Law Commons^™

Answering Jurors' Questions: Next Steps In Illinois (2010) (Symposium), Nancy S. Marder

Nancy S. Marder

No abstract provided.

Restructuring Proposal For The Criminal Division Of The Circuit Court Of Cook County, Daniel T. Coyne

Daniel T. Coyne

No abstract provided.

Pro-Prosecution Judges: "Tough On Crime," Soft On Strategy, Ripe For Disqualification, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

In this Article, I take the most extensive look to date at pro-prosecution judges and ultimately advance the following, slightly scandalous claim: Particularly in our post-Caperton, political-realist world, “tough on crime” elective judges should recuse themselves from all criminal cases. The contextual parts to this claim are, in the main, a threefold description: (i) the "groundbreaking" Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal decision, its predecessors, and its progeny; (ii) the judicial ethics of disqualification; and (iii) empirical and anecdotal evidence of pro-prosecution (commonly called "tough on crime") campaigns and attendant electoral pressures. Building on this description and the work of empiricists, …

Amicus Brief, First American Financial Corp. V. Edwards, No. 10-708, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

No abstract provided.

O'Connell V. Chapman Univ., No. 10-810, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

No abstract provided.

Justice Souter And The Civil Rules, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

Justice Souter’s recent retirement from the Court after nearly twenty years presents a unique opportunity to comment on his legacy. No doubt others will eulogize or castigate him for his membership in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey troika, but there is much more to the man and his jurisprudence. Indeed, the danger is that Justice Souter will be pigeonholed into one opinion, an opinion that he wrote early in his Supreme Court career, to the detriment of understanding the complex justice that he was. This short essay therefore analyzes a unique set of opinions—those that he authored on the federal …

New Pleading, New Discovery, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

Pleading in federal court has a new narrative. The old narrative was one of notice, with the goal of broad access to the civil justice system. New Pleading, after the landmark Supreme Court cases of Twombly and Iqbal, is focused on factual sufficiency, with the purpose of screening out meritless cases that otherwise might impose discovery costs on defendants. The problem with New Pleading is that factual sufficiency often is a poor proxy for meritlessness. Some plaintiffs lack sufficient factual knowledge of the elements of their claims not because the claims lack merit but because the information they need is …

Two Paths To Judicial Power: The Basic Structure Doctrine And Public Interest Litigation In Comparative Perspective, Manoj Mate

Manoj S. Mate

Proposal For Drug Offender Stationhouse Deferral Program, Daniel T. Coyne

Daniel T. Coyne

No abstract provided.

Who Watches The Watchmen? 'Vigilant Doorkeeping,' The Alien Tort Statute, & Possible Reform, Keith A. Petty

Keith A. Petty

The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) allows alien plaintiffs to file civil actions in U.S. district courts for torts violating the law of nations or U.S. treaties. After the 2nd Circuit’s Filartiga decision in 1980, the debate began as to whether the ATS was a useful tool against human rights violators or an intrusion into U.S. foreign relations. In 2004, the Supreme Court in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain resolved some of the questions left open by Filartiga.

Sosa concluded that ATS claims must be limited to law of nations violations as well defined as those recognized in 1789. The Court tasked the …