Law Commons^™

Inclusive Excellence: Diversity Pipeline From School To Practice In Az, Tracy Sanders

Tracy Sanders

In 2012, according to the American Bar Association (“ABA”), racial minorities accounted for approximately 10 percent of attorneys and 24 percent of law students in the United States. This moderate increase in the number of attorneys and law students of color represents a statistically significant improvement as compared to previous decades.

Lincoln's Other War, Chris Derose

Chris DeRose

No abstract provided.

Pension Spiking, Tracy Sanders

Tracy Sanders

No abstract provided.

Latina And Latino Judges: Changing The Complexion Of The Bench, Mary Dolores Guerra

Mary Dolores Guerra

Although having a diverse bench is instrumental to a fair judicial system, the first Mexican American was not appointed to the federal bench until 1961. In that year, President John F. Kennedy appointed Reynaldo G. Garza, to the U.S. federal bench as a district court judge. Judge Garza hoped that by becoming an “effective jurist” he would quell any scrutiny over his appointment and, moreover, “encourage [the] appointment of other qualified Mexican Americans to the federal bench.” Judge Garza was the only Latino appointed to the federal bench until 1979 when President Jimmy Carter appointed several Latinos to the bench, …

Bitcoin: The Revolutionary Currency, Tracy Sanders

Tracy Sanders

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Eduardo Aldunate, Backpacks Full Of Hope: The Un Mission In Haiti, Glenys Spence

Glenys Spence

No abstract provided.

Shelby County V. Holder Impacting Voting Rights In Arizona, Tracy Sanders

Tracy Sanders

No abstract provided.

Defendants Guilty Of Being Innocent; Prosecutors Guilty Of Being Human, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

A published debate between Professor Keith Swisher and the Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery (Phoenix) over prosecutorial ethics in the face of wrongful convictions. The debate focuses on whether the state should adopt ethical rules requiring post-conviction disclosure of expulatory evidence.

Book Review: Climate Change Policy In The European Union: Confronting The Dilemmas Of Mitigation And Adaptation?, Glenys Spence

Glenys Spence

No abstract provided.

The Short History Of Arizona Legal Ethics, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

This Essay provides a history of Arizona legal ethics: its substance and procedure. A hundred years ago, legal ethics barely existed in Arizona. Fortunately, a century permits significant progress, as captured in this work. Following the lead of the ABA (among others), Arizona slowly but surely adopted a modernized system of ethical regulation. And today, Arizona shows increasing signs of autonomy in legal ethics. These signs can be seen in Arizona’s independent approach to lawyer screening, prosecutorial ethics, and inadvertent disclosure — to focus on just a few of many examples in this “short history.” In Part I of this …

Singing Songs In A Strange Land: The Plight Of Haitian Children In The Space Of International Adoption, Glenys Spence

Glenys Spence

No abstract provided.

Pregnant Pause: The Interplay Of Gendered Expectations And Pregnancy In Legal Education, Ilya Iussa

Ilya Iussa

PREGNANT PAUSE: THE INTERPLAY OF GENDERED EXPECTATIONS AND PREGNANCY IN LEGAL EDUCATION

Abstract

Is the law student biased against pregnant women? No systematic empirical study exists that can confirm whether law or university students in fact evidence bias towards visibly pregnant professors. This article, thus, reviews scholarship in the social sciences that identifies the occurrence, pervasiveness, cause and effects of student bias towards professors that do not exemplify the “normal professor body.”

This article reflects upon my interactions with law students as their professor during the course of my recent pregnancy and posits that certain perceptions held by my students …

Recusal, Government Ethics, And Superannuated Constitutional Theory, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

Something good and something bad happened recently in government and judicial ethics; no one has truly noticed yet for some reason. The Supreme Court all but banned First Amendment analysis as applied to recusal laws, both legislative and judicial. That, actually, is the good thing, or so I argue. The bad thing is that the Court, in doing so, used a geriatric approach to constitutional theory. The approach is unduly reverent of anything “old;” and old is not limited to the practices of the Founding Fathers, but also includes “traditional” practices within some undefined range. But what is old is …

The Case For 'Expanding' The Abstention Doctrine To Account For The Laws And Policies Of The American Indian Tribes, Jay Kanassatega

Jay Kanassatega

The origination and evolution of the abstention doctrine illustrates how the United States Supreme Court has created a workable balance of concurrent federal-state judicial power in circumstances where state law and state policies predominated and accommodated vital federal policy interests. Acknowledging the recent debate among scholars and commentators as to the wisdom of the abstention doctrine, this article advocates in favor of the creation of another application of the doctrine — one that acknowledges both the sovereignty of the American Indian tribes and their democratic governments and the inherent conflict arising from three sovereigns exercising concurrent jurisdiction over the same …

Prosecutorial Conflicts Of Interest In Post-Conviction Practice, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

Prosecutors, our ministers of justice, do not play by the same conflict of interest rules. All other attorneys should not, and cannot, attack their prior work in transactional or litigation matters; nor should other attorneys unquestionably represent clients in matters in which the attorneys themselves face disciplinary, civil, or criminal liability. When prosecutors have likely convicted an innocent person, however, prosecutors are asked to review their own prior work objectively and then to undo it. But they understandably suffer from a conflict between their duty to justice and their duty to themselves — their duty to seek the release of …

Stock Stories, Cultural Norms, And The Shape Of Justice For Native Americans Involved In Interparental Child Custody Disputes In State Court Proceedings, Diana Lopez-Jones

Diana Lopez-Jones

In an American courtroom, a litigant relies on the evidence and his words--strung together in story form--to convince the judge (or jury) of the merits of the case. The litigants compete, within strict parameters, to tell the stronger and more resonant story. Because stories almost always begin with a shift in “the way things generally are,” stories of change essentially form the foundation for much litigation, especially in family courts. The stories presented by litigants in family court are not only emotionally compelling, but they also incorporate themes common to daily life: family conflicts, spousal relationships, parental responsibilities, financial difficulties, …

Legal Ethics And Campaign Contributions: The Professional Responsibility To Pay For Justice, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

Lawyers as johns, and judges as prostitutes? Across the United States, attorneys (“johns,” as the analogy goes) are giving campaign money to judges (“prostitutes”) and then asking those judges for legal favors in the form of rulings for themselves and their clients. Despite its pervasiveness, this practice has been rarely mentioned, much less theorized, from the attorneys’ ethical point of view. With the surge of money into judicial elections (e.g., Citizens United v. FEC), and the Supreme Court’s renewed interest in protecting justice from the corrupting effects of campaign money (e.g., Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.), these conflicting currents …

Colonial Relics: Unearthing The Lingering Of Tyranny Of Colonial Discourse In U.S. –Caribbean Immigration Law And Policy, Glenys Spence

Glenys Spence

Immigration law is constantly evolving. It is one of the most dynamic and multi-faceted areas of law. Specifically, in the space of asylum and refugee law, practitioners, immigration judges and our appellate courts face a daunting task of reconciling the law with the plethora of human misery that flock to our shores. The laws are plagued with ambiguity and complexity, and the task of interpretation is a daunting one. As a result, legal interpretation by our immigration courts can leave immigrants to languish in “a field of pain and death.” This article will examine the politics of location inherent in …

Lost In Translation: Notario Fraud – Immigration Fraud, Mary Dolores Guerra

Mary Dolores Guerra

No abstract provided.

Law School Revisited: Reflections On Being A 1l, Mary Dolores Guerra

Mary Dolores Guerra

No abstract provided.

The Modern Movement Of Vindicating Violations Of Criminal Defendants’ Rights Through Judicial Discipline, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

No abstract provided.

When Judges Should Be Seen, Not Heard: Extrajudicial Comments Concerning Pending Cases And The Controversial Self-Defense Exception In The New Code Of Judicial Conduct, Mark L. Harrison, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

No abstract provided.

The Judicial Ethics Of Criminal Law Adjudication, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

Judges in the United States regularly (and often harshly) are disciplined for “bad” criminal law decisions. On a number of levels, it is baffling that this ethical “Rule” — punishing judges for errors of adjudication — has never been the subject of in-depth critical analysis. Thus, this Article is surprisingly the first scholarly work fully deconstructing the Rule (along with attendant considerations in criminal law adjudication) and addressing directly many of the tough questions that have been avoided or mistreated. This Article begins by examining an unexamined, “yet earthshaking” movement—that is, the modern invention of using judicial conduct commissions (“judge …

The Discovery Immunity Exception In Indian Country – Promoting American Indian Sovereignty By Fostering The Rule Of Law, Jay Kanassatega

Jay Kanassatega

The purpose of this article is to encourage federal courts (and Indian tribes) to re-think reliance on tribal sovereign immunity as a basis to quash or modify process directed to Indian tribes and their elected and appointed officials and employees as non-parties to any underlying litigation. In such third-party actions, federal courts should not apply tribal immunity to quash or modify otherwise valid federal process served on an Indian tribe pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 45. Instead, the federal court should approach the issue with an eye toward implementing Congressional policies aimed at supporting the development …

The Application Of American Anti-Discrimination Laws In A Global Work Environment, Sandra Durant

Sandra Durant

No abstract provided.

The Troubling Rise Of The Legal Profession’S “Good” Moral Character, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

No abstract provided.

The Moral Judge, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

No abstract provided.

Mothers, Bombers, Beauty Queens: Chechen Women's Roles In The Russo-Chechen Conflict, Francine Banner

Francine Banner

History is written on the body. Factors such as historical, social, and cultural exigencies produce bodies of a determinate type. In the Chechen Republic, women's bodies have been front and center in struggles to raise birthrates in order to secure ethnic advancement and promote a sense of peace and national unity in periods after time of strife. They have been the focus of discussions over modesty, adherence to tradition, and religious observance, as women took the stage as contestants in beauty pageants. And they have been at the forefront in debates over Chechen terrorism, with the "black widows" of Chechnya …

On The Validity And Vitality Of Arizona's Judicial Merit Selection System: Past, Present And Future, Mark L. Harrison, Sara S. Greene, Keith Swisher, Meghan H. Grabel

Keith Swisher

No abstract provided.

The Unethical Judicial Ethics Of Instrumentalism And Detachment In American Legal Thought, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

No abstract provided.