Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 25 of 25

Full-Text Articles in Law

Judicial Fact-Finding At Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas Dec 2008

Judicial Fact-Finding At Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

This encyclopedia entry summarizes the pendulum-swings that led the Supreme Court in Apprendi v. New Jersey, Blakely v. Washington, and United States v. Booker to limit judges' ability to find facts at sentencing. Paradoxically, the much-criticized Federal Sentencing Guidelines have survived; a line of cases that began as an effort to restore juries' role has turned into a guarantor of judicial discretion; and the doctrine has quickly moved far from its Sixth Amendment roots to a policy balancing test. The Court could instead have pursued a different, more fruitful path. The Court did not have to force sentencing factors into …


Exacerbating Injustice, Stephanos Bibas Nov 2008

Exacerbating Injustice, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

This brief essay responds to Josh Bowers' argument that criminal procedure should openly allow innocent defendants to plead guilty as a legal fiction. Though most scholars emphasize the few but salient serious felony cases, Bowers is right to refocus attention on misdemeanors and violations, which are far more numerous. And though the phrase wrongful convictions conjures up images of punishing upstanding citizens, Bowers is also right to emphasize that recidivists are far more likely to suffer wrongful suspicion and conviction. Bowers' mistake is to treat the criminal justice system as simply a means of satisfying defendants' preferences and choices. This …


Happiness And Punishment, Christopher J. Buccafusco, John Bronsteen, Jonathan S. Masur Aug 2008

Happiness And Punishment, Christopher J. Buccafusco, John Bronsteen, Jonathan S. Masur

All Faculty Scholarship

This article continues our project to apply groundbreaking new literature on the behavioral psychology of human happiness to some of the most deeply analyzed questions in law. Here we explain that the new psychological understandings of happiness interact in startling ways with the leading theories of criminal punishment. Punishment theorists, both retributivist and utilitarian, have failed to account for human beings' ability to adapt to changed circumstances, including fines and (surprisingly) imprisonment. At the same time, these theorists have largely ignored the severe hedonic losses brought about by the post-prison social and economic deprivations (unemployment, divorce, and disease) caused by …


The Immigration Paradox: Alien Workers And Distributive Justice, Howard F. Chang Jul 2008

The Immigration Paradox: Alien Workers And Distributive Justice, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

The immigration of relatively unskilled workers poses a fundamental problem for liberals. While from the perspective of the economic welfare of natives, the optimal policy would be to admit these aliens as guest workers, this policy would violate liberal ideals. These ideals would treat these workers as equals, entitled to access to citizenship and to the full set of public benefits provided to citizens. If the welfare of incumbent residents determines admissions policies, however, and we anticipate the fiscal burden that the immigration of the poor would impose, then our welfare criterion would preclude the admission of relatively unskilled workers …


Hotspots In A Cold War: The Naacp's Postwar Workplace Constitutionalism, 1948-1964, Sophia Z. Lee Jul 2008

Hotspots In A Cold War: The Naacp's Postwar Workplace Constitutionalism, 1948-1964, Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Invasions Of Conscience And Faked Apologies, Stephanos Bibas Jun 2008

Invasions Of Conscience And Faked Apologies, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

This comment responds to an essay by Jeffrie Murphy, which powerfully notes the limitations and dangers of using remorse and apology as metrics for punishment. But the state is more justified in teaching lessons than Murphy suggests, and retributivism ought to make more room for victim vindication and satisfaction. Gauging sincerity, while difficult, is not impossible. In the end, Murphy offers strong reasons to be cautious. But a humane society ought to be more willing to take chances and, having punished, to forgive. The essay by Jeffrie Murphy to which this comment responds, as well as other authors' comments on …


The Discriminating Mind: Define It, Prove It, Amy L. Wax May 2008

The Discriminating Mind: Define It, Prove It, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

Differential group achievements in competitive spheres like business, government, and academia, in conjunction with professed organizational commitments to fairness and equal opportunity, fuel claims that unconscious discrimination operates widely in society today. But attempts to blame disparities by race or sex on inadvertent bias must be approached with caution in the current climate. Many allegations concerning unconscious discrimination do not properly allege category-based treatment at all but rather target the disparate impact, or differential effects, of category-neutral criteria. Such impacts often reflect welldocumented “supply side” disparities between groups in human capital development, qualifications, and behavior. These patterns are not most …


Agency Costs, Charitable Trusts, And Corporate Control: Evidence From Hershey's Kiss-Off, Jonathan Klick, Robert H. Sitkoff May 2008

Agency Costs, Charitable Trusts, And Corporate Control: Evidence From Hershey's Kiss-Off, Jonathan Klick, Robert H. Sitkoff

All Faculty Scholarship

In July 2002 the trustees of the Milton Hershey School Trust announced a plan to diversify the Trust’s investment portfolio by selling the Trust’s controlling interest in the Hershey Company. The Company’s stock jumped from $62.50 to $78.30 on news of the proposed sale. But the Pennsylvania Attorney General, who was then running for governor, opposed the sale on the ground that it would harm the local community. Shortly after the Attorney General obtained a preliminary injunction, the trustees abandoned the sale and the Company’s stock dropped to $65.00. Using standard event study methodology, we find that the sale announcement …


Hate Speech, C. Edwin Baker Mar 2008

Hate Speech, C. Edwin Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper describes the rationale that a full protection theory of free speech, a theory based on respect for individual autonomy, would give for protecting hate speech. The paper then notes that such a rationale will be unpersuasive to many (including this author) if the harms associated with a failure to outlaw hate speech are as great as often suggested – most dramatically, if the failure to prohibit makes a substantial contribution to the occurrence of serious racial/ethnic violence or genocide. The article then attempts to outline what empirical evidence would be needed to support this conclusion and gives reasons …


Engines Of Inequality: Class, Race, And Family Structure, Amy L. Wax Jan 2008

Engines Of Inequality: Class, Race, And Family Structure, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

The past 30 years have witnessed a dramatic divergence in family structure by social class, income, education, and race. This article reviews the data on these trends, explores their significance, and assesses social scientists’ recent attempts to explain them. The article concludes that society-wide changes in economic conditions or social expectations cannot account for these patterns. Rather, for reasons that are poorly understood, cultural disparities have emerged by class and race in attitudes and behaviors surrounding family, sexuality, and reproduction. These disparities will likely fuel social and economic inequality and contribute to disparities in children’s life prospects for decades to …


Confidentiality: An Expectation In Health Care, Anita L. Allen Jan 2008

Confidentiality: An Expectation In Health Care, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

The practice of confidentiality has continued in an era of increased, voluntary openness about medical information in everyday life. Indeed the number and variety of state and federal laws mandating confidentiality by medical professionals has increased in the last dozen years. Moreover, personal injury suits alleging breach of confidentiality or invasion of privacy, along with suits asserting evidentiary privileges, reflect the reality that expectations of confidentiality of medical records and relationships remain strong.


Undressing Difference: The Hijab In The West, Anita L. Allen Jan 2008

Undressing Difference: The Hijab In The West, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

On March 15, 2006, French President Jacques Chirac signed into law an amendment to his country’s education statute, banning the wearing of "conspicuous" signs of religious affiliation in public schools. Prohibited items included "a large cross, a veil, or skullcap." The ban was expressly introduced by lawmakers as an application of the principle of government neutrality, "du principe de laïcité." Opponents of the law viewed it primarily as an intolerant assault against the hijab, a head and neck wrap worn by many Muslim women around the world. In Politics of the Veil, Professor Joan Wallach Scott …


On Beyond Calpers: Survey Evidence On The Developing Role Of Public Pension Funds In Corporate Governance, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch Jan 2008

On Beyond Calpers: Survey Evidence On The Developing Role Of Public Pension Funds In Corporate Governance, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Guest Workers And Justice In A Second-Best World, Howard F. Chang Jan 2008

Guest Workers And Justice In A Second-Best World, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay offers a defense of guest-worker programs and a critique of the objections raised by Michael Walzer and by other critics of such programs. Although critics commonly complain that guest workers are vulnerable to exploitation by employers, we can design guest-worker programs that minimize the risk of such exploitation. Ready access for relatively unskilled guest workers to citizenship and to public benefits, however, generates a fiscal burden for the public treasury. A right to equal treatment for aliens yields perverse results unless aliens are also entitled to equal concern when the host country decides whether to admit the alien …


The Managerial Turn In Environmental Policy, Cary Coglianese Jan 2008

The Managerial Turn In Environmental Policy, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Contrived Defenses And Deterrent Threats: Two Facets Of One Problem, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Leo Katz Jan 2008

Contrived Defenses And Deterrent Threats: Two Facets Of One Problem, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Leo Katz

All Faculty Scholarship

What relation do the various parts of a plan bear to the overall aim of the plan? In this essay we consider this question in the context of two very different problems in the criminal law. The first, known in the German criminal law literature as the Actio Libera in Causa, involves defendants who contrive to commit crimes under conditions that would normally afford them a justification or excuse. The question is whether such defendants should be allowed to claim the defense when the defense is itself either contrived or anticipated in advance. The second is what we call the …


The Effect Of Conflicting Moral And Legal Rules On Bargaining Behavior: The Case Of Divorce, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Jonathan Baron Jan 2008

The Effect Of Conflicting Moral And Legal Rules On Bargaining Behavior: The Case Of Divorce, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Jonathan Baron

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Negotiating Divorce: Gender And The Behavioral Economics Of Divorce Bargaining, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Deborah Small Jan 2008

Negotiating Divorce: Gender And The Behavioral Economics Of Divorce Bargaining, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Deborah Small

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Shareholder Primacy's Corporatist Origins: Adolf Berle And The Modern Corporation, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter Jan 2008

Shareholder Primacy's Corporatist Origins: Adolf Berle And The Modern Corporation, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Torture And The Biopolitics Of Race, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2008

Torture And The Biopolitics Of Race, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Constructing A Criminal Justice System Free Of Racial Bias: An Abolitionist Framework, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2008

Constructing A Criminal Justice System Free Of Racial Bias: An Abolitionist Framework, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Embracing Risk, Sharing Responsibility, Tom Baker Jan 2008

Embracing Risk, Sharing Responsibility, Tom Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Private Equity's Three Lessons For Agency Theory, William W. Bratton Jan 2008

Private Equity's Three Lessons For Agency Theory, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The Disadvantages Of Immigration Restriction As A Policy To Improve Income Distribution, Howard F. Chang Jan 2008

The Disadvantages Of Immigration Restriction As A Policy To Improve Income Distribution, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I argue that tax and transfer policies are more efficient than immigration restrictions as instruments for raising the after tax incomes of the least skilled native workers. Policies to protect these native workers frol1'l immigrant competition in the labor market do no better at promoting distributive justice and are likely to impose a greater economic burden on natives in the country of immigration than the tax alternative. These immigration restrictions are especially costly given the disproportionate burden that they place on households with working women, which discourages fel1'wle participation in the labor force. This burden runs contrary …


The Sixth Amendment And Criminal Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas, Susan R. Klein Jan 2008

The Sixth Amendment And Criminal Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas, Susan R. Klein

All Faculty Scholarship

This symposium essay explores the impact of Rita, Gall, and Kimbrough on state and federal sentencing and plea bargaining systems. The Court continues to try to explain how the Sixth Amendment jury trial right limits legislative and judicial control of criminal sentencing. Equally important, the opposing sides in this debate have begun to form a stable consensus. These decisions inject more uncertainty in the process and free trial judges to counterbalance prosecutors. Thus, we predict, these decisions will move the balance of plea bargaining power back toward criminal defendants.