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Full-Text Articles in Law
Long V. Long: Law Court Ruling Changes The Disposition Of Joint Real Property On Divorce, Marc J. Veilleux
Long V. Long: Law Court Ruling Changes The Disposition Of Joint Real Property On Divorce, Marc J. Veilleux
Maine Law Review
In Long v. Long the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, affirmed a district court divorce decree dividing the parties' residence of thirteen years as marital property, even though the majority of the funds used for its purchase were traceable to non-marital property the husband had acquired prior to the marriage. The governing statute instructed the district court to make an “equitable” disposition of all property acquired by the spouses during marriage, but required that it first “set apart to each spouse the spouse's [separate] property,” including property acquired during marriage by a spouse “in exchange for …
Identifying And Preventing Improper Prosecutorial Comment In Closing Argument, Robert W. Clifford
Identifying And Preventing Improper Prosecutorial Comment In Closing Argument, Robert W. Clifford
Maine Law Review
In recent years, several decisions of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court sitting as the Law Court have addressed the comments of prosecutors in final argument before criminal juries. Three of those decisions in particular have caused concern among prosecutors and have stirred discussion in the Maine legal community. In vacating convictions in State v. Steen, State v. Casella, and State v. Tripp, the Law Court focused on the language used by the prosecutors during closing argument and concluded that those prosecutors impermissibly expressed personal opinion concerning the credibility of the defendants, or witnesses called by the defendants. This Article examines …
Maine's Overburdened Law Court: Has The Time Come For A Maine Appeals Court?, Peter L. Murray
Maine's Overburdened Law Court: Has The Time Come For A Maine Appeals Court?, Peter L. Murray
Maine Law Review
For the entire 178 years of Maine's statehood, its Supreme Judicial Court, “sitting as the Law Court,” has served as Maine's appellate court of first and last resort for all appeals from its trial courts of general jurisdiction. Over this time span, and particularly over the last three decades, the growth in number and complexity of civil and criminal appeals has placed the Law Court under an extremely heavy burden of cases. The sheer number of the appeals which the Law Court is expected to consider and decide risks exceeding the capacity of the institution for careful, thorough, and deliberate …
O'Donovan V. Mcintosh: Changing The Contours Of Maine's Easement Law, Michael J. Polak
O'Donovan V. Mcintosh: Changing The Contours Of Maine's Easement Law, Michael J. Polak
Maine Law Review
In O'Donovan v. McIntosh, a real estate developer, Timothy O'Donovan, brought an action seeking, in part, a declaratory judgment concerning the transferability of an easement that he purchased from the defendant, John A. McIntosh, Jr. O'Donovan and McIntosh subsequently filed a joint motion for partial summary judgment to obtain a ruling that would affirm the assignability of the easement in question. Susan Huggins, the owner of the servient estate upon which the easement in question imposed, objected to this motion as a third party defendant. She filed a cross-motion for summary judgment maintaining that the easement in question was not …
State V. Brackett: Does The State Have A Right Of Appeal?, Theodore A. Small
State V. Brackett: Does The State Have A Right Of Appeal?, Theodore A. Small
Maine Law Review
In State v. Brackett, the defendant was charged with kidnapping, gross sexual assault, burglary, and criminal threatening with the use of a dangerous weapon. The State of Maine filed an in limine motion to exclude any evidence relating to the victim's past sexual behavior, including evidence that the victim may have been a prostitute sometime prior to the incident in dispute. Although evidence of a victim's past sexual behavior is generally inadmissible. The State appealed. A divided Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, declined to rule on the merits of the appeal, holding that the appeal was …
How The Law Court Uses Duty To Limit The Scope Of Negligence Liability, Paul F. Macri
How The Law Court Uses Duty To Limit The Scope Of Negligence Liability, Paul F. Macri
Maine Law Review
The element of duty is the least understood and most amorphous element of negligence. One reason that duty is not well understood is that duty analysis combines consideration of fact-specific issues of foreseeability of harm, relationship between the parties, and seriousness of injury with analysis of the public policy implications of finding a duty in the specific case, including the burden that will be placed on defendants by imposing a duty. This is a delicate balancing act for most courts. Over the last eleven years, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has employed duty analysis in …