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Full-Text Articles in Law

Law, Share Price Accuracy, And Economic Performance: The New Evidence, Merritt B. Fox, Randall Morck, Bernard Yeung, Artyom Durnev Dec 2003

Law, Share Price Accuracy, And Economic Performance: The New Evidence, Merritt B. Fox, Randall Morck, Bernard Yeung, Artyom Durnev

Michigan Law Review

Mandatory disclosure has been at the core of U.S. securities regulation since its adoption in the early 1930s. For many decades, this fixture of our financial system was accepted with little examination. Over the last twenty years, however, mandatory disclosure has been subject to intensifying intellectual crosscurrents. Some commentators hold out the U.S. system as the standard for the world. They argue that adoption by other countries of a U.S.-styled system, with its greater corporate transparency, would enhance their economic performance. Other commentators, in contrast, insist that the U.S. mandatory disclosure regime represents a mistake, not a model. These crosscurrents …


Recent Books, Michigan Law Review Dec 2003

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of books recenlty received by Michigan Law Review.


Apologies And Legal Settlement: An Empirical Examination, Jennifer K. Robbennolt Dec 2003

Apologies And Legal Settlement: An Empirical Examination, Jennifer K. Robbennolt

Michigan Law Review

It is often said that U.S. legal culture discourages apologies. Defendants, defense counsel, and insurers worry that statements of apology will be admissible at trial and will be interpreted by jurors and judges as admissions of responsibility. In recent years, however, several legal commentators have suggested that disputants in civil lawsuits should be encouraged to apologize to opposing parties. They claim that apologies will avert lawsuits and promote settlement. Consistent with this view, legislatures in several states have enacted statutes that are intended to encourage and protect apologies by making them inadmissible. In addition, some commentators argue that defendants might …


The "Horizontal Effect" Of Constitutional Rights, Stephen Gardbaum Dec 2003

The "Horizontal Effect" Of Constitutional Rights, Stephen Gardbaum

Michigan Law Review

Among the most fundamental issues in constitutional law is the scope of application of individual rights provisions and, in particular, their reach into the private sphere. This issue is also currently one of the most important and hotly debated in comparative constitutional law, where it is known under the rubric of "vertical" and "horizontal effect." These alternatives refer to whether constitutional rights regulate only the conduct of governmental actors in their dealings with private individuals (vertical) or also relations between private individuals (horizontal). In recent years, the horizontal position has been adopted to varying degrees, and after systematic scholarly and …


Boring Lessons: Defining The Limits Of A Teacher's First Amendment Right To Speak Through The Curriculum, R. Weston Donehower Dec 2003

Boring Lessons: Defining The Limits Of A Teacher's First Amendment Right To Speak Through The Curriculum, R. Weston Donehower

Michigan Law Review

Margaret Boring's classes were anything but boring. She taught Advanced Acting at Owen High School in rural Buncombe County, North Carolina, and her classes' performances regularly won regional and state awards. In the fall of 1991, Ms. Boring chose a controversial play, Independence by Lee Blessing, for her students to perform. Independence "powerfully depicts the dynamics within a dysfunctional, single-parent family - a divorced mother and three daughters; one a lesbian, another pregnant with an illegitimate child." Prior to the first performance at the school, Ms. Boring informed the principal of the play's title but not its content. After the …


For And Against Marriage: A Revision, Anita Bernstein Nov 2003

For And Against Marriage: A Revision, Anita Bernstein

Michigan Law Review

When anthropologist Henry Sumner Maine issued his famous proclamation that modern legal development evolved "from Status to Contract," he used juridical categories to make a statement about progress. Voluntary relations now build the law, Maine declared. The alternative to voluntary relations - identity-based legal labels to decree what people may and may not do - must relocate to the dustbin of history. Only a backwater society would keep them. American legal change in the century-plus since Maine's death in 1888 gives credence to the claim that status inexorably yields to contract. At one level, newer developments refute the Maine thesis. …


Recent Books, Michigan Law Review Nov 2003

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Books received by the Law Review.


The False Promise Of One Person, One Vote, Grant M. Hayden Nov 2003

The False Promise Of One Person, One Vote, Grant M. Hayden

Michigan Law Review

It has now been four decades since the Supreme Court stepped into the political thicket with its groundbreaking series of reapportionment cases. Those cases rather quickly brought about radical changes in the structure of our national, state, and local governments and, in so doing, reshaped the political landscape of the country in many, mostly beneficial, ways. The reapportionment cases also signaled the beginning of a revolution in the way we view the rights associated with meaningful participation in a democratic society, a revolution that continues to this day. We now enjoy a right to vote that is much more comprehensive …


Of Property And Antiproperty, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky Oct 2003

Of Property And Antiproperty, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky

Michigan Law Review

Private property is widely perceived as a potent prodevelopment and anticonservationist force. The drive to accumulate wealth through private property rights is thought to encourage environmentally destructive development; legal protection of such property rights is believed to thwart environmentally friendly public measures. Indeed, property rights advocates and environmentalists are generally described as irreconcilable foes. This presumed clash often leads environmentalists to urge public acquisition of private lands. Interestingly, less attention is paid to the possibility that the government may prove no better a conservator than private owners. Government actors often mismanage conservation properties, collaborating with private developers to dispose of …


Recent Books, Michigan Law Review Oct 2003

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Books received by the Law Review.


The Logic Of Reciprocity: Trust, Collective Action, And Law, Dan M. Kahan Oct 2003

The Logic Of Reciprocity: Trust, Collective Action, And Law, Dan M. Kahan

Michigan Law Review

The Logic of Collective Action has for decades supplied the logic of public-policy analysis. In this pioneering application of public choice theory, Mancur Olson elegantly punctured the premise - shared by a variety of political theories - that individuals can be expected to act consistently with the interest of the groups to which they belong. Absent externally imposed incentives, wealth-maximizing individuals, he argued, will rarely find it in their interest to contribute to goods that benefit the group as a whole, but rather will "free ride" on the contributions that other group members make. As a result, too few individuals …


The Indulgence Of Reasonable Presumptions: Federal Court Contractual Civil Jury Trial Waivers, Joel Andersen Oct 2003

The Indulgence Of Reasonable Presumptions: Federal Court Contractual Civil Jury Trial Waivers, Joel Andersen

Michigan Law Review

Large institutions such as banks, franchisers, international companies, and lessors distrust juries' ability to properly resolve disputes and award reasonable damages. As a result, these and other actors have attempted to limit juries' potential influence on the contracts to which they are parties. They have done so through contractual jury trial waiver clauses in these agreements. The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the jury trial right. Whether the right is determined to exist in an individual instance is a matter of federal common law, which merely preserves the jury trial right as it existed when the Amendment was adopted …


Alternative Forms Of Judicial Review, Mark Tushnet Aug 2003

Alternative Forms Of Judicial Review, Mark Tushnet

Michigan Law Review

The invention in the late twentieth century of what I call weak-form systems of judicial review provides us with the chance to see in a new light some traditional debates within U.S. constitutional law and theory, which are predicated on the fact that the United States has strong-form judicial review. Strong- and weak-form systems operate on the level of constitutional design, in the sense that their characteristics are specified in constitutional documents or in deep-rooted constitutional traditions. After sketching the differences between strong- and weak-form systems, I turn to design features that operate at the next lower level. Here legislatures …


Foreword: A Silk Purse?, John T. Noonan Jr. Aug 2003

Foreword: A Silk Purse?, John T. Noonan Jr.

Michigan Law Review

On March 2, 1801, President John Adams appointed forty-two persons to be justices of the peace in the District of Columbia. John Marshall, doubling as Secretary of State as well as Chief Justice, failed to deliver the commissions. Adams's term expired. James Madison, Marshall's successor as Secretary of State, withheld seventeen of the commissions. In 1802, William Marbury and three other appointees to this minor office brought mandamus against Madison in the Supreme Court. Madison was ordered to show cause why the writ should not issue. Congress abolished the June sitting of the Court. Only in 1803 was the case …


Comparative Constitutionalism In A New Key, Paul W. Kahn Aug 2003

Comparative Constitutionalism In A New Key, Paul W. Kahn

Michigan Law Review

Law is a symbolic system that structures the political imagination. The "rule of law" is a shorthand expression for a cultural practice that constructs a particular understanding of time and space, of subjects and groups, as well as of authority and legitimacy. It is a way of projecting, maintaining, and discovering meaning in the world of historical events and political possibilities. The rule of law - as opposed to the techniques of lawyering - is not the possession of lawyers. It is a characterization of the polity, which operates both descriptively and normatively in public perception. Ours, we believe, is …


The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury, Michael Stokes Paulsen Aug 2003

The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury, Michael Stokes Paulsen

Michigan Law Review

Nearly all of American constitutional law today rests on a myth. The myth, presented as standard history both in junior high civics texts and in advanced law school courses on constitutional law, runs something like this: A long, long time ago - 1803, if the storyteller is trying to be precise - in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States created the doctrine of "judicial review." Judicial review is the power of the Supreme Court to decide the meaning of the Constitution and to strike down laws that the Court finds unconstitutional. As …


Why Europe Rejected American Judicial Review - And Why It May Not Matter, Alec Stone Sweet Aug 2003

Why Europe Rejected American Judicial Review - And Why It May Not Matter, Alec Stone Sweet

Michigan Law Review

In this Article, I explore the question of why constitutional review, but not American judicial review, spread across Europe. I will also argue that, despite obvious organic differences between the American and European systems of review, there is an increasing convergence in how review actually operates. I proceed as follows. In Part I, I examine the debate on establishing judicial review in Europe, focusing on the French. In Parts II and III, I contrast the European and the American models of review, and briefly discuss why the Kelsenian constitutional court diffused across Europe. In Part IV, I argue that despite …


Judging The Next Emergency: Judicial Review And Individual Rights In Times Of Crisis, David Cole Aug 2003

Judging The Next Emergency: Judicial Review And Individual Rights In Times Of Crisis, David Cole

Michigan Law Review

As virtually every law student who studies Marbury v. Madison learns, Chief Justice John Marshall's tactical genius was to establish judicial review in a case where the result could not be challenged. As a technical matter, Marbury lost, and the executive branch won. As furious as President Jefferson reportedly was with the decision, there was nothing he could do about it, for there was no mandate to defy. The Court's decision offered no remedy for Marbury himself, whose rights were directly at issue, and whose rights the Court found had indeed been violated. But over time, it became clear that …


Mediated Popular Constitutionalism, Barry Friedman Aug 2003

Mediated Popular Constitutionalism, Barry Friedman

Michigan Law Review

There are divergent views in the legal academy concerning judicial review, but at their core these views share a common (and possibly flawed) premise. The premise is that the exercise of judicial review is countermajoritarian in nature. There is a regrettable lack of clarity in the relevant scholarship about what "countermajoritarian" actually means. At bottom it often seems to be a claim, and perhaps must be a claim, that when judges invalidate governmental decisions based upon constitutional requirements, they act contrary to the preferences of the citizenry. Some variation on this premise seems to drive most normative scholarship regarding judicial …


Legislating Chevron, Elizabeth Garrett Aug 2003

Legislating Chevron, Elizabeth Garrett

Michigan Law Review

One of the most significant administrative law cases, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, lnc., is routinely referred to as the "counter-Marbury." The reference suggests that Chevron's command to courts to defer to certain reasonable agency interpretations of statutes is superficially an uneasy fit with the declaration in Marbury v. Madison that "[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." According to the consensus view, Chevron deference is consistent with Marbury, as long as Congress has delegated to agencies the power to make policy by interpreting ambiguous statutory language or filling …


The New Imperialism: Violence, Norms, And The "Rule Of Law", Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks Jun 2003

The New Imperialism: Violence, Norms, And The "Rule Of Law", Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks

Michigan Law Review

The past decade has seen a surge in American and international efforts to promote "the rule of law" around the globe, especially in postcrisis and transitional societies. The World Bank and multinational corporations want the rule of law, since the sanctity of private property and the enforcement of contracts are critical to modern conceptions of the free market. Human-rights advocates want the rule of law since due process and judicial checks on executive power are regarded as essential prerequisites to the protection of substantive human rights. In the wake of September 11, international and national-security experts also want to promote …


Government Responsibility For The Acts Of Jailhouse Informants Under The Sixth Amendment, Maia Goodell Jun 2003

Government Responsibility For The Acts Of Jailhouse Informants Under The Sixth Amendment, Maia Goodell

Michigan Law Review

Once a criminal investigation has identified a suspect, and adversarial proceedings have begun, the Sixth Amendment confers a right to be represented by counsel at the "critical stages" of the process. The Supreme Court has made clear that the government cannot circumvent this requirement merely by designating a civilian informant to engage in questioning on its behalf. Less clear is when the government is responsible for the actions of an informant; particularly in the case of jailhouse informants, incarcerated individuals who question fellow inmates, government responsibility is a difficult issue for which no clear legal standard has emerged. An examination …


First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, And Participation, Daniel P. Tokaji Jun 2003

First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, And Participation, Daniel P. Tokaji

Michigan Law Review

The tension between equality and discretion lies at the heart of some of the most vexing questions of constitutional law. The considerable discretion that many official decisionmakers wield raises the spectre that violations of equality norms will sometimes escape detection. This is true in a variety of settings, whether discretion lies over speakers' access to public fora, implementation of the death penalty, or the recounting of votes. Is the First Amendment violated, for example, when a city ordinance gives local officials broad discretion to determine the conditions under which political demonstrations may take place? Is equal protection denied where the …


Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz Jun 2003

Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz

Michigan Law Review

A large body of academic scholarship accuses the Rehnquist Court of "undoing the Second Reconstruction," just as the Waite Court has long been blamed for facilitating the end of the First. This critique captures much of what is meant by those generally charging the Rehnquist Court with "conservative judicial activism." It posits that the present Court wants to dismantle decades' worth of federal antidiscrimination measures that are aimed at the "reconstruction" of public and private relationships at the local level. It sees the Waite Court as having similarly nullified the civil-rights initiatives enacted by Congress following the Civil War to …


Justices At Home: Three Supreme Court Memoirs, Laura Krugman Ray May 2003

Justices At Home: Three Supreme Court Memoirs, Laura Krugman Ray

Michigan Law Review

The Supreme Court, once an austere and remote institution, is increasingly the focus of popular attention. The Justices are profiled in the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker, photographed with family members for mass-market books, and - on the evening the Court decided Bush v. Gore - televised leaving the courthouse parking garage. In the spring 2002 television season, two hour-long programs were set in the Supreme Court; both were briskly cancelled, but during their brief runs they featured Justices as heroic figures played by prominent actors. When a former law clerk recently published his account of internecine …


The Past, Present, And Future Of Bankruptcy Law In America, Todd J. Zywicki May 2003

The Past, Present, And Future Of Bankruptcy Law In America, Todd J. Zywicki

Michigan Law Review

As this Review was being written, Congress once again failed to pass the bipartisan bankruptcy-reform bill, although many expect it to be enacted at some point in the near future. At the same time, WorldCom, Enron, Global Crossing, and their ignominous peers continue to set records for the size, expense, and public attention drawn to business bankruptcy. For the first time, consumer bankruptcies surpassed the 1.5 million per year mark, continuing an irresistible upward trend. Meanwhile, law firms announce layoffs and salary freezes in most departments, and bankruptcy professionals prosper amidst the despair, billing $1 million per day on the …


The Progressive Consuption Tax Revisited, Steven A. Bank May 2003

The Progressive Consuption Tax Revisited, Steven A. Bank

Michigan Law Review

Over the last decade, it has become increasingly evident that our current federal income tax is too complex, too easily evaded by the wealthy, and too likely to distribute the burdens of taxation to the people least able to bear it. Several years ago, frustration with these realities led to a groundswell of reform proposals, ranging from replacing the current graduated income tax rates with "flat," or proportionate, rates to abolishing the income tax altogether in favor of a national sales tax. While this tax reform frenzy dissipated almost as quickly as it began, the seeds of discontent remain. Professor …


Live And Let Love: Self-Determination In Matters Of Intimacy And Identity, Kim Forde-Mazrui May 2003

Live And Let Love: Self-Determination In Matters Of Intimacy And Identity, Kim Forde-Mazrui

Michigan Law Review

Are you free to choose the race of your spouse, . . . of your child, . . . of yourself? Historically, the legal and social answer to these questions was No. Matters of racial identity and interracial intimacy were strictly circumscribed by ideologies of racial essentialism and separation, ostensibly rooted in science, morality, and religion. In contrast, according to Professor Randall Kennedy in his new book, Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption, the answer to all three questions should be a resounding Yes. The exclusive source of racial identification and intimacy should be individual choice, free from legal …


The Politicization Of Clarence Thomas, Jagan Nicholas Ranjan May 2003

The Politicization Of Clarence Thomas, Jagan Nicholas Ranjan

Michigan Law Review

Perception often shapes memory. In particular, the way one perceives a noteworthy public figure often shapes that figure's historical legacy. For example, history largely remembers John Coltrane as one of the greatest jazz saxophone players of our time. His improvisational skill, innovative style, and mastery over his instrument all serve to classify him in the public memory as the ultimate jazz performer. Yet, as the example of Coltrane might demonstrate, perception is unjustly deficient. Coltrane was not merely a great saxophone player; he was first and foremost a religious figure whose spirituality drove his creativity and manifested itself in prayerful …


The Heroes Of The First Amendment, Frederick Schauer May 2003

The Heroes Of The First Amendment, Frederick Schauer

Michigan Law Review

In 1950, Felix Frankfurter famously observed that "[i)t is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people." The circumstances of Justice Frankfurter's observation were hardly atypical, for his opinion arose in a Fourth Amendment case involving a man plainly guilty of the crime with which he had been charged - fraudulently altering postage stamps in order to make relatively ordinary ones especially valuable for collectors. Indeed, Fourth Amendment cases typically present the phenomenon that Frankfurter pithily identified, for most of the people injured by an …