Law Commons^™

The Arizona Jury Reform Permitting Civil Jury Trial Discussions: The Views Of Trial Participants, Judges, And Jurors, Valerie P. Hans, Paula L. Hannaford, G. Thomas Munslerman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In 1995, the Arizona Supreme Court reformed the jury trial process by allowing civil jurors to discuss the evidence presented during trial prior to their formal deliberations. This Article examines and evaluates the theoretical, legal, and policy issues raised by this reform and presents the early results of afield experiment that tested the impact of trial discussions. Jurors, judges, attorneys, and litigants in civil jury trials in Arizona were questioned regarding their observations, experiences, and reactions during trial as well as what they perceived to be the benefits and drawback of juror discussions. The data revealed that the majority of …

What Money Cannot Buy: A Legislative Response To C.Rac.K., Adam B. Wolf

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity (C.R.A.C.K.) is an organization that pays current or former drug addicts $200 to be sterilized. While generating great public controversy, C.R.A.C.K. is expanding rapidly throughout the country. Its clients are disproportionately poor women of color, who are coerced by the offer of money into permanently relinquishing their reproductive rights. This Note argues that C.R.A.C.K. is a program of eugenical sterilization that cannot be tolerated. Moreover, C.R.A.C.K. further violates settled national public policy by offensively commodifying the ill-commodifiable, by demeaning women, and by starting down a slippery slope with devastating consequences. This Note proposes legislation that …

Creating A Seamless Transition From Jury Box To Jury Room For More Effective Decision Making, Annie King Phillips

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Why am I writing here? I am not a judge or lawyer, and I may never be. I don't even play one on TV. In searching for an answer to this question, it came to mind that at sometime in everyone's life, there is a need to enter the court system-as a victim, offender, witness, court staff or juror. The interactions among these persons impact the effective administration of justice in our court system. Every two years for the past eighteen years (like the tick of a clock), I am summoned to jury duty at either the District of Columbia …

Accountable Managed Care: Should We Be Careful What We Wish For?, David A. Hyman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Managed care is exceedingly unpopular of late. Many people believe that the problem is managed care organizations (MCOs) are unaccountable. Indeed, for many people, the creation of tort-based accountability for MCOs is the touchstone for assessing legislative "reform." The case for tort-based accountability is actually quite complex, and the merits of tort-based accountability cannot be resolved with sound bites and bad anecdotes. Tort-based accountability has both costs and benefits, and little attention has been paid to the extent to which alternatives to tort-based accountability are found in existing institutional arrangements.

This Article systematically considers the extent to which alternatives to …

The Competitive Impact Of Small Group Health Insurance Reform Laws, Mark A. Hall

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article reports on findings from an extensive study of small group health insurance market reforms in seven states, enacted during the early 1990s. After summarizing the content and purpose of these reforms, this evaluation focuses on the impact these reforms have had on the nature and degree of market competition. The principal findings are: (1) small group health insurance markets are highly competitive, both in price and in product innovation and diversity; (2) although some insurers have left some or all of these states in part because of these reforms, an ample number of active competitors remain, even in …

Moving Toward A Clearer Definition Of Insider Trading: Why Adoption Of The Possession Standard Protects Investors, Lacey S. Calhoun

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In recent years, insider trading has become a publicized focus of securities law enforcement. The definition of insider trading has emerged slowly through case law, and the term has been clarified by new theories of liability. The use and possession tests are two standards of liability used to judge the treatment of inside information. The use standard offers a defense to insider trading liability while the possession standard premises liability on mere possession of inside information. This Note argues that courts should adopt the possession standard because this standard better protects investors, a primary goal of the Securities Exchange Act …

Building A Community Through Workplace E-Mail: The New Privacy Frontier, Peter Schnaitman

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The relatively new technology of electronic mail (e-mail) presents an entirely new issue of workplace privacy. Currently, whether a person has a privacy interest in their workplace e-mail communications is as unsettled an issue as it has been since the technology emerged in the early part of this decade as the preferred mode of communication in the workplace. Indeed, e-mail may soon be the preferred mode of communication in general. This comment will argue that all e-mail users have a privacy interest in workplace e-mail communications and that the current law does not afford e-mail users any type of protection …

To Yick Wo, Thanks For Nothing!: Citizenship For Filipino Veterans, Kevin Pimentel

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In this Note, the Author uses science fiction novelist Robert Heinlein's model of citizenship as an analytical framework for examining the historical treatment of Filipino veterans of World War II. The Author Heinlein's conception of citizenship in Starship Troopers was one in which a person can acquire citizenship only through a term of service in the state's armed forces. Similarly, the United States provided immediate eligibility for citizenship to World War II era foreign veterans, but it effectively excluded Filipino veterans from this benefit. The Author examines how the plenary power doctrine in immigration law, has quashed legal challenges by …

The Freedom To Marry For Same-Sex Couples: The Opening Appellate Brief Of Plaintiffs Stan Baker Et Al. In Baker Et Al. V. State Of Vermont, Mary Bonauto, Susan M. Murray, Beth Robinson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

As the first state to prohibit slavery by constitution, and one of the few states which, from its inception, extended the vote to male citizens who did not own land, the State of Vermont has long been at the forefront of this nation's march toward full equality for all of its citizens. In July 1997, three same-sex couples challenged Vermont to act as a leader yet again, this time in affording full civil rights to the State's gay and lesbian citizens. Stan Baker and Peter Harrigan, Nina Beck and Stacy Jolles, and Holly Puterbaugh and Lois Farnham were denied marriage …

The Marriage Mirage: The Personal And Social Indentity Implications Of Same-Gendered Matrimony, Linda S. Eckols

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article will examine why so much is at stake in the political, social, and legal debate over same-gender marriage. It will not address the constitutional questions of whether there is a fundamental right to marry, although persuasive arguments have been advanced from both sides of the debate." This Article will focus on a more introspective view of the potential effects of legalizing same-gender marriage on the identities of gay men and lesbians in committed relationships and on the interaction between same-gender couples and society. Marriage would provide the integration sought by gay men and lesbians, but at the expense …

Competing On Quality Of Care: The Need To Develop A Competition Policy For Health Care Markets, William M. Sage, Peter J. Hammer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As American health care moves from a professionally dominated to a market-dominated model, concerns have been voiced that competition, once unleashed, will focus on price to the detriment of quality. Although quality has been extensively analyzed in health services research, the role of quality in competition policy has not been elucidated. While economists may theorize about non-price competition, courts in antitrust cases often follow simpler models of competition based on price and output, either ignoring quality as a competitive dimension or assuming that it will occur in tandem with price competition. This unsystematic approach is inadequate for the formulation of …

Jury Reform At The End Of The Century: Real Agreement, Real Changes, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Articles

Complaints about the jury system and calls for its reform are nothing new-they have probably existed as long as the jury system itself. Warren Burger called for the reform of the civil jury in 1971'; in 1905 William Howard Taft decried the contemporary tendency "to exalt the jury's power beyond anything which is wise or prudent .... ,2 Judges complain to judges, lawyers complain to lawyers, legal academics write articles about the jury for other legal academics, social scientists report their research on juries to other social scientists, and the jurors themselves go home and express their exasperation to their …

Using Immigration Law To Protect Human Rights: A Legislative Proposal, William J. Aceves, Paul L. Hoffman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article suggests that the rationale underlying the Nazi persecution and genocide provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act should be extended to all cases where aliens have participated in gross human rights violations. Quite simply, the logic underlying these provisions applies with equal rigor and intensity to all forms of human rights violations regardless of where or when they took place. Immigration relief is truly a priceless treasure. The United States should not become a haven for those aliens who have violated the most fundamental norms of international human rights law. Accordingly, immigration relief must not be provided to …

Markets As Monitors: A Proposal To Replace Class Actions With Exchanges As Securities Fraud Enforcers, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

Fraud in the securities markets has been a focus of legislative reform in recent years. Corporations-especially those in the high-technology industry-have complained that they are being unfairly targeted by plaintiffs' lawyers in class action securities fraud lawsuits. The corporations' complaints led to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("Reform Act"). The Reform Act attempted to reduce meritless litigation against corporate issuers by erecting a series of procedural barriers to the filing of securities class actions. Plaintiffs' attorneys warned that the Reform Act and the resulting decrease in securities class actions would leave corporate fraud unchecked and deprive defrauded …

The Constitutionality Of Taxing Compensatory Damages For Mental Distress When There Was No Accompanying Physical Injury, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

Since 1919, statutory tax law has excluded from gross income compensatory damages received on account of a personal injury or sickness.1 The current version of that exclusion is set forth in section 104 (a) (2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.2 The construction of that exclusion, both by the courts and by the Commissioner, underwent significant alterations over the 80-year period that the provision has existed.3 The statute itself was amended several times, most recently in 1996.4 It is the 1996 amendment that has raised a constitutional issue concerning the validity of a portion of the statute.5