Law Commons^™

Interview With E. Norman Veasey, Andrew Edelstein, E. Norman Veasey, Legal Oral History Project, University Of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Legal Oral History Project

For transcript, click the Download button above. For video index, click the link below.

E. Norman Veasey (L '57) practiced at the firm of Richards, Layton & Finger from 1958 to 1992. In 1992 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware, where he served until 2004.

Racism In White Decision, Sean O'Brien

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

A Defense Of Analogical Reasoning In Law, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article defends the practice of reasoning by analogy on the basis of its epistemic and institutional advantages. The advantages identified for analogical reasoning include that it produces a wealth of data for decisonmaking; it represents the collaborative effort of a number of judges over time; it tends to correct biases that might lead judges to discount the force of prior decisions; and it exerts a conservative force in law, holding the development of law to a gradual pace. Notably, these advantages do not depend on the rational force of analogical reasoning. Rather, the author contends that, as open-ended reasoning …

In Praise Of Justice Blackmun: (Corrected) Typos And All, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Section 10: Justice Blackmun, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 2: The Direction Of The Court, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Interview With Judge Arlin M. Adams, Sarah Barringer Gordon, Arlin M. Adams, Legal Oral History Project, University Of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Legal Oral History Project

For transcript, click the Download button above. For video index, click the link below.

Arlin M. Adams (L '47) served as a justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1969 until his retirement in 1987, when he returned to private practice. He was later involved in a number of significant legal cases. He died in 2015.

Chief Justice Marshall In The Context Of His Times, R. Kent Newmyer

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Comments On Rooker-Feldman Or Let State Law Be Our Guide, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

I feel privileged to have been asked to be a commentator on the three principal papers in this symposium. These are three excellent papers, and although there has been some valuable commentary on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, there will be no need to go beyond these papers to gain a full appreciation of the doctrine, its applications, and its problems, which run as deep as the problems of any doctrine.

Interview With Judge Dolores Sloviter, Catharine L. Krieps, Dolores Sloviter, Legal Oral History Project, University Of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Legal Oral History Project

For transcript, click the Download button above. For video index, click the link below.

Dolores Sloviter (L '56) is a Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She is the first woman appointed to that court and the only woman to have served as its Chief Judge.

Should Judges Take Seriously The Sentencing Commission's Standards For Accepting Plea Agreements?, David Yellen

Articles

No abstract provided.

Eulogy: Esther Carapella, Roger J. Miner '56

Memorials and Eulogies

No abstract provided.

How Imperial Is The Supreme Court? An Analysis Of Supreme Court Abortion Doctrine And Popular Will, Michael Vitiello

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Arizona Jury Reform Permitting Civil Jury Trial Discussions: The View Of Trial Participants, Judges, And Jurors, Valerie P. Hans, Paula Hannaford-Agor, G. Thomas Munsterman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In 1995, the Arizona Supreme Court reformed the jury trial process by allowing civil jurors to discuss the evidence presented during trial prior to their formal deliberations. This Article examines the theoretical, legal, and policy issues raised by this reform and presents the early results of a field experiment that tested the impact of trial discussions. Jurors, judges, attorneys, and litigants in civil jury trials in Arizona were questioned regarding their observations, experiences, and reactions during trial as well as what they perceived to be the benefits and drawback of juror discussions. The data revealed that the majority of judges …

Redressing The Imbalances: Rethinking The Judicial Role After R. V R.D.S., Dianne Pothier, Richard Devlin

Dianne Pothier Collection

The Decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. R.D.S. dealt with whether a trial judge's comments, about interactions between police officers and "non-white groups", gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias in the circumstances. They strongly criticize the contrary ruling of the dissent as inappropriately drawing a false dichotomy between decisions based on evidence and decisions based on generalizations, and as improperly ignoring social context with an unwarranted confidence in the ideology of colour blindness. While more supportive of the majority's analysis, the authors also find cause for concern, with somewhat different emphasis in the nature …

The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines: A Surprising Success?, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

The author discusses whether the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines represent an advance in our nation's approach to criminal law or a step backward-a "dismal failure," as Judge Cabranes so bluntly asserted a few years ago. The authors goal is to convince you that the guidelines are in fact a surprising success, indeed that they represent a step forward in federal criminal justice.

The Architecture Of Judicial Independence, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Commodities Rulings Appealable To Circuit (New York Law Journal), Daniel Wise

News Articles

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam: Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Christina B. Whitman

Articles

At the time of his resignation, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. was justly praised as a moderate, flexible jurist - open-minded, suspicious of ideology, most often found at the center of a divided Supreme Court. Yet Justice Powell was a man of deeply conservative instincts. Suspicious of invitations to expand the scope of individual constitutional rights, he was a participant and even a leader in the Court's reassertion of a federalism that emphasized deference to states and in its reinvigoration of restrictions on access to federal courts. His jurisprudence was all of a piece. Justice Powell's reluctance to expand federal …

How Do Judges Think About Risk?, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A sample of almost 100 judges exhibited well-known patterns of biases in risk beliefs and reasonable implicit values of life. These biases and personal preferences largely do not affect attitudes toward judicial risk decisions, though there are some exceptions, such as ambiguity aversion, misinterpretation of negligence rules, and retrospective risk assessments in accident cases, which is a form of hindsight bias. Although judges avoided many pitfalls exhibited by jurors and the population at large, they nevertheless exhibited systematic errors, particularly for small probability-large loss events. These findings highlighted the importance of judicial review and the input of expert risk analysts …

Judicial Decision-Making In The Age Of Biotechnology, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

The major premise, minor premise, and conclusion of this Article are one and the same - for, they conduce to an acceptance of the fact that the social constructs and legal tools necessary for the modern judiciary to meet head-on and deal with the contentious issues of bioethics and biotechnology are already in place. To resolve problems arising from these potential quagmires, perhaps the major concern is for the courts to remain forever vigilant to the interlinking relationships or synergistic forces found in law, science, ethics, and medicine. Without vigilance and enhanced awareness of the dynamic and fluid situation here, …

In Memoriam: Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. - A Tribute, Kenneth F. Ripple

Journal Articles

In remembering Justice Powell, my memory invariably recalls three distinct images from the years I spent at the Supreme Court. Two of these memories are from my own work with him. The other is from my observation of him on the bench. In the days since his death this past autumn, all three have sparked a great deal of reflection about his enduring contribution to our jurisprudence and to our profession.

Lord Denning And The Influence Of William Temple, Andrew B.L. Phang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Lord Denning is probably one of the most influential English judges in the twentieth century,' and is certainly its most colourful. He recently celebrated his one hundredth birthday,2 and a symposium to honour this occasion and celebrate the life of this remarkable man was held at Buckingham University.3 Lord Denning himself was too frail to attend this symposium, although a separate (and quieter) celebration was also held in his honour at his home at the Lawn in Whitchurch. I was deeply saddened to learn that Lord Denning passed away a few weeks after, on 5th March 1999.

Judge-Made Insurance That Was Not On The Menu: Schmidt V. Smith And The Confluence Of Text, Expectation, And Public Policy In The Realm Of Employment Practices Liability, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

In Schmidt v. Smith, the New Jersey Supreme Court caught more than a few observers by surprise. New Jersey courts have generally issued opinions regarded as pro-claimant and pro-policyholders. But everyone's taste for recompense and coverage has limits. In Schmidt, the court exceeded those limits for many observers by holding that despite what it regarded as clear contract language in an exclusion, an insurer providing Employers’ Liability (“EL”) coverage along with Workers' Compensation (“WC”) insurance for the employer was required to provide coverage in a case of blatant sexual harassment bordering on criminal assault. In doing so, the Schmidt court, …

Democracy And Inclusion: The Role Of The Judge In A Pluralist Polity, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court plays a critical role in resolving clashes between majority and minority interests and perspectives. The Equal Protection Clause, and at times the Due Process Clause, have become key vehicles for considering the most problematic intergroup conflicts that divide our society. Prior to this article, the Court heard cases dealing with affirmative action in government procurement programs, legislative districts designed to increase minority representation, state sponsored male-only military schooling, and a state constitutional amendment that would have proscribed antidiscrimination legislation protecting gay men and lesbians. While the Court declined to challenge California's anti-affirmative action referendum (Proposition 209) and …

Finding The Constitution: An Economic Analysis Of Tradition's Role In Constitutional Interpretation, Adam C. Pritchard, Todd J. Zywicki

Articles

In this Article, Professor Pritchard and Professor Zywicki examine the role of tradition in constitutional interpretation, a topic that has received significant attention in recent years. After outlining the current debate over the use of tradition, the authors discuss the efficiency purposes of constitutionalism--precommitment and the reduction of agency costs--and demonstrate how the use of tradition in constitutional interpretation can serve these purposes. Rejecting both Justice Scalia's majoritarian model, which focuses on legislative sources of tradition, and Justice Souter's common-law model, which focuses on Supreme Court precedent as a source of tradition, the authors propose an alternative model--the "finding model"-- …

Restorative Justice: A Conceptual Framework, Jennifer Llewellyn, Robert L. Howse

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Restorative justice has become a fashionable term both in Canadian and foreign legal and social policy discourse. Restorative justice is certainly not a new idea. In fact, it is foundational to our very ideas about law and conflict resolution. There is, nevertheless, a lack of clarity about the meaning of this term. Often it is used as a catchall phrase to refer to any practice which does not look like the mainstream practice of the administration of justice, particularly in the area of criminal justice. Little attention has been spent attempting to articulate what distinguishes a practice as restorative. Rather, …

Modern Federal Judicial Selection, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Review of Sheldon Goldman, Picking Federal Judges: Lower Court Selection From Roosevelt Through Reagan (1997).

No Vehicles In The Park, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Embracing Descent: The Bankruptcy Of A Business Paradigm For Conceptualizing And Regulating The Legal Profession, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Lawyers are said to travel in packs, or at least pairs, and in the popular parlance are often compared to hoards of locusts, herds of cattle, or unruly mobs. However, at least for purposes of assessing concerns with professionalism currently surrounding the bar and the public, whether attorneys are more or less social than other human animals does not matter. My point is simply that lawyers are social beings; like other human beings in social and occupational groups, lawyers behave largely in accordance with group norms, in much the same way peer pressure led Julian English toward juvenile delinquency in …