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Full-Text Articles in Law

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan Jul 2015

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.


Beyond The Written Constitution: A Short Analysis Of Warren Court, Thiago Luis Santos Sombra Jul 2015

Beyond The Written Constitution: A Short Analysis Of Warren Court, Thiago Luis Santos Sombra

Thiago Luís Santos Sombra

This essay propose an analysis about how Warren Court became one of the most particular in American History by confronting Jim Crow law, especially by applying the Bill of Rights. In this essay, we propose an analysis of how complex the unwritten Constitution is. Cases like Brown vs. Board of Education will be analyzed from a different point of view to understand the methods of the Court.


A Government Of Laws Not Of Precedents 1776-1876: The Google Challenge To Common Law Myth, James Maxeiner Jan 2015

A Government Of Laws Not Of Precedents 1776-1876: The Google Challenge To Common Law Myth, James Maxeiner

James R Maxeiner

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is a common law country of precedents where, until the 20th century (the “Age of Statutes”), statutes had little role. Digitization by Google and others of previously hard to find legal works of the 19th century challenges this common law myth. At the Centennial in 1876 Americans celebrated that “The great fact in the progress of American jurisprudence … is its tendency towards organic statute law and towards the systematizing of law; in other words, towards written constitutions and codification.” This article tests the claim of the Centennial Writers of 1876 and finds …


The Theory Of Law “As Claim” And The Inquiry Into The Sources Of Law. Bruno Leoni In Prospect, Daniele Bertolini Jan 2015

The Theory Of Law “As Claim” And The Inquiry Into The Sources Of Law. Bruno Leoni In Prospect, Daniele Bertolini

daniele bertolini

This paper presents a systematic analysis of the theory of law "as claim" through a critical review of Bruno Leoni’s work. I argue that this philosophical theory provides a useful methodological framework for the analysis of law-making processes. I also demonstrate how Leoni’s critique of legislation offers insights into the efficient institutional response to the growing demand for law that has emerged from the increasing complexity of contemporary societies — insights that are particularly relevant in an age characterized by continuing technological changes and profound social mutations that challenge the existing organization of the sources of law. Finally, I contend …


Tell Us A Story, But Don't Make It A Good One: Resolving The Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories And Federal Rule Of Evidence 403, Cathren Page Feb 2014

Tell Us A Story, But Don't Make It A Good One: Resolving The Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories And Federal Rule Of Evidence 403, Cathren Page

Cathren Page

Abstract: Tell Us a Story, But Don’t Make It A Good One: Resolving the Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories and Federal Rule of Evidence 403 by Cathren Koehlert-Page Courts need to reword their opinions regarding Rule 403 to address the tension between the advice to tell an emotionally evocative story at trial and the notion that evidence can be excluded if it is too emotional. In the murder mystery Mystic River, Dave Boyle is kidnapped in the beginning. The audience feels empathy for Dave who as an adult becomes one of the main suspects in the murder of his friend Jimmy’s …


Surveillance, Speech Suppression And Degradation Of The Rule Of Law In The “Post-Democracy Electronic State”, David Barnhizer Jan 2014

Surveillance, Speech Suppression And Degradation Of The Rule Of Law In The “Post-Democracy Electronic State”, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

None of us can claim the quality of original insight achieved by Alexis de Tocqueville in his early 19th Century classic Democracy in America in his observation that the “soft” repression of democracy was unlike that in any other political form. It is impossible to deny that we in the US, the United Kingdom and Western Europe are experiencing just such a “gentle” drift of the kind that Tocqueville describes, losing our democratic integrity amid an increasingly “pretend” democracy. He explained: “[T]he supreme power [of government] then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society …


Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim Oct 2013

Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim

Andrew Chongseh Kim

Courts and scholars commonly assume that granting convicted defendants more liberal rights to challenge their judgments would harm society’s interests in “finality.” According to conventional wisdom, finality in criminal judgments is necessary to conserve resources, encourage efficient behavior by defense counsel, and deter crime. Thus, under the common analysis, the extent to which convicted defendants should be allowed to challenge their judgments depends on how much society is willing to sacrifice to validate defendants’ rights. This Article argues that expanding defendants’ rights on post-conviction review does not always harm these interests. Rather, more liberal review can often conserve state resources, …


Antimonopoly And The Radical Lochean Origins Of Western Water Law, Michael Blumm Jul 2013

Antimonopoly And The Radical Lochean Origins Of Western Water Law, Michael Blumm

Michael Blumm

This review of David Schorr's book, The Colorado Doctrine: Water Rights, Corporations, and Distributive Justice on the American Frontier, maintains that the book is a therapeutic corrective to the standard history of the origins of western water law as celebration of economic efficiency and wealth maximization. Schorr's account convincingly contends that the roots of prior appropriation water law--the "Colorado Doctrine"--lie in distributional justice concerns, not in the supposed efficiency advantages of private property over common property. The goals of the founders of the Colorado doctrine, according to Schorr, were to advance Radical Lochean principles such as widespread distibution of water …


Holmes And The Common Law: A Jury's Duty, Matthew P. Cline Mar 2013

Holmes And The Common Law: A Jury's Duty, Matthew P. Cline

Matthew P Cline

The notion of a small group of peers whose responsibility it is to play a part in determining the outcome of a trial is central to the common conception of the American legal system. Memorialized in the Constitution of the United States as a fundamental right, and in the national consciousness as the proud, if begrudged, duty of all citizens, juries are often discussed, but perhaps not always understood. Whatever misunderstandings have come to be, certainly many of them sprang from the juxtaposition of jury and judge. Why do we have both? How are their responsibilities divided? Who truly decides …


Three-Dimensional Sovereign Immunity, Sarah L. Brinton Mar 2013

Three-Dimensional Sovereign Immunity, Sarah L. Brinton

Sarah L Brinton

The Supreme Court has erred on sovereign immunity. The current federal immunity doctrine wrongly gives Congress the exclusive authority to waive immunity (“exclusive congressional waiver”), but the Constitution mandates that Congress share the waiver power with the Court. This Article develops the doctrine of a two-way shared waiver and then explores a third possibility: the sharing of the immunity waiver power among all three branches of government.


The United States Constitution And Its History Through The Barristers And Political, Allen E. Shoenberger Mar 2013

The United States Constitution And Its History Through The Barristers And Political, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

No abstract provided.


Punishment And Rights, Benjamin L. Apt Feb 2013

Punishment And Rights, Benjamin L. Apt

Benjamin L. Apt

Prevalent theories of criminal punishment lack a rationale for the precise duration and nature of state-ordered criminal punishment. In practice, too, criminal penalization suffers from inadequate evidence of punitive efficacy. These deficiencies, in theory and in fact, would not be so grave were the state to enjoy unfettered power over the disposition of criminal penalties. However, in societies that recognize legal rights, criminal punishments must be consistent with rights. Efficacy, even where demonstrable, does not suffice as a legal justification for punishment. This article analyzes the source of rights and how they function as primary rules in a legal system. …


Chief Justice Roberts' Individual Mandate: The Lawless Medicine Of Nfib V. Sebelius, Gregory Magarian Feb 2013

Chief Justice Roberts' Individual Mandate: The Lawless Medicine Of Nfib V. Sebelius, Gregory Magarian

Gregory P. Magarian

After the U.S. Supreme Court in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius held nearly all of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act constitutional, praise rained down on Chief Justice John Roberts. The Chief Justice’s lead opinion broke with his usual conservative allies on the Court by upholding the Act’s individual mandate under the Taxing Clause. Numerous academic and popular commentators have lauded the Chief Justice for his political courage and institutional pragmatism. In this essay, Professor Magarian challenges the heroic narrative surrounding the Chief Justice’s opinion. The essay contends that the opinion is, in two distinct senses, fundamentally …


Judicial Independence In Post-Conflict Iraq: Establishing The Rule Of Law In An Islamic Constitutional Democracy, David Pimentel, Brian Anderson Jan 2013

Judicial Independence In Post-Conflict Iraq: Establishing The Rule Of Law In An Islamic Constitutional Democracy, David Pimentel, Brian Anderson

David Pimentel

Contemporary Iraq is facing the full range of challenges that come with post-conflict transitional justice, including “paving the road toward peace and reconciliation” and establishing a functional state, characterized by the Rule of Law. Prospects for the establishment of an independent judiciary in Iraq are obstructed by a number of factors, including (1) how to apply the explicit recognition of the law of Islam in the Iraqi Constitution, (2) the inability to pass legislation on the Federal Courts of Iraq, leaving several provisions of the Iraqi Constitution unimplemented, and other critical elements of judicial independence unaddressed, including provisions for tenure, …


"Linguistic Cleansing": Strategies For Redesigning Human Perception And Behavior, David Barnhizer Jan 2013

"Linguistic Cleansing": Strategies For Redesigning Human Perception And Behavior, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

James Madison recognized the need to balance competing interests in his analysis of factious groups. In Federalist No. 10, Madison sets out the idea of faction in the following words. “By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Madison goes on to describe two “cures” for faction. One is to “destroy the liberty” that allows it to bloom, …


University Of Baltimore Symposium Report: Debut Of “The Matthew Fogg Symposia On The Vitality Of Stare Decisis In America”, Zena D. Crenshaw-Logal Jan 2012

University Of Baltimore Symposium Report: Debut Of “The Matthew Fogg Symposia On The Vitality Of Stare Decisis In America”, Zena D. Crenshaw-Logal

Zena Denise Crenshaw-Logal

On the first of each two day symposium of the Fogg symposia, lawyers representing NGOs in the civil rights, judicial reform, and whistleblower advocacy fields are to share relevant work of featured legal scholars in lay terms; relate the underlying principles to real life cases; and propose appropriate reform efforts. Four (4) of the scholars spend the next day relating their featured articles to views on the vitality of stare decisis. Specifically, the combined panels of public interest attorneys and law professors consider whether compliance with the doctrine is reasonably assured in America given the: 1. considerable discretion vested in …


Review Of 'The Judicial House Of Lords 1876-2009' By Louis Blom-Cooper, Brice Dickson And Gavin Drewry, Lindsay J. Stirton Ph.D. Jan 2011

Review Of 'The Judicial House Of Lords 1876-2009' By Louis Blom-Cooper, Brice Dickson And Gavin Drewry, Lindsay J. Stirton Ph.D.

Lindsay J Stirton Ph.D.

No abstract provided.


Book Review - 'The Language Of Statutes' By Lawrence M. Solan, Brian Christopher Jones Dec 2010

Book Review - 'The Language Of Statutes' By Lawrence M. Solan, Brian Christopher Jones

Brian Christopher Jones

No abstract provided.