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Hard Cases, Carl E. Schneider Mar 1998

Hard Cases, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Robert Latimer was born in 1953 on a farm on the prairies of Saskatchewan and grew up to own a 1,280-acre farm. In 1980 he married, and that year Tracy, the first of four children, was born. During her birth, Tracy's brain was terribly damaged by lack of oxygen, and severe cerebral palsy ensued. By 1993 Tracy could laugh, smile, and cry, and she could recognize her parents and her siblings. But she could not understand her own name or even simple words like "yes" and "no." She could not swallow well and would so often vomit her parents kept …


Confrontation: The Search For Basic Principles, Richard D. Friedman Jan 1998

Confrontation: The Search For Basic Principles, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the accused in a criminal prosecution the right "to be confronted with the Witnesses against him."' The Confrontation Clause clearly applies to those witnesses who testify against the accused at trial. Moreover, it is clear enough that confrontation ordinarily includes the accused's right to have those witnesses brought "face-toface," in the time-honored phrase, when they testify.2 But confrontation is much more than this "face-to-face" right. It also comprehends the right to have witnesses give their testimony under oath and to subject them to crossexamination. 3 Indeed, the Supreme Court has treated the accused's …


Built On Lies: Preliminary Reflections On Evidence Law As An Autopoetic System, Richard O. Lempert Jan 1998

Built On Lies: Preliminary Reflections On Evidence Law As An Autopoetic System, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

This Symposium on Truth and Its Rivals seems most concerned with what one might think of as the "output" side of evidence law that is, whether the rules of evidence enhance the likelihood that trial verdicts will capture the true state of the matter giving rise to the litigation. From this perspective, the legitimate rivals to truth are values that may justify decisions that eclipse the truth. The most obvious examples are rules of privilege, which allow probative information to remain concealed even where it is essential to accurate fact finding.


The Death Of A Friendly Critic, James J. White Jan 1998

The Death Of A Friendly Critic, James J. White

Articles

Our colleague, Andy Watson, died April 2. Andy was one of the handful of preeminent law professor/psychiatrists. In that role he wrote dozens of articles and several important books, including Psychiatry for Lawyers, a widely used text. I do not write to remind us of his scholarly work, of his strength as a clinical and classroom teacher, or of his prominence as a forensic psychiatrist. I write to remind us of his powerful criticism of our teaching. On the occasion of his death, it is right to recognize his influence on the law school curriculum and to consider whether his …


Lesbian Divorce: A Commentary On The Legal Issues, David L. Chambers Jan 1998

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, …


Corporate Judgement Proofing: A Response To Lynn Lopucki's 'The Death Of Liability', James J. White Jan 1998

Corporate Judgement Proofing: A Response To Lynn Lopucki's 'The Death Of Liability', James J. White

Articles

In "The Death of Liability" Professor Lynn M. LoPucki argues that American businesses are rendering themselves judgment proof.- Using the metaphor of a poker game, Professor LoPucki claims American businesses are increasingly able to participate in the poker game without putting "chips in the pot." He argues that it has become easier for American companies to play the game without having chips in the pot because of the ease with which a modern debtor can grant secured credit, because of the growth of the peculiar form of sale known as asset securitization, because foreign havens for secreting assets are now …


The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller Jan 1998

The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller

Articles

Why are many storefronts in Moscow empty, while street kiosks in front are full of goods? In this Article, Professor Heller develops a theory of anticommons property to help explain the puzzle of empty storefronts and full kiosks. Anticommons property can be understood as the mirror image of commons property. By definition, in a commons, multiple owners are each endowed with the privilege to use a given resource, and no one has the right to exclude another When too many owners hold such privileges of use, the resource is prone to overuse - a tragedy of the commons. Depleted fisheries …


Thoughts From Across The Water On Hearsay And Confrontation, Richard D. Friedman Jan 1998

Thoughts From Across The Water On Hearsay And Confrontation, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

This article draws on the history of the hearsay rule, and on recent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, to argue that the right to confrontation should be recognised as a basic principle of the law of evidence, and that aspects of the Law Commission's proposals for reform of the hearsay rule, and of the Home Office's proposals for restrictions on the right of cross-examination, are therefore unsatisfactory.


Ted St. Antoine: An Appreciation, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1998

Ted St. Antoine: An Appreciation, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

Ted's skills as a negotiator and mediator and the soundness of his judgment played a vitally important role not only in bringing the issues to a happy conclusion, but in doing so in a way that held the faculty together during a difficult time. Those qualities, together with universal respect for his integrity and confidence that he would not pursue an agenda different from its own, have repeatedly led the faculty to turn to Ted, initially to become its Dean and later to handle a variety of other sensitive assignments.


Logic And Elements. (Premises And Conclusions: Symbolic Logic For Legal Analysis)." , Richard D. Friedman Jan 1998

Logic And Elements. (Premises And Conclusions: Symbolic Logic For Legal Analysis)." , Richard D. Friedman

Articles

We may happily agree with Holmes that logic is not the life of the law' and yet contend that logic should play a significant role in legal discourse. Logic cannot demonstrate the truth of premises, and so by itself it cannot demonstrate the merits of a legal argument. Moreover, even given the premises, it may be that a leap of faith, or intuition, has an irreducible role at least in some good legal arguments.2 But at least a sound legal argument will not be an illogical one. An argument will not be persuasive if it appears to violate basic principles …


We Could Pass A Law...What Might Happen If Contingent Legal Fees Were Banned, Samuel R. Gross Jan 1998

We Could Pass A Law...What Might Happen If Contingent Legal Fees Were Banned, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

This is an exercise in fantasy. My task is to imagine what would happen if we simply abolished the institution of the contingent fee by statute. I cannot justify that task on grounds of urgency. Contingent fees are not about to be abolished, and they probably.are not going to be seriously restricted. My hope is that the exercise will be amusing in itself, and that in the process we might learn something about contingent fees as we now use them.


Some Examples Of Using Legal Relations Language In The Legal Domain: Applied Deontic Logic, Layman E. Allen Jan 1998

Some Examples Of Using Legal Relations Language In The Legal Domain: Applied Deontic Logic, Layman E. Allen

Articles

The fundamental concept of the LEGAL RELATIONS Language (LRL) is the recursively-defined notion of LEGAL RELATION (LR). As LR is defined here, there is an infinite number of different LEGAL RELATIONS, and LRL is a language for precisely and completely describing each of those infinite number of dfferent LEGAL RELATIONS. With its robust collection of dfferent names, one for each of the different LEGAL RELATIONS, LRL provides adequate vocabulary for (1) describing every possible legal state of affairs, (2) accounting for every possible change from one legal state of affairs to another, (3) representing every possible legal rule, and (4) …


Civil Rule 53: An Enabling Act Challenge (Federal Practice And Procedure Symposiusm Honoring Charles Alan Wright), Edward H. Cooper Jan 1998

Civil Rule 53: An Enabling Act Challenge (Federal Practice And Procedure Symposiusm Honoring Charles Alan Wright), Edward H. Cooper

Articles

The Judicial Conference of the United States is charged by statute to "carry on a continuous study of the operation and effect of the general rules of practice and procedure," recommending desirable changes to the Supreme Court.' The Rules Enabling Act,2 which describes the Supreme Court's role, further provides that the Judicial Conference is to be assisted in this task by a "standing committee on rules of practice, procedure, and evidence" ;3 the standing committee in turn reviews "each recommendation of any other committees" appointed to advise it.4


In Memoriam: Memorial Tributes For Professor Elizabeth B. Clark, Thomas A. Green Jan 1998

In Memoriam: Memorial Tributes For Professor Elizabeth B. Clark, Thomas A. Green

Articles

The first time I met Betsy, now some twenty years'ago, she simply appeared during office hours to ask about being a research assistant. She had finished her first semester of law school, she said, and-as she put it-"there must be something more to it than this." So began Betsy's career as a legal historian; to which she brought a classics background, a powerful mind, prodigious imagination, irony, whimsy, and, to put it mildly, a way with words. Betsy was, of course, a superb student, as Charlie Donahue, Bruce Frier, and I immediately recognized, one from whom one learned as much …


Freeing The Tortious Soul Of Express Warranty Law, James J. White Jan 1998

Freeing The Tortious Soul Of Express Warranty Law, James J. White

Articles

I suspect that most American lawyers and law students regard express warranty as neither more nor less than a term in a contract, a term that is subject to conventional contract rules on formation, interpretation, and remedy. Assume, for example, that a buyer sends a purchase order to a seller and the purchase order specifies the delivery of 300 tons of "prime Thomas cold rolled steel." The acknowledgment also describes the goods to be sold as "prime Thomas cold rolled steel." Every American lawyer would agree that there is a contract to deliver such steel and furthermore would conclude that …


Injured Women Before Common Law Courts, 1860-1930, Margo Schlanger Jan 1998

Injured Women Before Common Law Courts, 1860-1930, Margo Schlanger

Articles

How did early American tort law treat women? How were they expected to behave, and how were others expected to behave towards them? What gender differences mattered, and how did courts deal with those differences? These are the issues this Article explores. My aim is to illuminate the common law of torts and its relation to and with ideas about gender difference, by focusing on three sets of cases involving injured women, spanning the time between approximately 1860 and 1930. My conclusions run counter to two approaches scholars have frequently taken in analyzing gender and the common law of torts. …


Notes From The Editorial Advisory Board, James Boyd White Jan 1998

Notes From The Editorial Advisory Board, James Boyd White

Articles

The tenth anniversary of this Journal is an occasion not only for celebrating its remarkable achievements, but also for thinking again about the nature and premises of the work it reflects. One way to begin might be with its two central terms, "law" and "humanities" (or the obvious alternative to the second, "literature").


On The Meaning And Impact Of The Physician-Assisted Suicide Cases. (Symposium: Physician-Assisted Suicide: Facing Death After Glucksberg And Quill), Yale Kamisar Jan 1998

On The Meaning And Impact Of The Physician-Assisted Suicide Cases. (Symposium: Physician-Assisted Suicide: Facing Death After Glucksberg And Quill), Yale Kamisar

Articles

I read every newspaper article I could find on the meaning and impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's June 1997 decisions in Washington v. Glucksberg' and Vacco v. Quill.2 I came away with the impression that some proponents of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) were unable or unwilling publicly to recognize the magnitude of the setback they suffered when the Court handed down its rulings in the PAS cases.


The Role Of Clinical Programs In Legal Education, Suellyn Scarnecchia Jan 1998

The Role Of Clinical Programs In Legal Education, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

In clinic, students get a glance at the lawyer they will be someday. They gain confidence that, indeed, they will be a "good" lawyer. They understand the context in which their classroom learning will be applied. In short, they are able to integrate their law school experience.


In Appreciation Of Ted St. Antoine, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1998

In Appreciation Of Ted St. Antoine, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

As I began to think of what I might say this evening, it occurred to me that I was fortunate the occasion had not been billed as a roast. It would not be easy - and, indeed, might be sacrilegious - to direct attention to the foibles of a man whom thousands call "the Saint." That title, by which he has been known by generations of students, is, of course, a measure of their affection and their esteem for him. For more than three decades, Ted has been one of our most popular teachers. Although I have learned a great …


Mandatory Arbitration Of Employee Discrimination Claims: Unmitigated Evil Or Blessing In Disguise?, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 1998

Mandatory Arbitration Of Employee Discrimination Claims: Unmitigated Evil Or Blessing In Disguise?, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

One of the hottest current issues in employment law is the use of mandatory arbitration to resolve workplace disputes. Typically, an employer will make it a condition of employment that employees must agree to arbitrate any claims arising out of the job, including claims based on statutory rights against discrimination, instead of going to court. On the face of it, this is a brazen affront to public policy. Citizens are being deprived of the forum provided them by law. And indeed numerous scholars and public and private bodies have condemned the use of mandatory arbitration. Yet the insight of that …


How The Wagner Act Came To Be: A Prospectus, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 1998

How The Wagner Act Came To Be: A Prospectus, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

The Wagner Act of 1935, the original National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), has been called "perhaps the most radical piece of legislation ever enacted by the United States Congress."' But Supreme Court interpretations supposedly frustrated the utopian aspirations for a radical restructuring of the workplace." Similarly, according to another commentator, unnecessary language in one of the Court's earliest NLRA cases "drastically undercut the new act's protection of the critical right to strike."'


United States V. O'Hagan: Agency Law And Justice Powell's Legacy For The Law Of Insider Trading, Adam C. Pritchard Jan 1998

United States V. O'Hagan: Agency Law And Justice Powell's Legacy For The Law Of Insider Trading, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

The law of insider trading is judicially created; no statutory provision explicitly prohibits trading on the basis of material, non-public information. The Supreme Court's insider trading jurisprudence was forged, in large part, by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. His opinions for the Court in United States v. Chiarella and SEC v. Dirks were, until recently, the Supreme Court's only pronouncements on the law of insider trading. Those decisions established the elements of the classical theory of insider trading under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act"). Under this theory, corporate insiders and their tippees who …


Enlightenment, Donald J. Herzog Jan 1998

Enlightenment, Donald J. Herzog

Articles

It's a curious broadside, a work of austere graphics and polite prose far removed from the mischievous engravings and bawdy ballads usually appearing on such sheets. Drawn from an address that 345 printers had signed and 138 had presented to the queen, the original text was committed to parchment "and accompanied by a Copy surperbly printed on white Satin, edged with white Silk Fringe, backed with purple Satin, and mounted in an Ivory Roller with appropriate Devices." Even in the published version, the arch is full of intricately detailed work. The printers took pride in their craftmanship: "This Specimen of …


The (Cloudy) Future Of Class Actions, Edward H. Cooper Jan 1998

The (Cloudy) Future Of Class Actions, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

The past, both proximate and remote, is often consulted in attempts to predict the future. Of course extrapolation from past to future is at best an uncertain art. Extrapolation, however, is not the only problem. Lessons from the recent past are distorted by lack of perspective. Lessons from the distant past are distorted by distance. The first step is to choose which of the competing pasts to consult. Selfishly, I choose to consult the recent past, as it continues through the present and on into the near-term future, from the perspective of the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of …


An Alternative And Discretionary § 1367 (Symposium: A Reappraisal Of The Supplemental Jurisdiction Statute, Title 28 U.S.C. 1367), Edward H. Cooper Jan 1998

An Alternative And Discretionary § 1367 (Symposium: A Reappraisal Of The Supplemental Jurisdiction Statute, Title 28 U.S.C. 1367), Edward H. Cooper

Articles

Supplemental jurisdiction is a concept too complex to be captured by complicated statutory drafting. That is my proposition. Or, somewhat more accurately, that is my tentative proposition, advanced for consideration alongside the elegant but intricate statutory proposals emerging from the American Law Institute's Federal Judicial Code Revision Project. Professor John Oakley, the Reporter, knows more about supplemental jurisdiction, and has thought more deeply about it, than anyone. He has traveled many roads in continually refining proposed revisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1367. If anyone can capture all the nuances of supplemental jurisdiction in a statute, it is he, assisted by …


Up From Individualism (The Brennan Center Symposium On Constitutional Law)." , Donald J. Herzog Jan 1998

Up From Individualism (The Brennan Center Symposium On Constitutional Law)." , Donald J. Herzog

Articles

I was sitting, ruefully contemplating the dilemmas of being a commentator, wondering whether I had the effrontery to rise and offer a dreadful confession: the first time I encountered the countermajoritarian difficulty, I didn't bite. I didn't say, "Wow, that's a giant problem." I didn't immediately start casting about for ingenious ways to solve or dissolve it. I just shrugged. Now I don't think that's because my commitments to either democracy or constitutionalism are somehow faulty or suspect. Nor do I think it's that they obviously cohere. It's rather that the framing, "look, these nine unelected characters can strike down …


Economic Analysis Of Evidentiary Law: An Underused Tool, An Underplowed Field (Symposium: The Economics Of Evidentiary Law), Richard D. Friedman Jan 1998

Economic Analysis Of Evidentiary Law: An Underused Tool, An Underplowed Field (Symposium: The Economics Of Evidentiary Law), Richard D. Friedman

Articles

The law and economics movement has had a major impact on many areas of law, but rather little on the law of evidence. This is not to say that there have been no attempts to analyze evidentiary issues through an economic lens,' but such efforts are far more scattered in evidence than in other legal fields, including the closely related one of civil procedure.2 Believing that economics has value for evidentiary analysis, I suggested to the Executive Committee and Advisory Board of the Evidence Section of the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS"), when I was chairman of the section, …


Update: American Public Opinion On The Death Penalty - It's Getting Personal (Symposium: How The Death Penalty Works: Empirical Studies Of The Modern Capital Sentencing System), Samuel R. Gross Jan 1998

Update: American Public Opinion On The Death Penalty - It's Getting Personal (Symposium: How The Death Penalty Works: Empirical Studies Of The Modern Capital Sentencing System), Samuel R. Gross

Articles

Americans' views on capital punishment have stabilized. In 1994, when Professor Phoebe Ellsworth and I published a review of research on death penalty attitudes in the United States,' we began by noting that "support for the death penalty [is] at a near record high."'2 That finding, like most of the others we reported, has not changed. Nonetheless, it is interesting to pause and review the data on public opinion on the death penalty that have accumulated over the past several years. Stability is less dramatic than change but it may be equally important, and there is some news to report. …


Make-Believe: The Rules Excluding Evidence Of Character And Liability Insurance (Symposium: Truth And Its Rivals: Evidence Reform And The Goals Of Evidence Law), Samuel R. Gross Jan 1998

Make-Believe: The Rules Excluding Evidence Of Character And Liability Insurance (Symposium: Truth And Its Rivals: Evidence Reform And The Goals Of Evidence Law), Samuel R. Gross

Articles

Article IV of the Federal Rules of Evidence includes several rules that prohibit the use of specified types of information as evidence of particular propositions. Subsequent remedial measures are inadmissible to prove negligence (but admissible to show ownership, control, et cetera),' settlement offers are inadmissible to prove liability (but admissible to show bias or prejudice, or for other purposes),2 and so forth. Any exclusion of relevant evidence involves some distortion of reality in the sense that the picture presented to the trier of fact includes less information than the available total. That will be true whether the evidence is kept …