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Full-Text Articles in Law

Why The County Jail Is Often A Better Choice, Shawn Chapman Holley Jan 2007

Why The County Jail Is Often A Better Choice, Shawn Chapman Holley

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

I have been a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles for almost twenty years. I began my career in the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, representing defendants who were poor and often homeless. For the past twelve years, I have been in private practice, representing defendants who are wealthy and often famous. Having represented criminal defendants coming from such varied economic circumstances, I have witnessed firsthand the criminal justice system’s disparate treatment of those with money and those without. Pay-to-stay jails are yet another example of that disparity. Yet I believe that those without the money to pay for …


A Virtuous State Would Not Assign Correctional Housing Based On Ability To Pay, Bradley W. Moore Jan 2007

A Virtuous State Would Not Assign Correctional Housing Based On Ability To Pay, Bradley W. Moore

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Pay-to-stay jails expose the moral tension between the dominant theories of punishment: retributivism and deterrence. A turn to a third major moral theory—virtue ethics—resolves this tension. According to virtue ethics, the moral worth of an action follows from both the character of the action and the disposition of the actor. Virtuous acts promote human flourishing— the central goal of life—when they are the right actions performed for the right reasons. The virtue ethics theory of punishment suggests that pay-to-stay jails conflict with the promotion of human flourishing. A virtuous state’s criminal justice system would not include fee-based incarceration because it …


Government Entrepreneurship: How Cop, Direct Supervision, And A Business Plan Helped To Solve Santa Ana's Crime Problems, Paul M. Walters, Russell Davis Jan 2007

Government Entrepreneurship: How Cop, Direct Supervision, And A Business Plan Helped To Solve Santa Ana's Crime Problems, Paul M. Walters, Russell Davis

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Much has been written about Community Oriented Policing for police agencies and about the Direct Supervision concept for jail operations. Each strategy is at the cutting edge of its respective discipline. This Commentary describes how the progressive City of Santa Ana implemented both strategies— along with a visionary business plan to operate its jail at minimal cost—to combat crime successfully. The City’s business plan relies on entrepreneurship that is too often lacking in government programs. This approach has led to a number of innovations in law enforcement, corrections, and government service. Pay-to-Stay programs provide yet another example of how Santa …


The Dirty Little Secrets About Pay-To-Stay, Laurie L. Levenson, Mary Gordon Jan 2007

The Dirty Little Secrets About Pay-To-Stay, Laurie L. Levenson, Mary Gordon

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The dirty little secret is out: people with more money get a better deal in our criminal justice system. Anyone who has spent more than a nanosecond in this system knows it to be true, yet that does not make it right. It is an abomination to divert our attention to pay-to-stay programs instead of finding the resources to improve our general jail facilities to make them tolerable for every inmate. Don’t get us wrong—if we suffered the misfortune of being arrested, we would dearly love the opportunity to pay for a private jail facility. However, the pay-to-stay initiative is …


Pay-To-Stay In California Jails And The Value Of Systemic Self-Embarassment, Robert Weisberg Jan 2007

Pay-To-Stay In California Jails And The Value Of Systemic Self-Embarassment, Robert Weisberg

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The website of the Santa Ana, California-version of Pay-to-Stay uses hotelier-type verbiage in describing features of its alternative jail program. It tells us that the jail “is pleased to host a full range of alternatives to traditional incarceration”; it reassures prospective “clients” seeking flexible work/jail schedules (“Work on Saturday or Sunday? No problem, your weekend days are our weekend days.”); it guarantees “24-hour on-site medical staff”; it accommodates inmates near and far (“We have helped clients with sentences from other counties as well as other states.”); and it generally brags that the jail “is the most modern and comfortable facility …


Now That The Courts Have Beaten Congress To The Punch, Why Is Congress Still Punching The Patent System?, Robert A. Armitage Jan 2007

Now That The Courts Have Beaten Congress To The Punch, Why Is Congress Still Punching The Patent System?, Robert A. Armitage

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The U.S. House of Representatives began September by passing the Patent Reform Act of 2007. This bill, if enacted, would make major changes to U.S. patent law. Given the universally recognized need for improvements to the U.S. patent system, passing a patent reform bill in the House should have been easy. It was not. The Patent Reform Act of 2007 made it through the House only after a spirited debate. There were a host of complaints by House members that the bill was not ready for floor action. In the end, it passed the House by a relatively narrow margin, …


Making Sense Of Ksr And Other Recent Patent Cases, Harold C. Wegner Jan 2007

Making Sense Of Ksr And Other Recent Patent Cases, Harold C. Wegner

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The recent Supreme Court review of KSR International Inc. v. Teleflex Inc., eBay Inc. v. MercExchange LLC, and Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp. manifests the Court’s current interest in the patent jurisprudence of the Fed-eral Circuit. Now it is evident that the Court has a level of concern sufficient to guarantee the possibility of grant of certiorari—whereas formerly a case could rarely generate sufficient interest for review. For long-range impor-tance in patent law, KSR stands alone as the single most important Supreme Court patent decision on the bread and butter standard of “obviousness” in the more than forty years since …


Ksr's Effect On Patent Law, Stephen G. Kunin, Andrew K. Beverina Jan 2007

Ksr's Effect On Patent Law, Stephen G. Kunin, Andrew K. Beverina

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The Supreme Court in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. clarified its 1966 decision in Graham v. John Deere, avoiding the sea change to a synergy- based standard that many had expected—and perhaps feared. KSR has raised the bar set in Graham for seeking patent protection—by providing a flexible test for obviousness—while simultaneously making it easier for accused infringers to defend themselves. Moreover, KSR will change the strategies of both patent prosecutors and litigators. Before KSR, the Supreme Court’s last major decision on nonobviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 was Graham, in which the Court established three factual inquiries for …


C-Span's Long And Winding Road To A Still Un-Televised Supreme Court, Bruce D. Collins Jan 2007

C-Span's Long And Winding Road To A Still Un-Televised Supreme Court, Bruce D. Collins

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In 2005 when Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) first proposed legislation requiring the Supreme Court of the United States to televise its oral arguments, he resuscitated a twenty-plus-years long effort by several news organizations to achieve the same goal. For at least that long, C-SPAN has been ready to provide the same kind of video coverage of the federal judiciary as it has been providing of the Congress and the president. If cameras are ever permitted in the high Court’s chamber, C-SPAN will televise every minute of every oral argument, frequently on a live basis, and will do so in its …


Pay-To-Stay Programs In California Jails, Michael S. Carona Jan 2007

Pay-To-Stay Programs In California Jails, Michael S. Carona

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

When a person has committed a criminal offense, he or she must be punished to vindicate the law, to acknowledge the suffering of the victim, and to deter future crimes. Imprisonment—the method commonly used to carry out this punishment—becomes increasingly problematic when our jails and prisons, especially in California, are bursting at the seams. As the Sheriff of the eighth largest jail system in the nation, I am responsible for the confinement and care of thousands of inmates in the Orange County Jail system. With a growing inmate population and a shortage of beds, I continue to look for new …


Will It Make My Job Easier, Or What's In It For Me?, Kenneth N. Flaxman Jan 2007

Will It Make My Job Easier, Or What's In It For Me?, Kenneth N. Flaxman

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Putting aside philosophical questions about public access to government proceedings—what we now call “transparency”—and without regard to whether televising Supreme Court arguments is a logical extension of the common law’s “absolute personal right of reasonable access to court files” as described in 1977 by the Seventh Circuit in Rush v. United States, my real concern about whether Supreme Court arguments should be televised is somewhat narcissistic. Will it make my job—as a plaintiff’s civil rights lawyer who dabbles in criminal defense and post-conviction matters and who has had five adventures as “arguing counsel” in the Supreme Court—easier? I explain below …


Constitutional Etiquette And The Fate Of "Supreme Court Tv", Bruce Peabody Jan 2007

Constitutional Etiquette And The Fate Of "Supreme Court Tv", Bruce Peabody

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In traditional media outlets, on the Internet, and throughout the halls of Congress, debate about whether the Supreme Court should be required to televise its public proceedings is becoming more audible and focused. To date, these discussions have included such topics as the potential effects of broadcasting the Court, the constitutionality of Senator Arlen Specter’s current congressional initiative, S. 344, and how the public would use or abuse televised sessions of our highest tribunal.


The Right Legislation For The Wrong Reasons, Tony Mauro Jan 2007

The Right Legislation For The Wrong Reasons, Tony Mauro

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Senator Arlen Specter took a bold and long-overdue step on January 22, 2007, when he introduced legislation that would require the Supreme Court to allow television coverage of its proceedings. But instead of making his case with a straightforward appeal to the public’s right to know, Specter has introduced arguments in favor of his bill that seem destined to antagonize the Court, drive it into the shadows, or both. Chances of passage might improve if Specter adjusts his tactics.


Gee Whiz, The Sky Is Falling!, Boyce F. Martin Jr. Jan 2007

Gee Whiz, The Sky Is Falling!, Boyce F. Martin Jr.

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

I am reminded of Chicken Little’s famous mantra as I listen to some Supreme Court Justices’ reactions to the prospect of televising oral arguments. Their fears—such as Justice Kennedy’s warning that allowing cameras in the courtroom may change the Court’s dynamics—are, in my opinion, overblown. And some comments, most notably Justice Souter’s famous exclamation in a 1996 House subcommittee hearing that “the day you see a camera come into our courtroom, it’s going to roll over my dead body,” make it sound as if the Justices have forgotten that our nation’s court system belongs to the public, not merely the …


It Could Happen To "You": Pay-To-Stay Jail Upgrades, Kim Shayo Buchanan Jan 2007

It Could Happen To "You": Pay-To-Stay Jail Upgrades, Kim Shayo Buchanan

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In the jails of Los Angeles County, about 21,000 detainees are held in filthy cells so overcrowded—four men in a cell built for two, six to a four-man cell—that, as federal judge Dean D. Pregerson observed in 2006, inmates must stay in their bunks at all times because there is not enough room for them to stand. These men—ninety percent of whom are pretrial detainees— are held in these conditions twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, and are typically allowed only a single three-hour exercise period weekly. Other inmates are held for days in a county “reception center” …


Ksr V. Teleflex: Predictable Reform Of Patent Substance And Procedure In The Judiciary, John F. Duffy Jan 2007

Ksr V. Teleflex: Predictable Reform Of Patent Substance And Procedure In The Judiciary, John F. Duffy

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Though KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc. is now widely acknowl-edged in the bar and the academy to be the most significant patent case in at least a quarter century, that view dramatically underestimates the impor-tance of the decision. The KSR decision has immense significance not merely because it rejected the standard of patentability that had been applied in the lower courts for decades, but also because it highlights many separate trends that are reshaping the patent system. This Commentary will touch upon four such trends that are clearly evi-dent in KSR. First, the case was a predictable continuation of …


Granting Certiorari To Video Recording But Not To Televising, Scott C. Wilcox Jan 2007

Granting Certiorari To Video Recording But Not To Televising, Scott C. Wilcox

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Cameras are an understandable yet inapt target for Supreme Court Justices apprehensive about televising the high Court’s proceedings. Notwithstanding Justice Souter’s declaration to a congressional subcommittee in 1996 that cameras will have to roll over his dead body to enter the Court, the Justices’ public statements suggest that their objections are to televising—not to cameras. In fact, welcoming cameras to video record Court proceedings for archival purposes will serve the Justices’ interests well. Video recording can forestall legislation recently introduced in both houses of Congress that would require the Court to televise its proceedings. The Court’s desired result—the legislation disappearing …