Law Commons^™

Expanding Stare Decisis: The Role Of Precedent In The Unfolding Dialectic Of Brady V. Maryland, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

Does stare decisis constrain the expansion of constitutional doctrine? Does existing precedent preclude the Supreme Court from expanding a criminal defendant’s right to exculpatory evidence? While commentators frequently clash on when stare decisis should prevent the Court from overruling its own precedents, the question of when fidelity to precedent should inhibit doctrinal expansion is surprisingly under-theorized. This Article begins to fill this gap through an in-depth case study of stare decisis and the expansion of criminal due process doctrine.

This Article analyzes the longstanding constitutional dialectic between procedural and substantive schools of criminal due process. Focus is on Brady v. …

Thinking Like A Lawyer Abroad: Putting Justice Into Legal Reasoning, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

Americans are taking new interest in legal reasoning. Thinking Like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning by Professor Frederick Schauer suggests why. According to Schauer, American legal methods often require decision-makers “to do something other than the right thing.” There has got to be a better way.

Now comes a book that offers Americans opportunities to look into a world where legal methods help decision-makers do the right thing. According to Reinhard Zippelius in his newly published Introduction to German Legal Methods, German legal methods help decision makers resolve legal problems “in a just and equitable manner.”

This …