actual magnitude of the reward and over the subjective risks of finding a victim or of being caught are dynamic, their influence on crime efforts could vary. Specifically, increasing punishment over rewards, ceteris paribus, deters crime, but increasing punishment and monitoring simultaneously, may encourage crime in the long term. It is also demonstrated that it may not be possible to distinguish between the impacts of hyperbolic …

Equal Rights For Equal Rites?: Victim Allocution, Defendant Allocution, And The Crime Victims' Rights Act, Mary Margaret Giannini

Mary Margaret - Giannini

The federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA) grants victims the right to be reasonably heard at sentencing. In the course of examining this right, courts and commentators have referenced the defendant’s analogous right of sentencing allocution as a model or benchmark for the victim’s sentencing right. However, beyond the invocation of the defendant’s corollary right, there has been little analysis of whether defendant allocution does in fact serve as a model for victim allocution. This piece examines with particularity how victim allocution under the CVRA is currently being practiced in the federal courts, and how that practice compares to defendant …

Illegal Immigration And The Southwest Border District Courts, Thomas J. Bak

Thomas J. Bak

Abstract This paper examines the increase in immigration filings in federal district courts in the southwest United States during the period from 1993 through 2005, a time when the Border Patrol and U.S. Attorneys in southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas stepped up enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. It follows the shift in the tide of immigration cases from the Southern District of California (CA,S), eastward, as successive initiatives in different Border Patrol sectors continually diverted the flow of illegal immigrants. A mathematical model is used to show the strong correlation between immigration case filings and Border Patrol staffing, …

Genocide And Jurisdiction: Methods For Achieving Justice Domestically For The International Crimes In Darfur, Matthew N. Thomas

Matthew N. Thomas

The international community as a whole has been reluctant to take action against Sudan for the international crimes being committed in Darfur. However, individual nations, including the United States, have expressed a strong interest in taking proactive measures to achieve justice for those atrocities. Victims of the Sudanese conflict may achieve justice through the domestic courts of the United States. Civilly, the Alien Tort Statute provides a cause of action to foreign citizens for torts committed against them in violation of international law, while the exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act permit personal jurisdiction over individuals acting on behalf …

Crawford’S Aftershock: Aligning The Regulation Of Non-Testimonial Hearsay With The History And Purposes Of The Confrontation Clause, Fred O. Smith

Fred O. Smith Jr.

This Article explores what the purposes, history and text of the Confrontation Clause have to say about the admission of non-testimonial hearsay statements. Part I examines historical sources such as the common law near the Founding, as well as the text of the clause, and concludes that non-testimonial hearsay was one of the ills that the Confrontation Clause was designed to protect. Part I additionally proposes a two-tiered approach to interpreting the Confrontation Clause, in which testimonial statements receive the most vigorous form of constitutional scrutiny, but non-testimonial statements receive meaningful scrutiny as well. The United States Constitution is no …

Why Judy Norman Acted In Reasonable Self-Defense: An Abused Woman And A Sleeping Man, Marina Angel

Marina Angel

The reasonable man has been replaced by the reasonable person, but that person still functions within legal doctrines conceived by men and interpreted to fit the facts of men's lives. To understand why it is sometimes reasonable for an abused woman to kill her abuser while he is asleep or otherwise incapacitated, basic criminal law doctrines do not have to be changed. They do, however, have to be applied to the facts of abused women's lives.

The issue of exit – why didn’t she leave – must be explained. Concepts of time – immediate, imminent, and cyclical – must be …

Ruling Out The Rule Of Law, Kim Forde-Mazrui

Kim Forde-Mazrui

Although criminal justice scholars continue to debate the overall value of the void-for-vagueness doctrine, broad consensus prevails that requiring crimes to be defined in specific terms reduces law enforcement discretion. A few scholars have questioned this assumption, but the conventional view remains dominant. This Article intends to resolve the question whether the void-for-vagueness doctrine really reduces police discretion. It focuses on traffic enforcement, a context in which laws are both specific and subject to discretionary enforcement. The Article concludes that specific rules do not constrain discretion unless judicial limits are placed either on the scope of activities that may be …

Community Feminism And Politics; A Case Study Of Santa Clara County As The Feminist Capital, 1975-2006, Danelle L. Moon

Danelle L. Moon

No abstract provided.

Changes In Modern Military Codes And The Role Of The Military Commander: What Should The United States Learn From This Revolution?, Victor M. Hansen

Victor M. Hansen

This article examines the renewed interest which legal scholars, courts, and practitioners are giving to military justice. In light of this heightened interest, there have been a number of calls to reform the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Specifically, there is pressure to change and reduce the role of the military commander in the justice system. This pressure for change comes in part due to the changes made in the military codes of the United Kingdom and Canada, two countries which share a common tradition with the United States. The overall effect of these changes has been to significantly reduce …

Steekpartij Voor De Spiegel, Jenneke Christiaens

Jenneke Christiaens

No abstract provided.

Organizational Design Strategy- A Case Study On A Public Baccalaureate College, Grace S. Thomson

Dr. Grace S. Thomson

This paper presents a proposal of re-design strategy for a higher education institution located in the Southwest. The first section of the document will provide the theoretical background about organizational design archetypes (Overholt, 2003), organizational structure (Galbraith, 1974) and strategic planning (Hambrick & Fredrickson, 2005). The second section presents a background of the organization and the rationale of selection of the archetype that best fits its organizational structure. The third and fourth sections elaborates on seven sub-systems that configure NSC characteristic of flexible organization (Overholt, 2003) addressing mission, genetic core, philosophy, organizational culture, internal and external environment, and people systems …

Terrorism And The Rule Of Law: A Case Comment On Kartar Singh V. State Of Punjab, Aditya Swarup

Aditya Swarup

No abstract provided.

Correcting Native American Sentencing Disparity Post-Booker, Timothy J. Droske

Timothy J Droske

Native American criminal defendants are subject to disproportionately harsher sentences than similarly situated non-Indian defendants. This is due to the federal government’s exclusive criminal jurisdiction over Native Americans in Indian country for major crimes and the fact that federal sentences tend to be more severe than their state counterparts. Judges and commentators have proposed various means by which to reduce this disparity, but so far, all these proposals have either lacked the political capital to be enacted, or been frustrated by the rigidity of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in United States v. Booker however, rendered …

Law's Autonomy, Ashok Agrwaal

Ashok Agrwaal

Like entropy, autonomy exists. As such, the existence of autonomy does not need any law or laws, beyond itself and its nature. Autonomy can, therefore, be said to be an "original" state of human kind; or at least of the individual. Law, which is frequently seen as preserving/ maximising/ conferring autonomy is actually a device to usurp autonomy. The paper looks at a specific example of how the nation-state, the most powerful usurper of autonomies created till date, arrogates autonomy to itself, in the name of ‘public interest’. Needless to say, in the hands of the state, autonomy translates into …

The Name Is The Same, But The Facts Have Been Changed To Protect The Attorneys: Strickland, Judicial Discretion, And Appellate Decision-Making, Greg O'Meara,

Greg O'Meara,

The gap between historical events and the way courts recount them in appellate decisions is highlighted by the differences in fact descriptions offered in the same case: Strickland v. Washington. The Supreme Court’s majority decision ignores or recasts facts found in the lower courts in this case. Paul Ricoeur, the leading philosopher of narrative, provides a framework that explains how legal facts are malleable and subject to distortion in his work on non-fiction narratives. He lays out instabilities inherent in any use of language and then broadens his inquiry to show that the transition from the oral to the written …

Motivational Law, Arnold S. Rosenberg

Arnold S Rosenberg

This article introduces a new concept of law’s motivational functions and the laws that serve those functions, which I call “motivational law.” Motivational law consists of those rules and principles, a purpose or function of which is to motivate people to comply with laws that regulate their conduct toward each other or their environment. Motivational laws include obscenity and censorship laws, religious laws on diet, dress, liturgy and ritual, military disciplinary rules, “soft law,” the doctrine of consideration in contract law, and even procedural due process.

Drawing on cognitive dissonance theory and other behavioral research, I conclude that motivational law …

The Insanity Of Mens Rea: Due Process And The Abolition Of The Insanity Defense, Jean K. Phillips, Rebecca E. Woodman

Jean K Phillips

The Insanity of the Mens Rea Model:

Due Process and the Abolition of the Insanity Defense.

Jean K. Gilles Phillips and Rebecca E. Woodman

Abstract

In the last 15 years a flurry of legislative activity has taken place as states have attempted to redefine the insanity defense. This article focuses on those states who chose not just to refine the definition of insanity, but to completely abolish it as an affirmative defense.

During the 2006 Supreme Court term many believed that the Court would answer the question of whether the Due Process Clause protects the right of the accused to …

Confronting The “Ongoing Emergency”: A Pragmatic Approach To Hearsay Evidence In The Context Of The Sixth Amendment, Ellen Liang Yee

ellen yee

The Supreme Court’s path breaking decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S 36 (2004), held that admission of an extrajudicial testimonial statement by an unavailable declarant-witness violates the Confrontation Clause unless the defendant has an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. Unfortunately, the determination of admissibility for the trial court judge has not been simplified after Crawford. The role of the trial court judge has now shifted from determining the reliability of the hearsay evidence (as was required before Crawford) to a determination of the testimonial nature of the declarant’s statement. However, with some small exceptions, the Court in Crawford explicitly …

Some Reflections On Labor And Employment Ramifications Of Diocesan Bankruptcy Filings, David L. Gregory

David L. Gregory

Sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy is perhaps the greatest scandal in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. On September 7, 2007, the San Diego, California diocese settled with 144 claimants for $198 million. In mid-July, the Los Angeles Archdiocese settled with 508 claimants for $660 million. No article in the burgeoning law review literature on the scandal and its aftermath has focused on the labor and employment ramifications of diocesan bankruptcy filings. After first presenting the situations in the five dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy, I discuss the case and canon law …

Contraindicated Drug Courts, Josh Eric Bowers

Josh Eric Bowers

Over the past two decades, drug treatment courts have gained traction as popular alternatives to the conventional war on drugs (and to its one-dimensional focus on incarceration). Specifically, the courts are meant to divert addicts from jails and prisons and into coerced treatment. Under the typical model, a drug offender enters a plea of guilty and is enrolled in a long-term outpatient treatment program that is closely supervised by the drug court. If the offender completes treatment, his plea is withdrawn and the underlying charges are dismissed. But, if he fails, he receives an alternative termination sentence. My premise is …

The Challenges Of International Criminal Prosecutions In Africa, Okechukwu Oko

Okechukwu Oko

This paper evaluates the problems and challenges of using international criminal prosecutions to promote accountability and facilitate reconciliation in African countries sundered by mass violence and genocide. It examines the values of criminal prosecutions and offers some explanations of the factors that limit the effectiveness of criminal prosecutions, namely attitudinal, environmental factors, lack of cooperation from state governments and the limits of criminal law. I argue that the objectives of using criminal prosecution to reestablish social equilibrium and promote reconciliation though laudable and rhetorically inspiring are simply unattainable. International criminal prosecutions reignite painful memories of colonialism, exacerbate existing hatreds and …

Depletion-Safe Tuna: Has The Unclos Tribunal Usurped Its Members’ Democracy?, Etan M. Basseri

Etan M Basseri

In 1999 the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea heard a complaint of fishing violations, with Australia and New Zealand alleging that Japan had exploited the delicate southern bluefin tuna fisheries in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Japan responded, and eventually prevailed, with the argument that the dispute was governed by a separate multilateral treaty concerning the tuna species. The issue of jurisdiction was a major issue in the case.

This paper argues that the Tribunal’s formation and operation was and is consistent with democracy. It applies four different critiques of …

The Road Not Considered, Robert Blecker

robert blecker

“The Road Not Considered” suggests a morally refined death penalty statute as an alternative to abolition or keeping New Jersey’s presently flawed legislation.

Confessing In The Human Voice: A Defense Of The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, Andrew Taslitz

Andrew E. Taslitz

ABSTRACT OF CONFESSING IN THE HUMAN VOICE: A DEFENSE OF THE PRIVILEGE AGAINST SELF-INCRIMINATION

By Andrew E. Taslitz

The privilege against self-incrimination has fallen on hard times. Miranda rights shrink, as do those more traditional “core” aspects of the privilege. Partly this is due to an implicit skepticism by the courts about the value of the privilege, despite their occasional explicit words of praise for its role in our constitutional scheme. Scholars largely, though not uniformly, agree that the privilege cannot be justified as a philosophical matter, viewing it as an unfortunate burden we are stuck with because of its …

The Scarlet Letter Effect: The Adulterous Defendant On Trial For Spousal Murder, Elizabeth H. Matherne

Elizabeth H Matherne

“At the vary least, they should have put the brand of hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead.”

Hester Prynne and The Scarlet Letter conjure images of an outcast infinitely branded and burdened by infidelity. As the story model becomes increasingly accepted as the most accurate theory of the juror decision making process, some attorneys are carefully crafting their message to fit such iconic images. Others are being left behind with dire consequences to their clients. In my article, I highlight how one segment of criminal defendants, the Adulterous Defendant on Trial for Spousal Murder, is especially vulnerable to the abuse …

Comity Of Errors: When Federal Sentencing Guidelines Ignore State Law Decriminalizing Sentences, James A. Shapiro

James A. Shapiro

Many states have sentences called “diversionary dispositions” that are not supposed to count as convictions under state law. The purpose of these so-called diversionary dispositions is to give first-time offenders for relatively minor crimes such as shoplifting a chance to keep their criminal records, or “rap sheets,” clean. If they do not commit another crime during the period of the diversionary disposition, then they usually have the opportunity to erase, or “expunge,” the diversionary disposition from their record. But whether they expunge their record or not, the diversionary disposition is never supposed to count as a conviction under state law. …