Law Commons^™

Testimony Of Mary Spector On Examining The Uses Of Consumer Credit Data Before Subcommittee On Financial Institutions And Consumer Credit Committee On Financial Services, Mary B. Spector

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Confrontation Control, Pamela R. Metzger

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

After Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 42 (2004), face-to-face confrontation between accused and accuser is the constitutionally normative mode of presentation for testimonial evidence. Yet, eight years into the Crawford revolution, courts routinely hold that counsel can waive a defendant's confrontation rights without even discussing the matter with the defendant. Why? Because counsel, not client, has the authority to decide whether to confront and cross-examine government witnesses.

This Essay, written as part of the Texas Tech Sixth Amendment Symposium, explores this peculiar and perplexing rule. If confrontation is essential to a constitutionally valid criminal trial, how can defense …

Good News In A Bad Economy: Service Acquiesces On Pro-Taxpayer Application Of Passive Activity Loss Rules To Limited Liability Companies, Orly Mazur

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

After nearly two decades with no guidance addressing the correct characterization of a limited liability company’s activities under the passive activity loss rules, investors are finally receiving the answer they have patiently sought. Several courts, the Service’s acquiescence and newly issued proposed regulations have recently clarified that ownership interests in limited liability companies are not all treated as presumptively passive limited partnership interests. Instead, the more lenient general passive activity loss rules set forth in the temporary regulations are used to determine the active or passive nature of many activities. These decisions have been accurately hailed as a significant taxpayer …

Policing International Prosecutors, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

A recurring question in international criminal procedure is how to ensure that prosecutors are held accountable for their errors and misconduct. When International Criminal Court (ICC) judges encountered the first serious error by the prosecution in Prosecutor v. Lubanga, they opted for an absolutist approach to remedies: the judges stayed the proceedings and ordered the release of the defendant. Although termination of the case was avoided through the intervention of the Appeals Chamber, the standoff between the judges and the prosecution highlighted the dilemmas that the ICC faces in these circumstances. To protect the integrity of its proceedings, the court …

Prosecutors And Bargaining In Weak Cases: A Comparative View, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

One of the most controversial uses of prosecutorial discretion in plea bargaining concerns cases involving weak evidence of guilt. When a prosecutor bargains about the charges or even the facts in a case with weak evidence, at least three problems may arise. First, if the charge bargain is generous, it may coerce an innocent defendant to plead guilty. Second, such a bargain may let a guilty defendant off too easily, thus disserving the public and victim’s interests. Third, if the parties bargain about the facts, the result may distort the truth of the case.

In this book chapter, I examine …

Remedying Wrongful Execution, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The first legal determination of wrongful execution in the United States may very well be in the making in Texas. One of the state’s district courts is in the midst of investigating whether Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004, was actually innocent. The court’s investigation has been interrupted by objections from Texas prosecutors, but if the court proceeds, this may very well become a bona fide case of wrongful execution. Texas, just like other jurisdictions, is ill equipped to provide any relief for such an egregious wrong, however. This Article identifies the difficulties that the heirs, families, and …

From Representation To Research And Back Again: Reflections On Developing An Empirical Project, Mary B. Spector

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article presents the story of Doreen, a client represented by the SMU Civil Clinic in a suit against her to collect a consumer debt. My goal in sharing Doreen's story here is two-fold. First, it is to provide an example of how our work with students and our clients can shift from representation to research to advocacy and back again. My second goal is to encourage others-students, clinic supervisors, fellows and faculty-to consider the work they do and its potential to improve the quality of justice in communities, to enhance the delivery of legal services, and to promote economic …

The Expressive Dimension Of Eu Criminal Law, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Over the last decade, the European Union has begun actively legislating in the area of criminal justice. The 2009 Treaty of Lisbon expressly acknowledged the EU’s authority to pass criminal laws with respect to certain serious offenses with a cross-border dimension. This explicit grant of powers is the culmination of a remarkable evolution in the European Union’s identity — from an organization devoted primarily to economic integration to a political union that increasingly resembles a federal state.

This Article argues that the EU has used its powers to criminalize not only to address practical needs, but also to reaffirm its …

Promising To Be Prudent: A Private Law Approach To Mortgage Loan Regulation In Common-Interest Communities, Julia Patterson Forrester Rogers, Jerome Organ

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article explores one possible private law prescription that may help common-interest communities avoid the financial disaster associated with foreclosure epidemics-a financing restriction that would limit (1) the ability of any homeowner in a common-interest community to borrow excessively against the value of her home, and (2) the ability of lenders to make loans that a homeowner does not have the ability to repay. Part I of this Article begins in the Great Depression with a discussion of Neponsit Property Owners' Association v. Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, w exploring how the case both fostered the development of common-interest communities and …

Bridging The Great Divide: A Response To Linda Greenhouse And Reva B. Siegel's Before (And After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions About Backlash, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This essay discusses the history of Roe v. Wade as recently addressed by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel. Going beyond their assertions, I suggest that an additional, more encompassing inquiry focuses on what factors are implicated in the politics of abortion and how these factors relate to larger social, political, and cultural conflicts both before and after Roe. By naming party politics and the Catholic Church, Greenhouse and Siegel posit two crucial elements that shaped the abortion debate. I assert, however, that what is not discussed in their Article is the way numerous other factors have figured into the …

The Missing Jury: The Neglected Role Of Juries In Eighth Amendment Punishments Clause Determinations, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

A recent study of death penalty cases has revealed that judges, who are ordinarily thought of as the guardians of criminal defendants’ constitutional rights, are more likely to impose harsher punishments than jurors. This may be unsettling in its own right, but it is especially concerning because judges are the individuals charged with determining whether punishments are unconstitutionally cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment, and these determinations are supposed to be based on “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” The study suggests that judges are out of step with society’s moral norms, …

The Underappreciated Importance Of The Sequence In Which The Issues Are Addressed In Contract Litigation, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Judicial opinions rarely identify the precise sequence in which the issues presented were addressed by the court. Since this sequence is not generally regarded as being significant for the decisions reached, persons later parsing the opinions for their significance rarely go to the considerable trouble involved in acquiring the litigation briefs and interviewing the attorneys and judges involved so as to ascertain this sequence. However, my surmise is that at least in contract litigation the sequence in which the issues are addressed can sometimes be significant or even outcome-determinative for the results. A good example of this is presented by …

Kiobel Amici Curiae Brief Of Law Of Nations Scholars, Anthony J. Colangelo, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The question presented is “whether and under what circumstances the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, allows courts to recognize a cause of action for violations of the law of nations occurring within the territory of a sovereign other than the United States.” In this Amicus Brief we argue from a historical perspective going back to the Middle Ages that when the law of nations is in issue, not only is there no presumption against extraterritoriality, but jurisdiction over causes of action arising abroad is in many cases required. More specifically, we argue that Congress affirmatively conferred universal jurisdiction …

Spatial Legality, Anthony J. Colangelo

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

For too long, state interests have dominated public jurisdiction and private choice-of-law analyses regarding the reach and application of a state’s law, or prescriptive jurisdiction. Individual rights — whether of criminal defendants or private litigants — have been marginalized. Yet states are projecting regulatory power over actors abroad with unprecedented frequency and aggression. State interest analyses proceed from the perennially critiqued but remarkably sticky concept of sovereignty. Now more than ever, legal thinkers, courts and litigants need a bedrock concept from which to build individual rights arguments against jurisdictional overreach. And it should be one that holds not only theoretical …

Harmonizing Formal Requirements For Cross-Border Sales Contracts, Peter Winship

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Legal systems have different traditions about how to "prove" a contract for the sale of personal property. Most legal systems today permit the contract to be proved by any means but some States require that the agreement be concluded in or evidenced by writing. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods adopts a freedom-of-form rule but authorizes a State to declare that the rule does not apply when the seller or buyer has its place of business in that State. This essay studies the consequences of such a declaration. The Convention text does not expressly …

Correspondents' Reports, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This correspondent report compiles examples of where and how the United States demonstrated its compliance with international humanitarian law by prosecuting its service members in 2012.

No 'Direction' Home: An Alternative Approach To Joint Infringement, W. Keith Robinson

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

U.S. start-ups continue to create new technologies that provide a high degree of connectivity between consumer devices such as mobile phones. In order to protect their innovations, many companies acquire patents that contain method claims covering interactive technology. To successfully enforce a patent when more than one party performs all of the steps of a claimed method, the Federal Circuit has held under its joint infringement doctrine that the patentee must show that one of the alleged infringers “directed or controlled” the actions of the other party. Perceptive parties that form a relationship that does not rise to the level …

The Conscience And Culture Of Prosecution: An Introduction, Anna Offit

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Misbehavior And Mistake In Bankruptcy Mortgage Claims: Some Caveats Regarding The Porter Study, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article reviews the comprehensive empirical study of the bankruptcy mortgage foreclosure process conducted by Professor Katherine Porter and subsequently published in 2008 in the Texas Law Review. The results of her study, which analyzed 1,768 proof of claim submissions filed in a sample of 1,733 Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings, strongly suggest that there is a pervasive failure on the part of mortgage creditors to meet all of the formal documentation requirements for filing such bankruptcy claims. This documentation failure arguably impedes many mortgage debtors or bankruptcy trustees from reviewing these claims for their accuracy.

Porter's conclusion that the itemization …

The Bizarre Law & Economics Of 'Business Roundtable V. Sec', Grant M. Hayden, Matthew T. Bodie

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Corporations are legal entities designed to foster certain kinds of collective economic activity. The decisionmaking power within a corporation ultimately rests with a board of directors elected by shareholders. Shareholders, however, do not use anything like a conventional ballot in these elections; instead, they fill out a “proxy ballot,” delivered to them by the incumbent board. This proxy ballot lists only the incumbent board’s chosen nominees, very often the board members themselves. If a shareholder wants to run for director or propose another nominee for the board, she needs to provide all other shareholders with a separate proxy ballot — …

The Flawed Nexus Between Contract Law And The Rules Of Procedure: Why Rules 8 And 9 Must Be Changed, William V. Dorsaneo Iii, C. Paul Rogers Iii.

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The primary purpose of this Article is to examine the relationship between basic contract principles and procedural rules that are generally applicable to contract litigation. The evolution of claims and defenses in contract cases has produced contradictions in burdens of pleading and proof in garden-variety contract cases,particularly with respect to the important issue of the plaintiffs performance. The continued evolution of substantive contract law and terminology, and the failure of the rule-making process to take these developments into account has exacerbated the problem. As a result, the federal pleading rules adopted in 1938 and many state procedural rules and statutes …

Exporting Waste: Regulation Of The Export Of Hazardous Wastes From The United States, Jeffrey M. Gaba

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The international trade in hazardous wastes has been a subject of controversy for decades. Notorious examples of hazardous wastes being improperly disposed of in Africa have created concern about the legitimacy of developed western countries “dumping” the hazardous byproducts of their industrial development on less-developed countries.

This article examines the legal bases for EPA’s regulation of the exports of hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. It contains a detailed examination of EPA’s complex sets of export regulations and provides data on the actual scope of exports reported to EPA. It examines a series of questions regarding EPA’s …

'Other Spaces' In Legal Pedagogy, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

There is an increasing focus upon the material and metaphoric spatial dimensions of various academic disciplines, including law. This essay considers the spatial dimensions of legal pedagogy, focusing on Critical Race Theory (CRT). The essay first explains the “critical program” in law and how CRT grows out of it. The essay then suggests that the critical program, and especially CRT, is as much a human geographic or spatial construct as it is a social, political or historic one, and briefly describes the nature of human geography and legal geography. It next considers how metaphors for understanding CRT’s position in legal …

Mrs. Dred Scott: A Genre Bender?, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Proximate Retribution, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

An essential element of the theory of retribution has been missing from courts’ and legal scholars’ analyses. While they have outlined a number of varieties of the theory and fleshed out their nuances, courts and scholars have largely neglected to examine which harms flowing from a criminal offender's conduct should be considered in determining that offender’s desert. The more remote harms caused by an offender’s conduct, such as the effects of his offenses on the families and friends of his victims or the effects of criminal conduct on society in general, are pervasive in communities across the nation. This Article …

Introductory Note To The European Court Of Human Rights (Gc): Şahin V. Turkey, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This note introduces a Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights decision which considered whether disparate outcomes from different court systems of the same state evaluating the same set of facts constituted a violation of the European Convention’s right to a fair hearing. While discussion of micro level Turkish procedural issues is required, the Şahin case also provides broader, macro lessons on the legitimacy of military court decisions.

The First Father: Perspectives On The President's Fatherhood Initiative, Jessica Dixon Weaver

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This short article presents an analysis of the thirteen-year-old President's Fatherhood Initiative utilized by the executive branch to tackle the problem of absent fathers in America. It argues that this social policy attempts to recapture the economic incentives central to the controversial Moynihan Report of 1965, emphasizing patriarchal and classist solutions to America's family crisis. The programs instituted by the Fatherhood Initiative stigmatize black and brown fathers and fail to address underlying government policy issues that impact their ability to be present and financially supportive in their children's lives. The programs still emphasize the marriage dyad as a cure-all rather …

Defense Of Marriage Act, Will You Please Go Now!, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The time has come.

The time has come.

The time is now.

Just go.

Go.

GO!

I don’t care how.

You can go by foot.

You can go by cow.

Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now!

These are the opening lines of Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!, a Dr. Seuss book that my three sons and I have read literally hundreds of times. It has all the usual appeal of a Dr. Seuss book -- euphonious rhymes, made-up words and objects, fantastical creatures. But it has something else, too. An air of mystery. The …

Arizona, Immigration, And Latinos: The Epistemology Of Whiteness, The Geography Of Race, Interest Convergence, And The View From The Perspective Of Critical Theory, George A. Martinez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In this article, the author analyzes a scheme of laws in Arizona regarding immigration and Latinos by using the powerful tools of contemporary critical theory, which have been especially developed to analyze issues of race such as those presented in the laws at issue. As discussed below, critical theory, as applied to Arizona, reveals (1) that the newly enacted scheme of laws reflects an epistemology of whiteness and operates to transform Arizona into a white geographical landscape; (2) that the outlawing of ethnic studies in Arizona is a corollary to the establishment of a white geographical space in Arizona; (3) …

The New Illegitimacy: Tying Parentage To Marital Status For Lesbian Co-Parents, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Should a child be allowed two legal parents only if born into a marriage? For children of heterosexual parents, the answer, today, is definitively "no." Constitutional protection for parental rights does not permit the ties between an unwed father and his child to be severed simply because he is not married to the child's mother. But the answer is often different for the child of a lesbian mother. In a recent opinion, Debra H. v. Janice R., the New York Court of Appeals ruled that a lesbian co-parent- a woman who had participated in the conception, birth, and early rearing …