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Full-Text Articles in Law
Can We Calculate Fairness And Reasonableness? Determining What Satisfies The Fair Cross-Section Requirement Of The Sixth Amendment, Colleen P. Fitzharris
Can We Calculate Fairness And Reasonableness? Determining What Satisfies The Fair Cross-Section Requirement Of The Sixth Amendment, Colleen P. Fitzharris
Michigan Law Review
The Impartial Jury Clause of the Sixth Amendment requires that the venire from which the state and the defendant draw a twelve-person petit jury be a fair cross-section of the community. The Supreme Court announced a three-prong test in Duren v. Missouri to help courts determine whether there has been a Sixth Amendment violation: (1) whether a distinctive group in the community was excluded; (2) whether the venire was not a fair and reasonable representation of the county population as a whole; and (3) whether that underrepresentation was the result of systematic exclusion. When evaluating the second prong, courts routinely …
An Implausible Standard For Affirmative Defenses, Stephen Mayer
An Implausible Standard For Affirmative Defenses, Stephen Mayer
Michigan Law Review
In the wake of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the federal district courts split over whether to apply Twombly’s plausibility standard to the pleading of affirmative defenses. Initially, a majority of district courts extended Twombly to defense pleadings, but recently the courts that have declined to extend the plausibility standard have gained majority status. This Note provides a comprehensive analysis of each side of the plausibility split, identifying several hidden assumptions motivating the district courts’ decisions. Drawing from its analysis of the two opposing positions, this Note responds to the courts that have applied plausibility pleading …