Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 30 of 158

Full-Text Articles in Law

Living The World War - A Retrospective, Donald N. Zillman, Elizabeth Elsbach Jun 2018

Living The World War - A Retrospective, Donald N. Zillman, Elizabeth Elsbach

Maine Law Review

Living the World War is a 1200-page, two volume study of America’s participation in World War I. The week-by-week review tries to place the reader in the position of an American citizen of a century ago who “lived” the War years without knowing what might come next. The authors’ sources are the daily editions of the New York Times and the pages of the Congressional Record—two documents available to the informed citizen of 1916 to 1919. The crucial issues of a century ago have helped shape American law and policy that is relevant today to such issues as the nature …


Habitual Residence V. Domicile: A Challenge Facing American Conflicts Of Laws, Mo Zhang Jun 2018

Habitual Residence V. Domicile: A Challenge Facing American Conflicts Of Laws, Mo Zhang

Maine Law Review

Habitual residence has now become an internationally accepted connecting factor in conflict of laws and is widely being used as an alternative to, or replacement of, domicile. This concept, however, remains remote to American conflict of laws. Although the use of habitual residence in the U.S. courts is mandated by the codification of the Hague Child Abduction Convention, there is still a lack of general acceptance in American conflict of law literature. The Article argues that habitual residence should be adopted as a conflict of law connecting factor in American conflict of laws, and it would be unwise for the …


Death By Fifty Cuts: Exporting Lunn V. Commonwealth To Maine And The Prospects For Waging A Frontal Assault On The Ice Detainer System In State Courts, Sean Turley Jun 2018

Death By Fifty Cuts: Exporting Lunn V. Commonwealth To Maine And The Prospects For Waging A Frontal Assault On The Ice Detainer System In State Courts, Sean Turley

Maine Law Review

As long as the future of federal immigration policy remains unsettled and the use of ICE detainers to capture and deport suspected noncitizens remains widespread, practitioners should focus their attention on waging a frontal assault against the legality of ICE detainers on state law grounds by arguing that they constitute warrantless arrests that are prohibited by state statute. The recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Lunn v. Commonwealth provides a model for how to wage such an attack—not only in states with similar common law and statutory frameworks that are unlikely to resolve the issue legislatively, like Maine, but …


Editorial Board Vol. 70 No. 2 (2018), Bonnie L. Ball Editor-In-Chief Jun 2018

Editorial Board Vol. 70 No. 2 (2018), Bonnie L. Ball Editor-In-Chief

Maine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Indian Nations And The Constitution, Joseph William Singer Jun 2018

Indian Nations And The Constitution, Joseph William Singer

Maine Law Review

This Constitution Day speech focuses on how the Constitution has been interpreted both to protect and to undermine the sovereignty of Indian nations. The good news is that both the text of the Constitution and the practice of the United States have recognized Indian nations as sovereigns who pre-existed the creation of the United States and who retain their inherent original sovereignty. The bad news is that the Constitution has often been interpreted by the Supreme Court to deny Indian nations protection for their property rights and their sovereignty. Most Americans are not aware of the history of interactions between …


Campbell V. Campbell: Requiring Adherence To The Correct Legal Standard In Child Custody Proceedings - The "Best Interest Of The Child", Lisa M. Fitzgibbon May 2018

Campbell V. Campbell: Requiring Adherence To The Correct Legal Standard In Child Custody Proceedings - The "Best Interest Of The Child", Lisa M. Fitzgibbon

Maine Law Review

Should a divorce court be permitted to consider evidence of a parent's misuse of legal process when rendering a child custody decree? In Campbell v. Campbell the Maine Superior Court concluded that Mrs. Campbell had sought an ex parte protection from abuse order against her husband in an effort to gain a tactical advantage in the custody proceeding—she did not need protection from abuse. The court then awarded Mr. Campbell custody of the children, on the basis of Mrs. Campbell's misuse of legal process. Yet, by focusing its attention upon one parent's conduct, the superior court deviated from what was …


Balancing Marine Mammal Protection Against Commercial Fishing: The Zero Mortality Goal, Quotas And The Gulf Of Maine Harbor Porpoise, Mary M. Sauer May 2018

Balancing Marine Mammal Protection Against Commercial Fishing: The Zero Mortality Goal, Quotas And The Gulf Of Maine Harbor Porpoise, Mary M. Sauer

Maine Law Review

Marine mammals and commercial fishermen come into direct conflict when marine mammals become entangled in commercial fishing nets. Since marine mammals must come up to the water surface in order to breathe, they will die if they cannot break free of an underwater net. This conflict is exemplified by the plight of the harbor porpoise in the Gulf of Maine. The federal regulatory framework that attempts to balance the competing interests of commercial fishermen and marine mammals is currently in flux, and its final form may determine the fate of species like the harbor porpoise. This Comment will examine the …


When Should Force Directed Against A Police Officer Be Justified Under The Maine Criminal Code? - Toward A Coherent Theory Of Law Enforcement Under The Code's Justification Provision, F. Todd Lowell May 2018

When Should Force Directed Against A Police Officer Be Justified Under The Maine Criminal Code? - Toward A Coherent Theory Of Law Enforcement Under The Code's Justification Provision, F. Todd Lowell

Maine Law Review

In State v. Clisham, the Law Court unanimously found that section 104(1) of the Maine Criminal Code operated to justify the use of non-deadly force by a private citizen seeking to prevent an illegal search of his house by police officers. This Comment will focus on the justification provisions of the Maine Criminal Code as they relate to law enforcement practices and will examine how the Law Court's most recent decision interpreting one of the provisions affects that relationship. This Comment will argue that the policy underlying the justification provisions mandates that the justification defense be denied to persons responding …


State Biotechnology Oversight: The Juncture Of Technology, Law, And Public Policy, Christine C. Vito Ph.D. May 2018

State Biotechnology Oversight: The Juncture Of Technology, Law, And Public Policy, Christine C. Vito Ph.D.

Maine Law Review

In a 1980 landmark decision, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that genetically engineered lifeforms such as bacteria were patentable. The significance of this decision to the emerging biotechnology industry—an industry predicated on intellectual property rights—was incalculable. The characteristically research-intensive, capital-intensive biotechnology industry now had the economic incentive to push the technology of genetic engineering to previously unimagined extremes. The genetic engineering and recombinant DNA applications pursued by the biotechnology industry over the past ten years have engendered a spectrum of perplexing inquiries concerning ethical and moral values; agricultural, ecological and environmental matters; global competitiveness and economic priorities; …


In Search Of A Theory Of Alimony, John C. Sheldon, Nancy Diesel Mills May 2018

In Search Of A Theory Of Alimony, John C. Sheldon, Nancy Diesel Mills

Maine Law Review

Maine's alimony statute is full of good advice. It directs judges who hear requests for alimony to “consider” all kinds of things, from the parties' individual wealth to their individual health, from their respective ages to their respective wages, from the length of their marriage to the strength of their educations. And, as if to subdue any doubt about the breadth of this assignment, the statute then invites judges to take into account “any other factors the court considers appropriate.” In short, the statute grants judges almost unlimited discretion in awarding alimony. Power notwithstanding, however, anyone who reads the statute …


An Argument To The State Of Maine, The Town Of Wells, And Other Maine Towns Similarly Situated: Buy The Foreshore - Now, Orlando E. Delogu May 2018

An Argument To The State Of Maine, The Town Of Wells, And Other Maine Towns Similarly Situated: Buy The Foreshore - Now, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

This paper has its roots in the finality of what have come to be called the Moody Beach decisions. In the last of these two cases, Maine's Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that the public's right to use the intertidal zone was limited to those uses and activities spelled out in the Colonial Ordinance of 16411647: “We agree with the Superior Court's declaration of the state of the legal title to Moody Beach. Long and firmly established rules of property law dictate that the plaintiff oceanfront owners at Moody Beach hold title in fee to the …


Discretionary Gatekeeping: The Us Supreme Court's Management Of Its Original Jurisdiction Docket Since 1961, Vincent L. Mckusick May 2018

Discretionary Gatekeeping: The Us Supreme Court's Management Of Its Original Jurisdiction Docket Since 1961, Vincent L. Mckusick

Maine Law Review

There is a special drama when a state sues another state invoking the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the international arena, similar disputes between sovereign states would be settled through diplomatic negotiations or armed conflict, and the stakes in the Supreme Court trial are often as high as in international disputes. The same special drama attends a trial in the Supreme Court with the United States opposing one or more of the fifty States. In drafting Article III of the Constitution the Founders treated the states as quasi-sovereigns and, to match the dignity of …


Maine's Non-Shareholder Constituency Statute, John A. Anderson May 2018

Maine's Non-Shareholder Constituency Statute, John A. Anderson

Maine Law Review

In 1985, the Maine Legislature enacted an amendment to section 716 of the Maine Business Corporation Act which added the following paragraph to the statute: “In discharging their duties, the directors and officers may, in considering the best interests of the corporation and of its shareholders, consider the effects of any action upon employees, suppliers and customers of the corporation, communities in which offices or other establishments of the corporation are located and all other pertinent factors.” This amendment, commonly referred to as a non-shareholder constituency provision, is seen by some as affecting no great change in Maine's corporate fiduciary …


Due Process And The Independent Medical Examiner System In The Maine Workers' Compensation Act, Sean T. Carnathan May 2018

Due Process And The Independent Medical Examiner System In The Maine Workers' Compensation Act, Sean T. Carnathan

Maine Law Review

Workers' compensation became front page news during the summer of 1991, when Maine's governor refused to sign the state's budget unless the Legislature reformed the system. Although the vehemence of the governor's demands stunned both the public and the Legislature, the dire state of workers' compensation was well known to those involved. In fact, the Legislature has debated reforming the system nearly every year, and sixteen significant changes have been made since the program's inception in 1915. In 1991, the Legislature focused on cutting costs. The system requires two types of highly paid professionals—doctors and lawyers. Therefore, an obvious way …


Love Of Landfill: Trashing The Maine Constitution To Solve A Garbage Problem, Donald Maurice Kreis May 2018

Love Of Landfill: Trashing The Maine Constitution To Solve A Garbage Problem, Donald Maurice Kreis

Maine Law Review

The human family is engaged in a noble struggle against the law of entropy, seeking to turn back or at least retard the inexorable process by which all matter in the known universe passes from useful to useless form. The political and legal system generally refers to useless matter as solid waste; in Maine the Legislature has chosen to wage this struggle against entropy and discourage production of entropical by-products through the enactment of the state's first comprehensive waste management law, "An Act to Promote Reduction, Recycling and Integrated Management of Solid Waste and Sound Environmental Regulation" (hereinafter "the Act"). …


Payments By Check As Voidable Preferences: The Impact Of Barnhill V. Johnson, Paulette J. Delk May 2018

Payments By Check As Voidable Preferences: The Impact Of Barnhill V. Johnson, Paulette J. Delk

Maine Law Review

Under the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 (the Code), the trustee in bankruptcy has the duty to seek to avoid “preferential” transfers of the debtor's property made ninety days or less before the date of the filing of the bankruptcy case. Because of the delay that may occur between the time a check in payment of a debt is delivered by the debtor and when it is honored by the drawee bank, determining when the transfer was made to the payee-creditor has been a difficult issue for courts to resolve. The Supreme Court recently addressed this problem when it ruled, …


Creating A Classroom Component For Field Placement Programs: Enhancing Clinical Goals With Feminist Pedagogy, Linda Morton May 2018

Creating A Classroom Component For Field Placement Programs: Enhancing Clinical Goals With Feminist Pedagogy, Linda Morton

Maine Law Review

There exists a historic conflict between the more traditional Langdellian philosophy of legal education, and the experiential philosophy of apprenticeship programs, now known as field placement programs. The conflict is most recently apparent in the American Bar Association's (ABA) attempts to impose a more traditional classroom format on field placement programs through its regulations, guidelines, and instructions pertaining to law school accreditation. The ABA argues that law schools need to allocate greater instructional resources toward their field placement programs, particularly programs that provide more than one-half a semester's credit. Such programs should include a classroom component that meets ABA guidelines. …


Nomination And Confirmation Of Supreme Court Justices: Some Personal Observations, Joseph L. Rauth Jr. May 2018

Nomination And Confirmation Of Supreme Court Justices: Some Personal Observations, Joseph L. Rauth Jr.

Maine Law Review

The following remarks were delivered on October 13, 1992, on the occasion of the first Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service, henceforth to be an annual event at the University of Maine School of Law. The speech was written by the late Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., who died a few weeks before the speech was to be given. The speech was presented by his widow, Olie Rauh, and their son, Michael Rauh.


Sniffing Out The Fourth Amendment: United States V. Place-Dog Sniffs-Ten Years Later, Hope Walker Hall May 2018

Sniffing Out The Fourth Amendment: United States V. Place-Dog Sniffs-Ten Years Later, Hope Walker Hall

Maine Law Review

In the endless and seemingly futile government war against drugs, protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution may have fallen by the wayside as courts struggle to deal with drug offenders. The compelling government interest in controlling the influx of drugs all too often results in a judicial attitude that the ends justify the means. Judges can be reluctant to exclude evidence of drugs found in an unlawful search pursuant to the exclusionary rule, which provides that illegally obtained evidence may not be used at trial. The exclusion of drugs as evidence in drug cases often …


Confronting Silence: The Constitution, Deaf Criminal Defendants, And The Right To Interpretation During Trial, Deirdre M. Smith May 2018

Confronting Silence: The Constitution, Deaf Criminal Defendants, And The Right To Interpretation During Trial, Deirdre M. Smith

Maine Law Review

For most deaf people, interactions with the hearing community in the absence of interpretation or technological assistance consist of communications that are, at most, only partly comprehensible. Criminal proceedings, with the defendant's liberty interest directly at stake, are occasions in which the need for deaf people to have a full understanding of what is said and done around them is most urgent. Ironically, the legal “right to interpretation” has not been clearly defined in either statutory or case law. Although the federal and state constitutions do not provide a separate or lesser set of rights for deaf defendants, their situation …


Termination Of Hospital Medical Staff Privileges For Economic Reasons: An Appeal For Consistency, June D. Zellers, Michael R. Poulin May 2018

Termination Of Hospital Medical Staff Privileges For Economic Reasons: An Appeal For Consistency, June D. Zellers, Michael R. Poulin

Maine Law Review

The relationship between physicians and hospitals is undergoing significant change. Historically, a physician maintained a private practice in the community and looked to the local hospital for ancillary support when his or her patients were too ill to remain at home. This community-based physician gained access to the hospital by obtaining medical staff privileges. These privileges allowed the physician to admit patients to the hospital, treat patients while they were there, and use the hospital's staff and equipment. The physician generally enjoyed the use of the privileges throughout his or her active career, losing them only if found incompetent. Today, …


Five Years Under The Veterans Judicial Review Act: The Va Is Brought Kicking And Screaming Into The World Of Meaningful Due Process, Lawrence B. Hagel, Michael P. Horan May 2018

Five Years Under The Veterans Judicial Review Act: The Va Is Brought Kicking And Screaming Into The World Of Meaningful Due Process, Lawrence B. Hagel, Michael P. Horan

Maine Law Review

I have been asked to give you the “veterans' perspective” on whether the Court of Veterans Appeals has served the purpose for which it was created by Congress and also to describe what additional steps the court might take to further the ends desired by veterans. This is no easy task. It is difficult not because I do not have a lot to say. It is difficult because it is a charge to speak, in a sense, for all veterans. In order to understand what I mean, I think it may be helpful to give you a little background on …


The Impact Of Judicial Review On The Department Of Veterans Affairs' Claims Adjudication Process: The Changing Role Of The Board Of Veterans' Appeals, Charles L. Craigin May 2018

The Impact Of Judicial Review On The Department Of Veterans Affairs' Claims Adjudication Process: The Changing Role Of The Board Of Veterans' Appeals, Charles L. Craigin

Maine Law Review

In a March 1992 statement submitted to the Congress, the Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs described the impact of judicial review on the Department of Veterans Affairs (Department or VA) as “profound.” That description is still apt and applies with as much force to the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board or BVA) as it does to the Department as a whole. Nothing has had as much impact on the Board as the Veterans' Judicial Review Act (VJRA). The VJRA established the United States Court of Veterans Appeals in 1988 and charged it with the review of decisions of the Board. …


Jurisdiction Of The United States Court Of Veterans Appeals: Searching Out The Limits, Frank Q. Nebeker May 2018

Jurisdiction Of The United States Court Of Veterans Appeals: Searching Out The Limits, Frank Q. Nebeker

Maine Law Review

I have been asked to talk to you about the United States Court of Veterans Appeals-specifically, challenges and trends in defining the scope of the court's jurisdiction. As a brand-new court, and one without any antecedent, the court began to establish precedent to deal with all aspects of its jurisdiction. In fact, it is still very much in the process of setting such precedent. For the first time, the court brought the principle of stare decisis to the veterans' community. The principle required considerable readjustment within the Department of Veterans Affairs (Department or VA). The VA's regional offices and the …


Introductory Remarks, Donald N. Zillman May 2018

Introductory Remarks, Donald N. Zillman

Maine Law Review

I am very pleased to welcome this distinguished company to the University of Maine School of Law and to Portland. I thank Chairman Cragin for bringing such a distinguished group to his law school. I thank the Maine Law Review for taking the sponsor's role and for insuring that the publication of our proceedings will take our thoughts far beyond this room. My interest in military law and veterans law as participant and scholar extends over the last twenty years. And so, when Chairman Cragin broached the idea of a conference to provide the first assessment of how the “new …


Reclaiming A Great Judge's Legacy, Frank M. Coffin Apr 2018

Reclaiming A Great Judge's Legacy, Frank M. Coffin

Maine Law Review

In the legal profession a deep sigh of relief is heard over the land. After roughly two decades of incubation, the long-awaited biography of the great judge has arrived, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge, by Stanford Law Professor Gerald Gunther. The book, in my opinion, is well worth the wait. Nearly 700 pages, plus a hundred more for footnotes, it nevertheless represents a heroic condensation of some 100,000 different items on file at Harvard Law School, including no fewer than 50,000 items of correspondence, 1,000 district court opinions, and nearly 3,000 circuit court opinions. The inventory alone requires …


Spiller V. State: Determining The Nature Of Public Employees' Rights To Their Pensions, Andrew C. Mackenzie Apr 2018

Spiller V. State: Determining The Nature Of Public Employees' Rights To Their Pensions, Andrew C. Mackenzie

Maine Law Review

In Spiller v. State, a divided Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that certain legislative changes to public employee pension benefits did not impair the employees' constitutional rights because there was no clear indication that the employees had a contractual right to their pensions. These changes were enacted as a reduction of state expenditures in reaction to Maine's fiscal deficit. The majority found that the changes were not unconstitutional and thus were permissible. The dissenting opinion, however, found that a contract existed between the State and the employees and that it had been breached. Although the …


Employees Or Independent Contractors: A Call For Revision Of Maine's Unemployment Compensation "Abc Test", Christopher J. Cotnoir Apr 2018

Employees Or Independent Contractors: A Call For Revision Of Maine's Unemployment Compensation "Abc Test", Christopher J. Cotnoir

Maine Law Review

The Maine Employment Security Law governs whether one person performing services for another is an independent contractor or an employee for unemployment tax purposes. It requires many employers to pay unemployment taxes on individuals who, under the usual common law rules governing the employer-employee relationship, are independent contractors. This result, caused partly by the structure of the statute and partly by judicial interpretation, has the effect of discouraging business expansion, limiting entrepreneurial opportunities, and ultimately, hampering statewide economic development. This Comment first provides the historical background of unemployment compensation legislation at the federal and state levels. Employer liability and employee/independent …


Life After Daubert V. Merrell Dow: Maine As A Case Law Laboratory For Evidence Rule 702 Without Frye, Leigh Stephens Mccarthy Apr 2018

Life After Daubert V. Merrell Dow: Maine As A Case Law Laboratory For Evidence Rule 702 Without Frye, Leigh Stephens Mccarthy

Maine Law Review

In reaching its recent decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the United States Supreme Court grappled not with case law but with fundamental questions about the nature of science and its role in law. The court in Daubert addressed the problematic issue of admissibility of expert scientific testimony. In the end the Court rejected as an exclusionary rule the venerable standard set in 1923 by Frye v. United States. Frye held that scientific testimony was to be excluded unless it had gained “general acceptance” in its field. Daubert held that Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence …


Prosecutorial Summation: Where Is The Line Between "Personal Opinion" And Proper Argument?, James W. Gunson Apr 2018

Prosecutorial Summation: Where Is The Line Between "Personal Opinion" And Proper Argument?, James W. Gunson

Maine Law Review

Prosecutorial forensic misconduct has become front page news in Maine. Since April of 1993, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has reversed convictions in three highly publicized cases based on remarks made by the prosecutor. In State v. Steen, the prosecutor asked the defendant to give his opinion concerning the veracity of other witnesses and suggested in closing argument that the favorable testimony given by the defense's expert witness resulted from the fee he had received. The Law Court vacated the gross sexual assault conviction, finding that the prosecutor's questions and closing argument “clearly suggested” to …