Law Commons^™

Class Matters, Erica J. Hashimoto

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Poor people constitute one of the most overrepresented categories of people in the criminal justice system. Why is that so? Unfortunately, we simply do not know, in large part because we have virtually no information that could provide an answer. As a result of that informational vacuum, policymakers either have ignored issues related to socioeconomic class, instead focusing on issues like drug addiction and mental illness as to which there are more data, or have developed fragmented policy that touches on socioeconomic class issues only tangentially. The bottom line is that without better data on the profile of poor defendants, …

Aliens On The Bench: Lessons In Identity, Race And Politics From The First "Modern" Supreme Court, Lori A. Ringhand

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Every time a Supreme Court vacancy is announced, the media and the legal academy snap to attention. Even the general public takes note; in contrast to most of the decisions issued by the Court, a majority of Americans are aware of and have opinions about the men and women who are nominated to sit on it. Moreover, public opinion about the nominee has a strong influence on a senator's vote for or against the candidate. If the confirmation hearing held before the Senate Judiciary Committee is largely an empty ritual, why do so many people seem so enthralled by it? …

Review Essay: Religion And Politics 2008-2009: Sometimes You Get What You Pray For, Leslie C. Griffin

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No abstract provided.

Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, And Michelle Obama: Performing Gender, Race, And Class On The Campaign Trail, Ann C. Mcginley

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The 2008 Presidential campaign highlighted three strong, interesting, and very different women -- Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Obama -- who negotiated identity performances in the political limelight. Because of their diverse backgrounds, experience, and ages, an examination of how these three women performed their identities and the public response to them offers a rich understanding of the changing nature of gender, gender roles, age, sexuality and race in our culture. This essay suggests that optimism that Obama's race and gender performances may have removed the stigma from "the feminine" may be misplaced, at least when it comes to …

Only Skin Deep: The Cost Of Partisan Politics On Minority Diversity Of The Federal Bench: Why Care Whether Judges Look “Like America” If, Because Of Politics, A “Voice Of Color” Has Become A “Whisper Of Color”?, Sylvia R. Lazos

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This article explores the difficulties encountered in diversifying the federal bench and why the partisanship of the confirmation process decreases the diversity of viewpoints on the bench. Presidents value diversity in nominating judges. While Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had very contrasting political styles and judicial philosophies, the judges appointed by these two presidents now account for almost 80% of the current active federal minority judges. There has been progress in the area of descriptive diversity; currently 18% of the active federal bench is made up of minority judges according to data compiled from the Judicial Center. However, there …

Public Health Law For A Brave New World; Book Review: Lawrence O. Gostin, Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

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This is book review of Lawrence O. Gostin's new edition of Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 2d ed., 2008). A review of a second edition of a book may be somewhat unusual as subsequent editions of already published works typically do not break new ground. But this book is different. Gostin's first edition, published in 2000, established and defined the modern field of public health law. The revised and expanded second edition emerges in the post-9/11, post-Katrina, post-Bush world. Gostin now seeks to apply public health paradigms to social problems beyond the field's …

Review Essay: Religion And Politics 2004-2007, Leslie C. Griffin

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No abstract provided.

Restitution As A Remedy For Refugee Property Claims In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Michael Kagan

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This Article examines restitution as an autonomous human right for refugees displaced in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and assesses the implications of taking such a rights-based approach. The author concludes that the refugees have a strong legal claim to restitution. In international law, compensation is relevant only when restitution is materially impossible, where property has been damaged or declined in value so that restitution is not a complete remedy for the victim's loss or where a refugee chooses not to seek restitution. Current empirical research about land usage in Israel indicates that a great deal, and possibly the majority, of lost …

Of Metaphor, Metonymy, And Corporate Money: Rhetorical Choices In Supreme Court Decisions On Campaign Finance Regulation, Linda L. Berger

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This Article examines the metaphorical and metonymical framing of corporate money in Supreme Court decisions about campaign finance regulation. Metaphorical influences (corporation as a person, spending money as speech, marketplace of ideas as the model for First Amendment analysis) affected early decisions about the regulation of corporate spending in election campaigns. Later, a metonymical move to isolate corporate money and then to focus on its malevolent tendencies displaced the earlier view of corporate money as speech. This movement was best depicted in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93 (2003), the Supreme Court's 2003 decision on the Bipartisan Campaign …

Political Reason, Leslie C. Griffin

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No abstract provided.

Bruce Ledewitz, American Religious Democracy: Coming To Terms With The End Of Secular Politics, Thomas A. Schweitzer

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No abstract provided.

Beyond Compensation: Using Torts To Promote Public Health, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

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Personal injury litigation, or tort law, traditionally, has been viewed as antithetical to the goals of public health. The focus on individual compensation for injuries resulting from accidents, products, and international wrongdoing arguably does not serve the "greater good" or communitarian objectives of public health. This Article, originally presented on a January 2006 AALS Panel on Teaching Public Health In Law School, takes issue with the traditional view and will demonstrate ways that personal injury litigation and public health objectives may be complimentary and mutually reinforcing. Some areas of tort law, such as mass torts against tobacco companies, toxic polluters, …

After The Catastrophe: Disaster Relief For Hospitals, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

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Disaster planning for health care providers following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and, more recently, Hurricane Katrina, focuses on preparing hospitals and other emergency services to respond to victims' medical needs. But little attention has been paid to the challenges that providers would face resuming normal operations after responding to the catastrophe. A large-scale catastrophe could create unprecedented demand for health care and emergency services. Hospitals already struggle to fulfill the high demand for and high costs of emergency care. Following a major disaster, hospitals would face additional financial challenges. Strained capacity and financial reserves, may force hospitals to …

The City Of God And The Cities Of Men: A Response To Jason Carter, Randy Beck

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Law school seminars sometimes educate the professor as much as the students. That proved true for me in the spring of 2004, when seventeen law students and two colleagues from other departments joined me for a seminar focused on ancient and contemporary perspectives on law found within various Christian theological traditions. One seminar student who repeatedly spurred my own thinking was Jason Carter. Particularly thought provoking was the paper Jason presented in the final weeks of the seminar.

The returns from the 2004 election suggested that Jason had been unusually prescient in his analysis of U.S. religious and political trends. …

Christian Faith And Political Life: A Dialogue [With Jason Carter], J. Randy Beck

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Several months before the 2004 presidential election, a seminar at the University of Georgia School of Law explored views of law and legal institutions reflected in various Christian theological traditions. The class included an unusually gifted group of students from a variety of theological and political backgrounds. One student brought a particularly unique and relevant set of experiences to the course. Jason Carter grew up as the grandson of Jimmy Carter, a former Democratic President who has often discussed the political implications of his Christian faith. Jason also observed first hand the interaction of Christian faith and political activity as …

Regulating Section 527 Organizations, Gregg D. Polsky, Guy-Uriel E. Charles

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In this Essay, we consider whether the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has the authority to regulate independent 527 organizations (e.g., Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, Moveon.org, etc.) as political committees under the Federal Election Campaign Act. This issue, which was hotly debated during the last election cycle when it was considered and ultimately tabled by the FEC, is an extremely complex one that requires a deep understanding of election, tax, administrative, and constitutional law. After considering how these areas of law intersect, we conclude that the FEC lacks the authority to regulate independent 527 organizations as political committees.

Abu Ghraib, Diane Marie Amann

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This article posits a theoretical framework within which to analyze various aspects of post-September 11 detention policy - including the widespread prisoner abuse that has been documented in the leaks and official releases that began with publication of photos made at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Examined are the actions of civilian executive officials charged with setting policy, of judicial officers who evaluated it, and military personnel who implemented it. Abuse has been attributed to failures of training or planning. The article concentrates on a different failure, the failure of law to keep lawlessness in check. On September 11, law's map …

Legal Reform: The Role Of Public Institutions And Legal Culture, Ruben J. Garcia

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In this symposium held at California Western School of Law, Professor Garcia comments on the presentations of other participants and provides his own reflections about the role that legal cultures and legal institutions play in emerging democracies and in our very own.

Race And The California Recall Election: A Top Ten List Of Ironies, Sylvia R. Lazos, Keith Aoki, Steven Bender

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Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California in the 2003 recall campaign is rife with cruel ironies. An immigrant himself, he beat the grandson of Mexican immigrants, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, by playing the race card, and managed to dodge allegations of his praise for Hitler as a strong leader. While the pundits say that the California recall was about angry voters lashing back at faithless, self-dealing politicians, more lurks beneath the surface. In California, racial and ethnic minorities now comprise a majority of the population, and the recall election brought barely concealed and seething schisms to the surface. Californians, …

The Most Rational Branch: Guinn V. Legislature And The Judiciary's Role As Helpful Arbiter Of Conflict, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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When the Nevada Supreme Court decided Guinn v. Legislature, one would have thought from reading the popular press accounts that the court had forcibly displaced the State legislature by means of a violent coup d'etat. Newspaper accounts of the decision referred to it as a usurpation of power in violation of clear constitutional language, belittling the court in language sometimes more appropriate to the baseball bleachers than to serious editorial commentary. Following suit, politicized elements of the citizenry began a recall effort (seemingly unsuccessful as of this writing) directed at the court as well as joining the chorus of criticisms. …

Learning From Practice: What Adr Needs From A Theory Of Justice, Katherine R. Kruse

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Adding to the impressive body of work that has made her a leading voice in the fields of both alternative dispute resolution and professional responsibility, Carrie Menkel-Meadow's Saltman Lecture connects the theoretical exploration currently occurring on two parallel tracks: (1) theories of justice that investigate the ideal of a deliberative democracy; and (2) theories of alternative dispute resolution arising from its reflective practice. As she notes, theorists on both tracks are grappling with similar questions about the processes or conditions that will best bring together parties with widely divergent viewpoints to engage in consensus-building dialogue around contested issues.

However, while …

Defining Democracy: The Supreme Court's Campaign Finance Dilemma, Lori A. Ringhand

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On December 10, 2003 the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in McConnell v. FEC. In McConnell, the Court was asked to determine the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ("BCRA"). A divided Court, in a deeply fractured decision in which six justices wrote individual opinions, upheld the major provisions of the legislation. Yet despite the almost 300 pages of reasoning provided by the Court, and a voluminous record developed by the district court, the Justices could not agree on what purportedly is the central issue in campaign finance law: whether the challenged regulations were necessary …

The Latina/O And Apia Vote Post-2000: What Does It Mean To Move Beyond “Black And White” Politics?, Sylvia R. Lazos

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This Article frames the challenges to LatCrit theory and activism posed by voting rights, electoral process, and minority politics. In order to focus on the key challenges, The Article poses this question: What does a LatCrit theorist mean when she proposes to move beyond the "Black-White" paradigm? The Article discusses the changes in the U.S. electorate that in post-2000 have made the Latina/o and APIA vote the darling of both major parties. In the process of being perceived as an important electoral group, Latinas/os and Asian Pacific Islands Americans are at times being depicted as "model minorities." The Article concludes …

Fundamentalism From The Perspective Of Liberal Tolerance, Leslie C. Griffin

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No abstract provided.

Malignant Democracy: Core Fallacies Underlying Election Of The Judiciary, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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There is no requirement of democratic theory that mandates that all public offices be filled by election. This is particularly true in modern democratic states, which are simply too large to justify the administrative burden of electing everyone who has significant responsibilities in our society.

Examples of this are everywhere in modern democracies, such as the United States and Europe. In England, for example, the Prime Minister is not directly elected by the people. Does this mean Great Britain has ceased to be a democracy? In most large, sophisticated nation-states, national cabinet officers have great power but are the political …

Missouri, The “War On Terrorism,” And Immigrants: Legal Challenges Post 9/11, Sylvia R. Lazos

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This article explains how the 2000 census confirmed what many already knew--the traditional image of what it means for Missouri to be a heartland state is changing. The 2000 census shows that the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in Missouri are Latinos. This growth in first generation immigrants has not been limited to Missouri's large urban centers. In rural Missouri and its small towns, the major group of first generation immigrants is Latinos.

“Owing To The Extreme Youth Of The Accused”: The Changing Legal Response To Juvenile Homicide, David S. Tanenhaus, Steven A. Drizin

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In this essay, the authors seek to dispel the myth that the juvenile court was never intended to deal with serious and violent offenders; a myth that has largely been unchallenged, especially in the mainstream media, and one that critics of the juvenile court have used to undermine its legitimacy. The discovery of homicide data from the Chicago police department from the early twentieth century, the era in which modern juvenile justice came of age, provides us with new historical date with which to put this dangerous myth to rest, by showing that the nation’s model juvenile court—the Cook County …

The Insurance Aftermath Of September 11: Myriad Claims, Multiple Lines, Arguments Over Ocurrence Counting, War Risk Exclusions, The Future Of Terrorism Coverage, And New Issues Of Government Role, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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September 11, 2001, is an unforgettable date for many reasons. In addition to its political, social, and historical importance, it may mark a watershed of insurance history as well. The value of the insurance losses due to the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers is estimated to total at least $35 billion and perhaps $75 billion. In addition, most of the people killed by terrorism were covered by life insurance. Many business operations were affected, invoking possible business interruption coverage. The airplanes that became weapons of destruction carried passengers whose estates are likely to press claims against the …

Growing Up Dependent: Family Preservation In Early Twentieth-Century Chicago, David S. Tanenhaus

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Beginning in 1911 with Illinois’ passage of the Funds to Parents Act—the first statewide mothers’ pensions legislation—the Chicago Juvenile Court built a two-track system for dependency cases that used the gender of single parents to track their children. The first or “institutional” track followed a nineteenth century model of family preservation that poor families had relied upon since before the Civil War, in which parents had used institutions to provide short-term care for their children during hard times. The juvenile court also established a “home-based” track for dependency that reflected a new model of family preservation. Progressive child-savers denounced the …

Presidential Ethics: Should A Law Degree Make A Difference?, Nancy B. Rapoport

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Two of the nation's most controversial presidents, Nixon and Clinton, were both lawyers, and both of them had ethics-related problems while in office. This essay reviews whether any model ethics rules force lawyer-presidents to behave at a higher standard than non-lawyer-presidents; then it discusses the implications for legal education if we really do want lawyers to go above and beyond the norm of behavior.