Law Commons^™

Environmental Law, Eleventh Circuit Survey, Travis M. Trimble

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In 2005 the Eleventh Circuit courts addressed issues of regulatory interpretation of the Clean Air Act (“CAA”); compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) in connection with the development of wetlands; and a conflict between the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (“FEMA”) coastal flood insurance program and the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). First, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated a rule of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management that exempted certain stack emissions that otherwise violated the State Implementation Plan under the CAA. Also, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama heard one of several …

The Under-Appreciated Value Of Advisory Guidelines, Erica J. Hashimoto

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The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 provided that the trial court "shall impose a sentence of the kind, and within the range" set forth in the United States Sentencing Guidelines ("Guidelines") issued by the Sentencing Commission. With that one phrase, the Act created a system of guidelines that was binding upon judges, rather than simply advisory. Concerns about excessive disparity and undue leniency in sentencing unquestionably drove the political coalition that passed the Act. It is not clear, however, why Congress believed that mandatory-as opposed to advisory-guidelines were necessary to address those concerns. With the benefit of hindsight, it is …

Origin, Scope, And Irrevocability Of The Manifest Disregard Of The Law Doctrine: Second Circuit Views, Christian Turner, Joshua Ratner

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After arbitration has occurred, parties may seek judicial enforcement of the arbitral award, converting the private determination into an enforceable judgment. Parties that did not prevail in the arbitration may, at the same time, seek to have the arbitral award vacated. This article concerns the doctrine that permits courts to vacate an arbitral award when the arbitrators “manifestly disregarded” the law, focusing on recent developments in the Second Circuit. Despite the exceedingly deferential scope of this doctrine, the Second Circuit has actually vacated a handful of arbitrations on grounds of manifest disregard, and the doctrine is routinely raised by litigants. …

Libel In The Blogosphere: Some Preliminary Thoughts, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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This brief essay attempts to account for the paucity of libel litigation relating to weblogs, and to explore ways in which the law of libel may change in response to the different character of weblogs, and new media in general.

The Detention Of Material Witnesses And The Fourth Amendment, Joseph G. Cook

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No abstract provided.

Harry Potter And The Law, Benjamin H. Barton

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The magnitude of the Harry Potter phenomenon alone would make it worthy of consideration; the fact that it is children's literature, and thus may play a significant part in forming a future generation's attitudes toward law and legal institutions, makes it even more so. The various contributions to this article explore various aspects of law and culture as presented in or viewed through the Harry Potter stories. The contributions of James Charles Smith and Danaya Wright address the depiction of families in the narratives and the limited role and development of family law. Benjamin H. Barton's contribution considers the failings …

In Booker's Shadow: Restitution Forces A Second Debate On Honesty In Sentencing, Melanie Wilson

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This article explores the question left unanswered by the Supreme Court's January, 2005, decision in United States v. Booker. Specifically, it looks at whether the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), which governs restitution in federal criminal cases, violates the Sixth Amendment. The MVRA expressly requires that judges, rather than juries, decide issues of restitution. The process mandated by the MVRA often results in orders of restitution that are much harsher than a defendant could have reasonably predicted from the indictment, the evidence presented at trial, and/or the defendant's admission of guilt. This article concludes that such unexpected consequences …

Martha Stewart Saved! Insider Violations Of Rule 10b-5 For Misrepresented Or Undisclosed Personal Facts, Joan Macleod Heminway

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This article analyses the criminal securities fraud charges brought against Martha Stewart. Stewart was acquitted of these charges by a federal district court judge in February 2004. Specifically, the article initially focuses on whether the securities fraud charges brought against Stewart were valid as a matter of prosecutorial discretion and substantive law and whether the court was correct in granting Stewart's motion for acquittal before handing the rest of her case to the jury for deliberation. The article then offers substantive and procedural observations about Rule 10b-5 cases like the one brought against Stewart.

Caught In (Or On) The Web: A Review Of Course Management Systems For Legal Education, Joan Macleod Heminway

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Like other teaching innovations, course management software has been somewhat slow to take hold in legal education. Yet, as law teachers, we cannot deny that our current students are children of a technological age that centers on electronic communication. Although there is a lack of empirical evidence strongly supporting the pedagogic case for the use of technology in law teaching, some of us in the law academy have ventured forth with the use of teaching technologies on the theory that the current demographics of the law student population demand our interaction with students on this basis.

Course management systems are …

Morality And Antitrust, Maurice Stucke

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Although the Sherman Act was enacted over a century ago, antitrust enforcers, policy makers, and scholars have largely circumvented the morality of antitrust crimes. Its absence is remarkable given the vigorous debate over the appropriate civil and criminal penalties for antitrust violations. Under the continued influence of the Chicago-school's neoclassical economic theories, antitrust analysis is primarily concerned with economic efficiency. Since terms like morality and evil are judgmental, not descriptive, they are deemed outside the discourse of economic theory's self-described positivism. But antitrust analysis is not beyond the judgmental. Over the past thirty years, while antitrust's civil remedies have remained …

If The Train Should Jump The Track ...: Divergent Interpretations Of State And Federal Employment Discrimination Statutes, Alex B. Long

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As interpretational issues surrounding federal employment discrimination statutes have become more complex and controversial, there have arisen more opportunities for parallel state anti-discrimination law to jump the track and take alternative courses. Not surprisingly, when dealing with their own parallel state statutes, a number of state appellate courts in recent years have chosen this course of action. Even where state and federal employment discrimination have not yet taken different paths, the potential for such divergent interpretations of state and federal anti-discrimination law has increased in recent years to the point where we may enter an era not unlike that of …

Looking Ahead: October Term 2007, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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A look at some interesting cases likely to come before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Parker v. District of Columbia, the case in which the D.C. gun ban was overturned.

The Supreme Court’S Analysis Of Issues Raised By Death Penalty Litigants In The Court's 2004 Term, Richard Klein

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No abstract provided.

Takings Cases In The October 2004 Term (Symposium: The Seventeenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Leon D. Lazer

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No abstract provided.

Women And Law: A Comparative Analysis Of The United States And Indian Supreme Courts’ Equality Jurisprudence, Eileen Kaufman

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No abstract provided.

Revisiting Austin V. Loral: A Study In Economic Duress, Contract Modification And Framing, Meredith R. Miller

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Austin v. Loral, 29 N.Y.2d 124 (1971), is a favorite among Contracts casebooks because the New York Court of Appeals held that it was a "classic" example of economic duress. It involved Austin, a small gear part manufacturer, who had entered into a subcontract to provide gear parts to Loral, a publicly-traded defense industry supplier. Loral had a contract with the U.S. government to supply radar sets, to be used in the U.S. efforts in Vietnam. Midway through performance of the subcontract, Austin apparently refused to continue to deliver the gear parts unless Loral acceded to certain demands, which included …

Richard Posner Meets Reb Chaim Of Brisk: A Comparative Study In The Founding Of Intellectual Legal Movements, Samuel J. Levine

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Of the various movements that have surfaced in American legal theory in recent decades, law and economics has emerged as perhaps the most influential, leading some to characterize it as the dominant contemporary mode of analysis among American legal scholars. In this essay, Levine considers law and economics in the context of a comparative discussion of another prominent intellectual legal movement, the Brisker method of Talmudic analysis, which originated in Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century and quickly developed into a leading method of theoretical study of Jewish law. The Brisker method takes its name from the city of …

An Introduction To Self-Incrimination In Jewish Law, With Application To The American Legal System: A Psychological And Philosophical Analysis, Samuel J. Levine

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In recent years, American courts and legal scholars have increasingly turned to Jewish legal tradition for insights into various issues confronting the American legal system. Jewish law has provided an alternative model and, at times, a contrast case that some have found particularly helpful in illuminating complex, controversial, and unsettled areas of American law. In light of these developments, this Essay aims to consider the efficacy of drawing on Jewish law to facilitate a more thoughtful analysis of issues in American law, with a specific focus on the issue of self-incrimination. The Essay begins with a brief discussion of the …

A Look At American Legal Practice Through A Perspective Of Jewish Law, Ethics, And Tradition: A Conceptual Overview, Samuel J. Levine

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Levine examines the roles of legislative and judicial bodies, in the context of a discussion of broader principles of legislation in the Jewish legal system. In recent years, American legal scholars have increasingly looked to Jewish law as a model of an alternative legal system that considers many of the issues present in the American legal system. In relation to the roles of legislative and judicial bodies, the Jewish legal system provides a particularly illuminating contrast to the American legal system, in part because in Jewish law, the same authority, the Sanhedrin, or High Court, serves in both a legislative …

Death Penalty And Right To Counsel Decisions In The October 2005 Term, Richard Klein

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No abstract provided.

A Comparative Analysis Of The Jewish Law And The Secular Perspective On International Human Rights (Part Of The Article, “Human Rights In The Bible, An Exchange Of Ideas”)., Richard Klein, Chaim Povarsky

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No abstract provided.

New York At A Crossroads: Sustaining A Government Reform Agenda On The Frontlines With Executive, Legislative And Judicial Reform Initiatives (Introduction To Symposium: Refinement Or Reinvention: The State Of Reform In New York), Patricia E. Salkin

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No abstract provided.

Eliminating Political Maneuvering: A Light In The Tunnel For The Government Attorney-Client Privilege, Patricia E. Salkin, Allyson Phillips

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The long recognized common-law privilege afforded to certain conversations between attorneys and their clients has been the subject of troubling opinions when the lawyer and client are high ranking government officials. In a series of opinions from the 7th, 8th and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals, the courts refused to recognize the existence of the attorney-client privilege for the government actors under the circumstances surrounding the cases. However, recent opinions from the 2nd Circuit state that these other courts were simply wrong, setting the stage perhaps, for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the issue. Whether this privilege is equally …

Does Power Grow Out Of The Barrel Of A Modem? Some Thoughts On Jack Goldsmith And Tim Wu's 'Who Controls The Internet?', Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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This review of Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu's Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World, notes that Goldsmith and Wu are correct in concluding that events in recent years undercut cyber-utopian theories of an Internet that is beyond the reach of national sovereignty. It argues, however, that the failure to achieve such goals does not mean that the Internet is unimportant as a source of expanded freedom and power on the part of ordinary people, and suggests that this trend of individual empowerment is likely to continue.

Share And Share Alike: Increasing Access To Government-Funded Inventions Under The Bayh-Dole Act, Gary Pulsinelli

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The Bayh-Dole Act attempts to utilize the incentives of the patent system to persuade companies to develop inventions arising from government-funded research, allowing recipients of government funding to patent their inventions and then sell or license those patents as they see fit. The Act has, in many respects, succeeded in its goal of getting the results of government-funded research into the hands of industry, but sometimes at the cost of limiting or taxing future research. Thus, commentators have proposed changes to the Act that will help avoid these costs without destroying the benefits. One such proposal would require the National …