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Full-Text Articles in Law
On Death And Magic: Law, Necromancy And The Great Beyond, Eric J. Gouvin
On Death And Magic: Law, Necromancy And The Great Beyond, Eric J. Gouvin
Faculty Scholarship
Every now and then, our legal system interacts with the spirit world, whether by virtue of seances being used in establishing the defense in a criminal matter or being used by the prosecution to impugn the defendant, or because of the impact that ghosts may have on stigmatized property or by virtue of houses being built on cemeteries, like in the movie "Poltergeist." Our legal system has an uneasy relationship with the spirit world and this chapter in the book explores that relationship.
National Security Without Secret Laws: How Other Nations Balance National Security Interests And Transparency Of The Law, Sudha Setty
Faculty Scholarship
This Article explores the issues surrounding, and the arguments against, secret law by providing an international comparative perspective. As an example of secret law, the Author cites the lack of transparency surrounding the Bush Administration Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) March 2003 torture policy memorandum, which was kept secret for years before being declassified and disclosed in April 2008 in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The Author examines the justifications given for nondisclosure, such as arguments that disclosure is incompatible with prioritizing national security. In brief, the Author rejects such a formulation, stating “[t]he …
No More Secret Laws: How Transparency Of Executive Branch Legal Policy Doesn't Let The Terrorists Win, Sudha Setty
No More Secret Laws: How Transparency Of Executive Branch Legal Policy Doesn't Let The Terrorists Win, Sudha Setty
Faculty Scholarship
One of the key hallmarks of a democratic nation is that there are no secret laws. In the post-September 11, 2001 era, the George W. Bush administration relied on national security concerns and the unitary executive theory of presidential power as justifications for maintaining secret legal policies that govern parts of the war on terrorism that affect serious issues of human rights and civil liberties. These legal policies sometimes staked out positions that are at odds with legislation, treaties, and court decisions—but the parameters of the executive branch legal policies were sometimes unknown because of the lack of public disclosure. …
The Overlapping Magisteria Of Law And Science: When Litigation And Science Collide, William G. Childs
The Overlapping Magisteria Of Law And Science: When Litigation And Science Collide, William G. Childs
Faculty Scholarship
In this Article, the Author explores two unexpected consequences of joining science and law at the hip, and considers whether these consequences represent reciprocal contamination, or instead cross-fertilization, of law and science. In Part I of this Article, the Author provides a brief review of the evolution of legal standards for the admissibility of what is termed "scientific evidence," including Frye and Daubert and their progeny. In Part II of the Article, the Author gives a (necessarily limited) overview of certain modern scientific paradigms of reliability and he explores the realities of peer reviews and of other institutions in science …
The Popular Image Of The American Lawyer: Some Thoughts On Its Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Intellectual Bases, James W. Gordon
The Popular Image Of The American Lawyer: Some Thoughts On Its Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Intellectual Bases, James W. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
This essay explores the ambiguous position lawyers occupy in the popular mind in America by identifying some of the ideas which contributed to the schizophrenic popular attitude toward the legal profession in the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Many of the stock anti-lawyer themes and many of the intellectual sources of the profession's strength are clearly visible by the end of this period. The Author explores this problem, first by relating it to recent scholarship in American history describing the struggle between republicanism and liberalism at the time of the Founding. The way the profession was …