Law Commons^™

A Hardy Case Makes Bad Law, Victoria Sahani

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is the first ever to analyze a direct clash between the inherent power of US courts regarding the enforcement ofjudgments and the obligations of the United States as one of the 163 member countries of the 1965 Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States, commonly known as the "ICSID Convention. " The ICSID Convention includes a self-enforcement mechanism whereby the courts of the member countries are obligated to enforce the pecuniary obligations in multimillion (and sometimes over one billion) dollar ICSID arbitration awards as though they were court judgments of the …

Law School News: Grappling With Law On Campus Sexual Misconduct 11-08-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Lawyers Weekly Newsmaker Reception : November 20, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Legitimacy Of Judicial Climate Engagement, Katrina Fischer Kuh

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Courts in key climate change cases have abdicated their constitutional responsibility to protect a prejudiced and disenfranchised group (nonvoting minors and future generations) and remedy an insidious pathology in public discourse and the political process: the industry-funded climate disinformation campaign. This Article posits that this abdication results from courts' uneasiness about displacing the prerogatives of democratically elected bodies. This uneasiness is misplaced. Court engagement with climate cases would strengthen democracy in accord with widely accepted justifications for countermajoritarian judicial review. This Article first describes in detail how courts exhibit a frustrating reticence to accept jurisdiction over cases that present questions …

Fictional Pleas, Thea B. Johnson

Faculty Publications

A fictional plea is one in which the defendant pleads guilty to a crime he has not committed with the knowledge of the defense attorney, prosecutor and judge. With fictional pleas, the plea of conviction is totally detached from the original factual allegations against the defendant. As criminal justice actors become increasingly troubled by the impact of collateral consequences on defendants, the fictional plea serves as an appealing response to this concern. It allows the parties to achieve parallel aims: the prosecutor holds the defendant accountable in the criminal system, while the defendant avoids devastating non-criminal consequences. In this context, …

Law Library Blog (July 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Simplified Courts Can't Solve Inequality, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

State civil courts struggle to handle the volume of cases before them. Litigants in these courts, most of whom are unrepresented, struggle to navigate the courts to solve their problems. This access-to-justice crisis has led to a range of reform efforts and solutions. One type of reform, court simplification, strives to reduce the complexity of procedures and information used by courts to help unrepresented litigants navigate the judicial system. These reforms mitigate but do not solve the symptoms of the larger underlying problem: state civil courts are struggling because they have been stuck with legal cases that arise from the …

Law School News: Law Graduates Urged To 'Help Bring Society Together' 05-17-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

First Women Lawyers In Rhode Island: Dedication First Women Of The Rhode Island Bar (1920-1979) 04-11-2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay, Meghan M. O'Neil, Jj Prescott

Law & Economics Working Papers

Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and …

Specialization Trend: Water Courts, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

Definition of property rights is not useful unless there is an enforcement system, either public or private, that backs it up. While the definition of property rights as a solution to the tragedy of the commons has been carefully analyzed in the literature, the enforcement piece has been somewhat overlooked. Water is becoming scarcer and conflict is rising. As a result, the need for an efficient and fair enforcement system is more necessary than ever due to climate change.

Given the complexity of water law and the backlog in the judicial system, introducing specialization in the resolution of water cases …

Rwu First Amendement Blog: Jared Goldstein's Blog: The First Amendment And The Foxy Lady 01-08-2019, Jared A. Goldstein

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

An Alternative Path To Rule Of Law: Thailand's Twenty-First Century Administrative Courts, Frank W. Munger, Peerawich Thoviriyavej, Vorapitchaya Rabiablok

Articles & Chapters

New courts in Asia’s rapidly developing states offer an opportunity to understand how a court system takes root in a society. This article presents a case study of the development of administrative court structure, functions, and practice in Thailand: Southeast Asia’s newest system of administrative courts. The study examines why courts made sense to those who established them and how the courts’ authority is being utilized. For relatively powerless and resource-poor litigants, barriers to litigation may be many, but when these barriers are overcome, administrative courts exercise extraordinary influence, even when they fail to render a decision fully vindicating a …

Fallen Woman (Re) Frame: Judge Jean Hortense Norris, New York City - 1912-1955, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Constitutionally Incapable: Parole Boards As Sentencing Courts, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

Courtroom sentencing, as part of the judicial process, is a long-standing norm in the justice system of the United States. But this basic criminal law precept is currently under quiet attack. This is because some states are now allowing parole boards to step in to decide criminal penalties without first affording defendants lawful judicial branch sentencing proceedings and sentences. These outside-of-court punishment decisions are occurring in the cases of youthful offenders entitled to sentencing relief under Miller v. Alabama, which outlawed automatic life-without-parole sentences for children. Thus, some Miller-impacted defendants are being sentenced by paroleboards as executive branch agents, rather …

Fallen Woman Further (Re)Framed: Jewels And Travels, Tragedies And Secrets, Judge Hortense Norris, Mae Quinn

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Procedural Fairness In Antitrust Enforcement: The U.S. Perspective, Christopher S. Yoo, Hendrik M. Wendland

All Faculty Scholarship

Due process and fairness in enforcement procedures represent a critical aspect of the rule of law. Allowing greater participation by the parties and making enforcement procedures more transparent serve several functions, including better decisionmaking, greater respect for government, stronger economic growth, promotion of investment, limits corruption and politically motivated actions, regulation of bureaucratic ambition, and greater control of agency staff whose vision do not align with agency leadership or who are using an enforcement matter to advance their careers. That is why such distinguished actors as the International Competition Network (ICN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the …

Endrew F. Clairvoyance, Mark Weber

College of Law Faculty

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that “Prior decisions of this Court are consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Endrew F.,” the 2017 Supreme Court decision interpreting the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act obligation to furnish students with disabilities free, appropriate public education. This Essay considers whether that statement is accurate, and concludes that while some of the past Second Circuit decisions fit comfortably with Endrew F. ex rel. Joseph F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1, others do not. The Essay submits that the court of appeals should confess a lack of clairvoyance in its earlier …

The Bemba Appeals Chamber Judgment: Impunity For Sexual And Gender-Based Crimes?, Susana Sacouto, Patricia Viseur Sellers

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

On June 8, 2018, a majority of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) reversed the conviction of former military commander Jean-Pierre Bemba for the crimes against humanity of rape and murder and the war crimes of rape, murder, and pillaging committed by his troops in the Central African Republic (CAR) between October 2002, and March 2003. The decision was clearly a disappointment for the victims of the crimes committed by Bemba’s troops, who have been waiting for more than fifteen years for a measure of justice. Significantly, the acquittal also means that sixteen years after the Rome …

Second-Best Criminal Case, William Ortman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Stern Claims And Article Iii Adjudication - The Bankruptcy Judge Knows Best, Laura B. Bartell

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Respect The Hustle: Necessity Entrepreneurship, Returning Citizens, And Social Enterprise Strategies, Priya Baskaran

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article addresses a pervasive and growing problem for returning citizens – high rates of economic insecurity – and as a novel solution, proposes the creation of Economic Justice Incubators a new municipally led social enterprise strategy.

Mass incarceration is a national problem and requires comprehensive criminal justice reform. In contrast, the process of reentry is locally focused thanks to a complex web of collateral consequences. An estimated 641,000 people return home from prison each year, many to a limited number of economically distressed communities. Once released, their mobility is limited by the terms of their parole and the collateral …

Disregarding The Salomon Principle: An Empirical Analysis, 1885–2014, Peter B. Oh, Alan J. Dignam

Articles

For over a century UK courts have struggled to negotiate a coherent approach to the circumstances in which the Salomon principle –that a corporation is a separate legal entity–will be disregarded. Empirical analysis can facilitate our understanding of this mercurial area of the law. Examining UK cases from 1885 to 2014, we created a final dataset of 213 cases coded for 15 different categories. Key findings confirm historical patterns of uncertainty and a low but overall fluctuating disregard rate, declining recently. Criminal/fraud/deception claims link strongly to disregard outcomes. Private law rates are low but tort claims have a higher disregard …

Taxing Combat, Kan Samuel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Court Personnel Attitudes Towards Medication-Assisted Treatment: A Statewide Survey, Barbara Andraka-Christou, Meghan Gabriel, Jody L. Madeira, Rod D. Silverman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Background: Despite its efficacy, medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is rarely available in the criminal justice system in the United States, including in problem-solving courts or diversionary settings. Previous studies have demonstrated criminal justice administrators' hostility towards MAT, especially in prisons and jails. Yet, few studies have examined attitudes among court personnel or compared beliefs among different types of personnel. Also, few studies have explored the relationship between MAT education/training and attitudes. Finally, few studies have directly compared attitudes towards methadone, oral buprenorphine, and extended-release naltrexone in the criminal justice system.

Methods: We modified a survey by Matusow et al. (2013) to …

Risk-Averse Contract Interpretation, Aditi Bagchi

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Fiduciary Theory Of Prosecution, Bruce A. Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have failed to arrive at a unifying theory of prosecution, one that explains the complex role that prosecutors play in our democratic system. This Article draws on a developing body of legal scholarship on fiduciary theory to offer a new paradigm that grounds prosecutors’ obligations in their historical role as fiduciaries. Casting prosecutors as fiduciaries clarifies the prosecutor’s obligation to seek justice, focuses attention on the duties of care and loyalty, and prioritizes criminal justice considerations over other public policy interests in prosecutorial charging and plea-bargaining decisions. As fiduciaries, prosecutors are required to engage in an explicit deliberative process …

How Courts In Criminal Cases Respond To Childhood Trauma, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

Neurobiological and epidemiological research suggests that abuse and adverse events experienced as a child can increase an adult’s risk of brain dysfunction associated with disorders related to criminality and violence. Much of this research is predictive, based on psychological evaluations of children; few studies have focused on whether or how criminal proceedings against adult defendants consider indicators of childhood trauma. This Article analyzes a subset of criminal cases pulled from an 800-case database created as part of an original, large-scale, empirical research project known as the Neuroscience Study. The 266 relevant cases are assessed to determine the extent to which, …

Early Childhood Development And The Replication Of Poverty, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Traditional understandings of federalism suggest that states are likely to take varying approaches to important policy questions, particularly in areas as sensitive as family law. And indeed, there are patterns of convergence and divergence in state approaches to supporting early childhood development. Surprisingly, however, the divergences do not always follow predictable political lines. These similarities and differences raise a puzzle that deserves attention by scholars and advocates.

In the United States, differences in early childhood play a key role in replicating poverty. Clear evidence establishes that child development in the first five years of life lays essential groundwork for future …

Reconsidering Judicial Independence: Forty-Five Years In The Trenches And In The Tower, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

Trusting in the integrity of our institutions when they are not under stress, we focus attention on them both when they are under stress or when we need them to protect us against other institutions. In the case of the federal judiciary, the two conditions often coincide. In this essay, I use personal experience to provide practical context for some of the important lessons about judicial independence to be learned from the periods of stress for the federal judiciary I have observed as a lawyer and concerned citizen, and to provide theoretical context for lessons I have deemed significant as …