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Full-Text Articles in Law

Can We Calculate Fairness And Reasonableness? Determining What Satisfies The Fair Cross-Section Requirement Of The Sixth Amendment, Colleen P. Fitzharris Dec 2013

Can We Calculate Fairness And Reasonableness? Determining What Satisfies The Fair Cross-Section Requirement Of The Sixth Amendment, Colleen P. Fitzharris

Michigan Law Review

The Impartial Jury Clause of the Sixth Amendment requires that the venire from which the state and the defendant draw a twelve-person petit jury be a fair cross-section of the community. The Supreme Court announced a three-prong test in Duren v. Missouri to help courts determine whether there has been a Sixth Amendment violation: (1) whether a distinctive group in the community was excluded; (2) whether the venire was not a fair and reasonable representation of the county population as a whole; and (3) whether that underrepresentation was the result of systematic exclusion. When evaluating the second prong, courts routinely …


An Implausible Standard For Affirmative Defenses, Stephen Mayer Nov 2013

An Implausible Standard For Affirmative Defenses, Stephen Mayer

Michigan Law Review

In the wake of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the federal district courts split over whether to apply Twombly’s plausibility standard to the pleading of affirmative defenses. Initially, a majority of district courts extended Twombly to defense pleadings, but recently the courts that have declined to extend the plausibility standard have gained majority status. This Note provides a comprehensive analysis of each side of the plausibility split, identifying several hidden assumptions motivating the district courts’ decisions. Drawing from its analysis of the two opposing positions, this Note responds to the courts that have applied plausibility pleading …


Walking The Class Action Maze: Toward A More Functional Rule 23, Robert G. Bone Jun 2013

Walking The Class Action Maze: Toward A More Functional Rule 23, Robert G. Bone

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Over roughly the past fifteen years, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have limited access to class actions. Many of the more restrictive decisions-such as Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., and Wal- Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes-are based on interpretations of Rule 23 and thus fall within the power of the Advisory Committee and rulemaking process to modify. This Article proposes revisions to Rule 23 designed to deal with some of these decisions and to make the class action a more pragmatic and functional device. It focuses on two areas: (1) the constraints imposed by …


Advocating For A Civil Right To Counsel In New York State, Kathryn G. Madigan Apr 2013

Advocating For A Civil Right To Counsel In New York State, Kathryn G. Madigan

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.