Law Commons^™

Separation Of Law And State, Talia Fisher

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the framework of the jurisprudential literature, the law-state bond is assumed as a given. Points of dispute emerge only at more advanced stages of the discussion, with respect to such questions as the duty to obey state law or the appropriate extent of state intervention in social relations. This Article will be devoted to a reconsideration of the presupposition of the law-state link and to challenging the state's status vis-à-vis the law-both in its role as the producer of legal norms and its capacity as the arbiter of disputes.

The Article opens with a comparative elucidation of the Hobbesian …

Trespassory Art, Randall Bezanson, Andrew Finkelman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The history of art is replete with examples of artists who have broken from existing conventions and genres, redefining the meaning of art and its function in society. Our interest is in emerging forms of art that trespass-occupy space, place, and time as part of their aesthetic identity. These new forms of art, which we call trespassory art, are creatures of a movement that seeks to appropriate cultural norms and cultural signals, reinterpreting them to create new meaning. Marcel DuChamp produced such a result when, in the early twentieth century, he took a urinal, signed it, titled it Fountain, and …

Undoing Undue Favors: Providing Competitors With Standing To Challenge Favorable Irs Actions, Sunil Shenoi

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Internal Revenue Service occasionally creates rules, notices, or regulations that allow taxpayers to pay less than they would under a strict reading of the law. Sometimes, however, these IRS actions are directly contrary to federal law and have significant economic impact. Challenging favorable IRS actions through litigation will likely be unsuccessful because no plaintiff can satisfy the requirements for standing. To address this situation, this Note proposes a statutory reform to provide competitors with standing to challenge favorable IRS actions in court.

On The Role And Regulation Of Proxy Advisors, Paul Rose

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In anticipation of proxy season-the springtime ritual where companies prepare and deliver proxy statements in preparation for annual shareholder meetings-U.S. public companies typically reexamine their corporate governance structures and policies. Many corporate governance structures that were acceptable ten years ago are now considered outmoded or even evidence of managerial entrenchment. For example, consider the classified board of directors. In recent years, many companies have shifted from a classified board of directors to an annually elected board. A company might adopt an annually-elected board structure for a number of reasons. A classified board can serve as an entrenchment device, for instance, …

Technology Convergence And Federalism: Who Should Decide The Future Of Telecommunications Regulation?, Daniel A. Lyons

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article critically examines the division of regulatory jurisdiction over telecommunications issues between the federal government and the states. Currently, the line between federal and state jurisdiction varies depending on the service at issue. This compartmentalization might have made sense fifteen years ago, but the advent of technology convergence has largely rendered this model obsolete. Yesterday's telephone and cable companies now compete head-to-head to offer consumers the vaunted "triple play" of voice, video, and internet services. But these telecommunications companies are finding it increasingly difficult to fit new operations into arcane, rigid regulatory compartments. Moreover, services that consumers view as …

The "Enlightened Barbarity" Of Inclusive Fitness And Wrongful Death: Biological Justifications For An Investment Theory Of Loss In Wycko V. Gnodtke, Ryan Shannon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Wrongful death laws should permit and encourage courts and juries to consider the survivors' investment in decedents when determining wrongful death damages, given new biological justifications for this theory of loss. The investment theory of damages, which permits an award of damages based on the investment of financial resources relatives make in one another, originated in Michigan's courts in the early 1 960s, but as of present day has been largely abrogated. In the context of modern understandings of evolutionary biology, including kin selection theory and sociobiology, the investment theory of recovery accords with the goals of corrective justice as …

The Unjustified Judicial Creation Of Class Certification Merits Trials In Securities, Michael J. Kaufman, John M. Wunderlich

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The class action device is vital to deterring securities fraud and remedying its victims, who almost never suffer losses sufficient to justify an individual suit. Nonetheless, the federal courts have begun to convert the class certification process into a premature trial on the merits, thereby precluding victims of securities fraud from pursuing otherwise valid claims of financial wrongdoing. In particular, in a series of important decisions, the federal courts have required plaintiffs to prove the essential elements of their securities fraud claims at the preliminary class certification stage.

This Article demonstrates why this trend should end. The judicial creation of …

Owning Mark(Et)S, Mark A. Lemley, Mark P. Mckenna

Michigan Law Review

Trademark owners regularly rely on claims that the defendant is "free riding" on their mark by making money using that mark, money the trademark owners say should belong to them. We analyze those free-riding claims and find them wanting. The empirical data shows that defendants in unrelated markets can benefit from using a well-known mark, but that neither mark owners nor consumers suffer any injury from that use. A legal claim that a defendant is unjustly benefiting by using a plaintiff's mark is hollow unless it is accompanied by a theory of why that benefit should rightly belong to the …

The Illusory Right To Abandon, Eduardo M. Penalver

Michigan Law Review

The unilateral and unqualified nature of the right to abandon (at least as it is usually described) appears to make it a robust example of the law's concern to safeguard the individual autonomy interests that many contemporary commentators have identified as lying at the heart of the concept of private ownership. The doctrine supposedly empowers owners of chattels freely and unilaterally to abandon them by manifesting the clear intent to do so, typically by renouncing possession of the object in a way that communicates the intent to forgo any future claim to it. A complication immediately arises, however due to …

The Right Issue, The Wrong Branch: Arguments Against Adjudicating Climate Change Nuisance Claims, Matthew Edwin Miller

Michigan Law Review

Climate change is probably today's greatest global environmental threat, posing dire ecological, economic, and humanitarian consequences. In the absence of a comprehensive regulatory scheme to address the problem, some aggrieved Americans have sought relief from climate-related injuries by suing significant emitters of greenhouse gases under a public nuisance theory. Federal district courts have dismissed four such claims, with each court relying at least in part on the political question doctrine of nonjusticiability. However, one circuit court of appeals has reversed to date, finding that the common law cognizes such claims and that the judiciary is competent and compelled to adjudicate …

Don't Answer The Door: Montejo V. Louisiana Relaxes Police Restrictions For Questioning Non-Custodial Defendants, Emily Bretz

Michigan Law Review

In 2009, the Supreme Court held in Montejo v. Louisiana that a defendant may validly waive his Sixth Amendment right to counsel during police interrogation, even if police initiate interrogation after the defendant's invocation of the right at the first formal proceeding. This Note asserts that Montejo significantly altered the Sixth Amendment protections available to represented defendants. By increasing defendants' exposure to law enforcement, the decision allows police to try to elicit incriminating statements and waivers of the right to counsel after the defendant has expressed a desire for counsel. In order to protect the defendant's constitutional guarantee of a …

Encouraging Savings Under The Earned Income Tax Credit: A Nudge In The Right Direction, Vada Waters Lindsey

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

During 2007, 3.6 million or 9.7% of people in the United States age 65 or older were below the poverty level. In light of the number of elderly people living below the poverty level, it is important that everyone, including low-income workers, have the opportunity to save for retirement. Low-income workers face many challenges to saving for retirement. The barriers to saving include the lack of access to retirement plans and lack of investment savvy. For example, only 42 % of workers employed in service occupations in the private industry have access to employer retirement plans. The percentage drops to …

Protecting Nominative Fair Use, Parody, And Other Speech-Interests By Reforming The Inconsistent Exemptions From Trademark Liability, Samuel M. Duncan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Federal trademark law exempts certain communicative uses of a trademark from liability so that the public can freely use a trademark to comment on the markowner or to describe its products. These exemptions for "speech-interests" are badly flawed because their scope is inconsistent between infringement and dilution law, and because the cost and difficulty of claiming their protection varies significantly from court to court. Many speech-interests remain vulnerable to the chilling threat of litigation even though they are "protected" by current law. This Note proposes a simple statutory reform that will remedy this inconsistency by creating an express safe harbor …

Presumed Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The Burden Of Proof In Wrongful Conviction Claims Under State Compensation Statutes, Daniel S. Kahn

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Despite significant efforts to uncover and prevent wrongful convictions, little attention has been paid to the compensation of wrongfully convicted individuals once they are released from prison. State compensation statutes offer the best path to redress because they do not require the claimant to prove that the state was at fault for the wrongful conviction and because they are not susceptible to the same political influences as other methods of compensation. However, even under compensation statutes, too many meritorious claims are dismissed, settled for far too little, or never brought in the first place. After examining the current statutory framework, …

Nepa In The Hot Seat: A Proposal For An Office Of Environmental Analysis, Aliza M. Cohen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Judicial deference under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can be problematic. It is a well-established rule of administrative law that courts will grant a high degree of deference to agency decisions. They do this out of respect for agency expertise and policy judgment. This deference is applied to NEPA lawsuits without acknowledging the special pressures that agencies face while assessing the environmental impacts of their own projects. Though there is a strong argument that these pressures undermine the reasons for deferential review, neither the statute nor the courts have provided plaintiffs with adequate means to remedy this problem. Agency …

Designing Bespoke Transitional Justice: A Pluralist Process Approach, Jaya Ramji-Nogales

Michigan Journal of International Law

Although many scholars agree that contemporary transitional justice mechanisms are flawed, a comprehensive and unified alternative approach to accountability for mass violence has yet to be propounded. Like many international lawyers, transitional justice theorists have focused their assessment efforts on the successes and failures of established institutions. This Article argues that before we can measure whether transitional justice is working, we must begin with a theory of what it is trying to achieve. Once we have a coherent theory, we must use it ex ante, to design effective transitional justice mechanisms, not just to assess their effectiveness ex post. Drawing …

Response To "Snyder V. Louisiana: Continuing The Historical Trend Towards Increased Scrutiny Of Peremptory Challenges", Bidish J. Sarma

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

John P. Bringewatt's recent note makes several important observations about the Supreme Court's opinion in Snyder v. Louisiana. Although he provides reasonable support for the claim that Snyder represents a sea change in Batson jurisprudence, the US Supreme Court's fresh opinion in Thaler v. Haynes (rendered on February 22, 2010) reads the Snyder majority opinion narrowly and suggests the possibility that Snyder is not as potent as it should be. The Haynes per curiam's guarded reading of Snyder signals the need for courts to continue to conduct the bird's-eye cumulative analysis that the Court performed in Miller-El v. Dretke[hereinafter Miller-El …

Case For Overseas Article Iii Courts: The Blackwater Effect And Criminal Accountability In The Age Of Privatization, The, Alan F. Williams

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A series of high-profile cases involving the alleged murders of Iraqi civilians by U.S. contractors operating overseas has highlighted the longstanding problem of how best to address crimes committed overseas by civilian employees, dependents, or contractors of the U.S. government. Among the most notorious of these incidents is the alleged killing of seventeen Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad on September 16, 2007 by employees of Blackwater Worldwide, a private corporation specializing in military operations that has subsequently renamed itself "Xe."2News reports of this incident prompted embarrassment and outrage as many Americans learned that U.S. civilian contractors like the …

Israel, Palestine, And The Icc, Daniel Benoliel, Ronen Perry

Michigan Journal of International Law

In the wake of the Israel-Gaza 2008-09 armed conflict and recently commenced process at the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Court will soon face a major challenge with the potential to determine its degree of judicial independence and overall legitimacy. It may need to decide whether a Palestinian state exists, either for the purposes of the Court itself, or perhaps even in general. The ICC, which currently has 113 member states, has not yet recognized Palestine as a sovereign state or as a member. Moreover, although the ICC potentially has the authority to investigate crimes which fall into its subject-matter …

Reviving Lenity And Honest Belief At The Boundaries Of Criminal Law, John L. Diamond

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

It is a common misconception that there is a line between criminal and innocent conduct that is transparent and fixed. In fact, much of criminal law is fluid and elastic, free, if strategically applied, to label conduct as legal or illegal. In some cases, this reflects crimes that are vaguely defined or imprecise. In other cases, the prohibited conduct simply includes what is so conventionally accepted as legal that the criminal label is perceived as inapplicable until a prosecutor chooses to apply it. The problem of a fluid rather than a fixed line for criminality is that prosecutorial discretion becomes …

Enforcing International Corrupt Practices Law, Paul D. Carrington

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Essay strives to advance the current international movement to deter the transnational corrupt practices that have long burdened the global economy and weakened governments, especially in "developing" nations. Laws made in the last decade to address this longstanding global problem have not been effectively enforced. Described here are the moderately successful efforts in the United States since 1862 to reward private citizens serving as enforcers of laws prohibiting corrupt practices. It is suggested that this American experience might be adapted by international organizations to enhance enforcement of the new public international laws.

Identifying And Enforcing Back-End Electoral Rights In International Human Rights Law, Katherine A. Wagner

Michigan Journal of International Law

From Kenya to Afghanistan, Ukraine, the United States, Mexico, and Iran, no region or form of government has been immune from the unsettling effects of a contested election. The story is familiar, and, these days, hardly surprising: a state holds elections, losing candidates and their supporters claim fraud, people take to the streets, diplomats and heads of state equivocate, and everyone waits for the observers' reports. It is the last chapter of this story-the resolution-that remains unfamiliar and still holds the potential to surprise. The increasing focus on and importance of the resolution of contested elections, that resolution's link to …

Revolutions In Local Democracy? Neighborhood Councils And Broadening Inclusion In The Local Political Process, Matthew J. Parlow

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Political marginalization of minorities and government corruption are two key factors that have led to the overwhelming decline and decay of America's major cities. Local governments must combat the historical entrenchment of these two evils in order to reverse the trend toward demise. Neighborhood councils may be the best structural changes to local government because they provide more meaningful opportunities for political engagement of minority groups, while also serving as an antidote to systemic corruption in local government. This Essay analyzes the problems plaguing local government in urban cities and explores how neighborhood councils may be able to help address …

Citizens United And The Threat To The Regulatory State, Tamara R. Piety

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Although Citizens United has been roundly criticized for its potential effect on elections and its display of judicial immodesty (or "activism"), the effect of the case which may be both most profound and perhaps most pernicious is its effect on the commercial speech doctrine. This is an aspect of the case which has been largely overlooked. Most people seem to be unaware of any connection between election law and the commercial speech doctrine-except, that is, those who have been working long and hard to accomplish the change it foreshadows. They are keenly aware of its implications.

Kids Are Different, Stephen St.Vincent

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The Supreme Court recently handed down its decision in Graham v. Florida. The case involved a juvenile, Graham, who was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted as an adult of a nonhomicidal crime. The offense, a home invasion robbery, was his second; the first was attempted robbery. Due to Florida's abolition of parole, the judge's imposition of a life sentence meant that Graham was constructively sentenced to life without parole for a nonhomicide crime. Graham challenged this sentence as unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Somewhat surprisingly, the Supreme Court invalidated Graham's sentence by a 6-3 majority. By a …

Establishing A "Due Care" Standard Under The Lacey Act Amendments Of 2008, Rachel Saltzman

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The Lacey Act was first enacted in 1900 as a narrow measure for domestic bird preservation and agriculture protection. It was significantly amended in 1981 and 1988 to prohibit trafficking in fish and wildlife "taken, possessed, transported, or sold" in violation of state and foreign laws. For the past three decades, the amended statute has provided the federal government with a powerful tool for regulating imports of fish and wildlife. In 2008 Congress expanded its reach still further, responding to widespread concern about the effects of illegal logging on local governance, the environment, and American business by extending the Act's …

Insterstitial Exclusivities After Association For Molecular Pathology, Mary Mitchell, Dana A. Remus

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The high profile cases Bilski v. Kappos and Association for Molecular Pathology v. United States Patent and Trademark Office have renewed public debate about the proper scope of patentable subject matter. The subject matter inquiry has traditionally been treated as a threshold inquiry in patent law, serving a gate-keeping function by defining the types of inventions that are eligible for patent protection. The Patent Office and courts have approached the subject matter inquiry both by determining whether an invention falls into a statutory category-processes, machines, manufactures, or compositions of matter-as well as by determining whether an invention falls into a …

"What Do I Do About This Word, 'Unavoidable'?": Resolving Textual Ambiguity In The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, Jason Lafond

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The quote in the title of this Essay comes from Justice Breyer, expressing his frustration with the language of section 22(b)(1) of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. Justice Breyer made this comment during the October 12, 2010, oral argument in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, Inc., a case about the availability of state tort claims based on vaccine design defects. The question before the Court was whether that section expressly preempts such claims against vaccine manufacturers "if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions …

Commerce In The Commerce Clause: A Response To Jack Balkin, Robert G. Natelson

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The Constitution's original meaning is its meaning to those ratifying the document during a discrete time period: from its adoption by the Constitutional Convention in late 1787 until Rhode Island's ratification on May 29, 1790. Reconstructing it requires historical skills, including a comprehensive approach to sources. Jack Balkin's article Commerce fails to consider the full range of evidence and thereby attributes to the Constitution's Commerce Clause a scope that virtually no one in the Founding Era believed it had.

Race, Educational Loans & Bankruptcy, Abbye Atkinson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article reports new data from the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project revealing that college graduates and specifically White graduates are less likely to file for bankruptcy than their counterparts without a college degree. Although these observations suggest that a college degree helps graduates to weather the setbacks that sometimes lead to financial hardship as measured by bankruptcy, they also indicate that a college degree may not help everyone equally. African American college graduates are equally likely to file for bankruptcy as African Americans without a college degree. Thus, a college education may not confer the same protective benefit against financial …