Law Commons^™

Willfully Blind For Good Reason, Deborah Hellman

Deborah Hellman

Willful blindness is not an appropriate substitute for knowledge in crimes that require a mens rea of knowledge because an actor who contrives his own ignorance is only sometimes as culpable as a knowing actor. This paper begins with the assumption that the classic willfully blind actor – the drug courier - is culpable. If so, any plausible account of willful blindness must provide criteria that find this actor culpable. This paper then offers two limiting cases: a criminal defense lawyer defending a client he suspects of perjury and a pain doctor who suspects his patient may be lying about …

Modern Man, Thomas Kohler

Thomas C. Kohler

No abstract provided.

The Neglected Right Of Assembly, Tabatha Abu El-Haj

Tabatha Abu El-Haj

This Article considers changes in both our understanding of the constitutional right of peaceable assembly and our regulatory practices with respect to public assemblies. It shows that through the late nineteenth century the state could only interfere with gatherings that actually disturbed the public peace, whereas today the state typically regulates all public assemblies, including those that are both peaceful and not inconvenient, before they occur, through permit requirements. Through this regulatory shift, and judicial approval of it, the substance of the right of peaceable assembly was narrowed. The history recounted in this Article is significant because it provides insight …

The Regulation Of Medical Malpractice In Japan, Robert Leflar

Robert B Leflar

How Japanese legal and social institutions handle medical errors is little known outside Japan. For almost all of the 20th century, a paternalistic paradigm prevailed. Characteristics of the legal environment affecting Japanese medicine included few attorneys handling medical cases, low litigation rates, long delays, predictable damage awards, and low-cost malpractice insurance. However, transparency principles have gained traction and public concern over medical errors has intensified. Recent legal developments include courts' adoption of a less deferential standard of informed consent; increases in the numbers of malpractice claims and of practicing attorneys; more efficient claims handling by specialist judges and speedier trials; …

Parallel Lines Never Meet: Why The Military Disability Retirement And Veterans Affairs Department Claim Adjudication Systems Are A Failure, Thomas Reed

Thomas J Reed

Service members who are injured or come down with a disease while on active duty have two roads to seek compensation for disability benefits that are part of the enlistment contract. The first road is military disability retirement, administered by the armed services. The second road is VA compensation administered by the cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs. Both systems are near collapse due to a backlog of undecided claims and manifest injustices in awarding benefits to disabled veterans and dependents.

Professor Reed proposes a radical reform of the dual compensation system by combining military disability retirement and VA benefits into …

Decline To State: Diversity Talk And The American Law Student, Camille Gear Rich

Camille Gear Rich

No abstract provided.

The Financial Sector Upheaval Of 2008: Sociological Antecedents And Their Implications For Investment Company Regulation, Larry Barnett

Larry D Barnett

In 2008, the United States experienced a severe contraction in the availability of credit, a marked reduction in the price of common stocks, and an appreciable increase in interest rates on debt instruments issued by business entities and by state and local governments. The premise of the instant article is that, although this upheaval was economic in form and sudden in occurrence, it stemmed from change that was sociological in character and that started in prior decades. Specifically, the 2008 upheaval in finance is traced to a shift in social values among Americans - namely, an increased prevalence of hedonism …

A Comment On James Grimmelmann’S Saving Facebook, Susan Freiwald

Susan Freiwald

This paper comments on Professor James Grimmelmann’s article Saving Facebook (94 Iowa L. Rev. 1137 (2009) http://http://works.bepress.com/james_grimmelmann/20). provides a useful analysis of the privacy debates surrounding this social networking web site. Grimmelmann provides valuable sociological and psychological material for future legislators to draw on in considering legislative control of Facebook and similar sites. Grimmelmann uses Facebook to provide concrete examples of privacy concerns to build on the more general framework provided by the works of Daniel Solove. The comment does take exception to Grimmelmann’s analysis in several points. Chief among these is Grinnlemann’s lack of evidence in support of his …

The Lost Sanctuary: Examining Sex Trafficking Through The Lens Of United States V. Ah Sou, M. Margaret Mckeown, Emily Ryo

Emily Ryo

Drawing upon original court records and other previously-unexamined archival materials, this article uncovers the story of one of the earliest reported and documented cases of sex trafficking in American history, United States v. Ah Sou, 138 F. 775 (9th Cir. 1905). Through Ah Sou’s legal challenge, we investigate the development of international human rights norms relevant to sex trafficking and the domestication of those norms in U.S. law. We then examine in detail the remedies presently available for sex trafficking victims and apply those remedies retrospectively to Ah Sou’s case. We conclude that despite the development of the law—both in …