Law Commons^™

E Pluribus Unum: Data And Operations Integration In The California Criminal Justice System, W. David Ball

Faculty Publications

This Article reflects some of the insights from the Stanford Criminal Justice Center's (SCJC's) year-long project on data and operations integration in California's criminal justice system. Part I lays out some of the benefits of an integrated system as a means of illustrating why law enforcement agencies across the state are actively pursuing data integration. Part II discusses three organizational and political obstacles to creating an integrated system: defining what we mean by the criminal justice "system," drawing boundaries of relevant networks, and resolving tensions among state and local agencies with concurrent jurisdiction. Part III then discusses three ways in …

Why Did China Reform Its Death Penalty?, Kandis Scott

Faculty Publications

China recently reformed its death penalty laws, and as a result the government has executed fewer prisoners. The author explores possible reasons and policy concerns behind China's legal reform. These influences include international forces and domestic factors, such as the media, changed circumstances, compassion, and politics. Although hardly transparent, the underlying motivations for the revisions suggest that eventually China may abolish capital punishment, perhaps even before the United States does so.

Atrocity Crimes Litigation: 2008 Year-In-Review, Beth Van Schaack

Faculty Publications

This survey of 2008's top developments in these international fora will focus on the law governing international crimes and applicable forms of responsibility. Several trends in the law are immediately apparent. The tribunals continue to delineate and clarify the interfaces between the various international crimes, particularly war crimes and crimes against humanity, which may be committed simultaneously or in parallel with each other. Several important cases went to judgment in 2008 that address war crimes drawn from the Hague tradition of international humanitarian law, and the international courts are demonstrating a greater facility for adjudicating highly technical aspects of this …

Business, The Roberts Court, And The Solicitor General: Why The Supreme Court's Recent Business Decisions May Not Reveal Very Much, Sri Srinivasan, Bradley W. Joondeph

Faculty Publications

This essay presents an empirical examination of the full universe of the Roberts Court’s decisions affecting the interests of business from January 2006, when Justice Alito joined the Court, to January 2009. As a purely descriptive matter, we find that the Court tended to reach results favorable to business interests, and that it tended to adopt the positions urged by the Bush administration. Moreover, when those two positions diverged-most saliently, in cases where the United States and the United States Chamber of Commerce filed opposing amicus briefs-the Roberts Court overwhelmingly sided with the government.

While these findings are interesting, our …

Judicial Foreign Policy: Lessons From The 1790s, David Sloss

Faculty Publications

This Article demonstrates that the exclusive political control thesis is incompatible with the original understanding of the Founders. The Article does not defend originalism as a method of constitutional interpretation; it merely shows that the exclusive political control thesis is inconsistent with an originalist approach.

The Article examines the implementation of U.S. neutrality policy in the period from 1793 to 1797. Other scholars have analyzed the initial formulation of U.S. neutrality policy in 1793. Scholars who focus narrowly on the year 1793, when the United States first articulated its neutrality policy, have concluded that "the federal courts played a relatively …

The Many Meanings Of "Politics" In Judicial Decision Making, Bradley W. Joondeph

Faculty Publications

This essay seeks to untangle the many possible meanings of "politics" in descriptions of judicial behavior. Part I sets out ten possible conceptions of the term, briefly discussing some examples and their empirical foundations. My goal is mostly descriptive (rather than normative), though it is apparent that some conceptions are more useful than others. In all events, claims about the political influences on judicial behavior must be specific about the phenomena they seek to describe. For given the many possible meanings of politics, accounts that lack such specificity are largely vacuous.

Part II builds on this discussion to make two …

But Can It Be Fixed? A Look At Constitutional Challenges To Lethal Injection Executions, Ellen Kreitzberg, David Richter

Faculty Publications

This article argues that California's Procedure 770 as currently implemented is unconstitutional. Judge Fogel, after an exhaustive review of evidence from all parties,agrees. Although Judge Fogel believes that the lethal injection system, while broken "can be fixed," we argue that lethal injection, as a method of execution, is always unconstitutional because the procedures employed in its administration can never ensure against unnecessary risk of pain to the inmate. We also argue that the California legislature must step in to publicly review lethal injection executions and to investigate the conduct of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in the …

The Terminator As Eraser: How Arnold Schwarzenegger Used The Right Of Publicity To Terminate Non-Defamatory Political Speech, David Welkowitz, Tyler Ochoa

Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION

While it is no longer unusual for a politician to have been a recent celebrity in the commercial world of entertainment, the Schwarzenegger bobblehead case is one of the rare cases in which a politician has filed a lawsuit asserting a right of publicity claim. However, the Schwarzenegger case and its settlement exposed some basic flaws in the analysis of celebrity rights problems, flaws that are not unique to its political context. Two of those flaws converged in this case and are the main subjects of this article. First, rights of publicity claims frequently are used as a "stealth" …

The Puzzling Purposes Of Statutes Of Limitation, Tyler T. Ochoa, Andrew Wistrich

Faculty Publications

One hundred years ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. asked, "What is the justification for depriving a man of his rights, a pure evil as far as it goes, in consequence of the lapse of time?" A century later, we are still searching for a satisfactory answer to that question. The purpose of this Article is to press that inquiry further.

The law of limitation of actions is the set of legislatively and judicially created legal rules-including the classification of claims, the duration of limitation periods, the applicable principles of accrual and tolling, and the like-that determine whether a claim is …

Unraveling The Tangled Web: Choosing The Proper Statute Of Limitation For Breach Of The Implied Covenant Of Good Faith And Fair Dealing, Tyler T. Ochoa, Andrew Wistrich

Faculty Publications

In this article, we first will review the general principles applicable to classification of claims for limitation purposes and the various statutes which could be applied to breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. We then will examine cases in which the statute of limitation for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing was at issue and analyze what limitation period, rules of accrual and tolling doctrines are appropriate in the absence of contractual modification. Finally, we will analyze the extent to which contractual modification of the limitation period, rules of accrual …

Limitation Of Legal Malpractice Actions: Defining Actual Injury And The Problem Of Simultaneous Litigation, Tyler T. Ochoa, Andrew Wilstrich

Faculty Publications

In this article, we will first review the development of the "actual injury" tolling provision in California, from its judicial adoption in 1971 to its legislative adoption in 1977. Second, we will explore the policies underlying the legal malpractice statute of limitation and the countervailing policies that may make delayed accrual or tolling desirable in situations involving simultaneous litigation. Third, we will examine case law applying the "actual injury" tolling provision to various fact situations and analyze potential legal solutions to the problem of defining "actual injury," including the doctrine of equitable tolling. Finally, we will demonstrate how the doctrine …

Institute Of Contemporary Law: The California Superior Court System, Mary Emery, Nicholas Livak, Leon Panetta

Faculty Publications

The Institute of Contemporary Law, having recently completed an investigation and analysis of the California grand jury, now turns its efforts to the area of the superior court system in California. Hoping to correlate the work of students, lawyers and judges in this area, the following article attempts a broad review of the function and operation of the superior court in California. The history of the court, its rules and operation, its jurisdiction and its various departments are the topics covered by the discussion below. The presentation here offered is mainly expository and informational, and, it is hoped, will provide …

Origin Of Equity Jurisdiction And Jurisprudence, Edward Murphy

Student Theses

Introductory Statement

It is not our purpose in this thesis to attempt a complete and detailed history of equity as it exists in England and in the United states. To do this would involve little more than a compilation of what has already been quite elaborately treated by some of the great legal minds of England and America.

We propose to treat rather of the nature of Equity as it existed in the Roman Law,its influence in the English law, the primitive condition of the law at the time of the origin of Equity, and of the causes which made …