Law Commons^™

Rationing The Constitution: Beyond And Below, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Legitimacy Dilemma, Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Power Of "So-Called Judges", Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Origins (And Fragility) Of Judicial Independence, Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

The federal judiciary today takes certain things for granted. Political actors will not attempt to remove Article III judges outside the impeachment process; they will not obstruct federal court orders; and they will not tinker with the Supreme Court’s size in order to pack it with like-minded Justices. And yet a closer look reveals that these “self-evident truths” of judicial independence are neither self-evident nor necessary implications of our constitutional text, structure, and history. This Article demonstrates that many government officials once viewed these court-curbing measures as not only constitutionally permissible but also desirable (and politically viable) methods of “checking” …

Judicial Fact-Finding In An Age Of Rapid Change: Creative Reforms From Abroad, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Vanishing Common Law Judge, Neal Devins, David Klein

Faculty Publications

The common law style of judging appears to be on its way out. Trial courts rarely shape legal policymaking by asserting decisional autonomy through distinguishing, limiting, or criticizing higher court precedent. In an earlier study, we demonstrated the reluctance of lower court judges to assert decisional autonomy by invoking the holding–dicta dichotomy. In this Article, we make use of original empirical research to study the level of deference U.S. district court judges exhibit toward higher courts and whether the level of deference has changed over time. Our analysis of citation behavior over an eighty-year period reveals a dramatic shift in …

Constitution Day 2012: The American Judiciary, Robert Berry

Librarian Publications

Robert Berry, research librarian for the social sciences at the Sacred Heart University Library, has written an essay about the role of the American Judiciary in interpreting laws of the United States government. The essay was written for the occasion of Constitution Day 2012 at Sacred Heart University.

All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies And The Rule Of Law, Keith J. Bybee

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This paper contains the introduction to the new book, All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press, 2010).

The book begins with the observation that Americans are divided in their beliefs about whether courts operate on the basis of unbiased legal principle or of political interest. This division in public opinion in turn breeds suspicion that judges do not actually mean what they say, that judicial professions of impartiality are just fig leaves used to hide the pursuit of partisan purposes.

Comparing law to the practice of common courtesy, the …

Ideological Cohesion And Precedent (Or Why The Court Only Cares About Precedent When Most Justices Agree With Each Other), Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the profound role that ideological cohesion plays in explaining the Supreme Court's willingness to advance a coherent vision of the law - either by overruling precedents inconsistent with that vision or by establishing rule-like precedents intended to bind the Supreme Court and lower courts in subsequent cases. Through case studies of the New Deal, Warren, and Rehnquist Courts, this Article calls attention to key differences between Courts in which five or more Justices pursue the same substantive objectives and Courts which lack a dominant voting block. In particular, when five or more Justices pursue the same substantive …

Policymaking By The Administrative Judiciary, Charles H. Koch Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Different Roads To The Rule Of Law: Their Importance For Law Reform In Taiwan, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

Talk of law reform is in the air throughout East Asia. Whether in Beijing or Tokyo or here, law reform is spoken of in terms of strengthening the Rule of Law. But what is the Rule of Law? Different legal systems have different roads to reach the Rule of Law. These different roads are noticeable mainly in the different emphases different systems place on two critical elements in the realization of the Rule of Law State, namely rules and the machinery for implementing the rules, i.e., courts and administrative agencies. The Rule of Law makes demands on both the legal …

Overview Of The Role Of Precedent In The Legal System Of The United States, Ana Elena Fierro

LLM Theses and Essays

Traditionally, legal systems have been classified as either Common Law or Civil Law; scholars distinguish these systems based on their origins, as well their attitudes towards stare decisis. Common law considers precedent as a source of binding rules, while civil law does not. However, some scholars consider the methods for legal reasoning to be almost the same in every legal system. These scholars maintain that regardless of the source of law in a particular country, once a judge determines that the facts of one case are similar to those regulated by a certain rule, the judge will apply that particular …