Law Commons^™

Polarized Circuits: Party Affiliation Of Appointing Presidents, Ideology And Circuit Court Voting In Race And Gender Civil Rights Cases, Christopher R. Smith

Christopher R Smith

ABSTRACT Polarized Circuits: Party Affiliation of Appointing Presidents, Ideology and Circuit Court Voting in Race and Gender Civil Rights Cases This article seeks to examine the impact of Presidential party affiliation on the ideological voting patterns of Circuit Court judicial appointments within the context of race and gender civil rights cases. The article assesses two hypotheses regarding Circuit Court judicial voting patterns in race and gender civil rights cases: 1) That the ideological voting gap between Democratic appointed Circuit Court judges and Republican appointed Circuit Court judges has widened over time within the context of race and gender civil rights …

Sugarcoating The Eighth Amendment, Christopher J. Declue

Christopher J DeClue

This Article demonstrates that Eighth Amendment gross disproportionality review is virtually identical to the Fourteenth Amendment rational-basis test. Under the Fourteenth Amendment rational-basis test, a law is upheld so long as it furthers a conceivable government purpose. Case law illustrates a similar standard is applied in the face of an Eighth Amendment challenge to the length of a prison sentence. Under gross disproportionality review, the length of a sentence is upheld so long as the sentence furthers a conceivable penological purpose. Moreover, under this standard, the length of a sentence violates the Eighth Amendment only on the rare occasion that …

A Good Score?: Examining 20 Years Of Drug Courts In The United States And Abroad, Kimberly Y.W. Holst

Kimberly Y.W. Holst

In 2009, we saw the passing of the twentieth anniversary of drug courts in the United States, this timing presents an opportune moment to review the state of drug courts in the United States and the development of drug courts internationally. While the United States has served as a model and a leader in the creation and development of drug courts, countries all over the world have tweaked the United States’ model and have altered the landscape in the structure and development of drug courts. Section II of this article briefly discusses the development and current status of drug courts …

Because The Cart Situates The Horse: Unrecognized Movements Underlying The Indian Supreme Court’S Internalization Of International Environmental Law, Saptarishi Bandopadhyay

Saptarishi Bandopadhyay

The text that follows is intended to serve as an examination of the approaches and methods employed by the Indian Supreme Court in its effort to integrate international environmental norms such as the principle of Sustainable Development, the Precautionary Principle and the Polluter Pays Principle as part of the existing body of binding, municipal rules in India. Virtually all of Indian legal jurisprudence that speaks to this subject has been developed by the Supreme Court. Likewise, in no small part for this contribution, the Court has developed a reputation for being an activist institution that has since the mid 1980s …

The Supreme Appointment: Visionaries Need Not Apply, Charles W. Rhodes

Charles W Rhodes

The recent announcement of Justice John Paul Stevens that he would retire at the end of the October 2009 Term has instigated the typical media frenzy of shortlists and speculation regarding the identity of the next nominee to the United States Supreme Court. Will President Barack Obama make a bold nomination of a liberal judicial visionary to battle Justices Scalia and Thomas? Will he nominate a political officeholder who will bring a new perspective on the role of the Court? Or will he follow the recent tradition of nominating a sitting federal appellate court judge with a prestigious academic and …

Changing The Rules Of The Game: Deriving New Rules And Practices From Caperton V. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Aman L. Mcleod

Aman L McLeod

In 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., in which it ruled that judges must recuse themselves in cases involving those who have provided a disproportionate amount of financial support to their campaigns. This decision has forced states to reconsider their campaign finance laws and their judicial recusal rules. This article proposes practical and modest reforms that states could adopt that would effectively respond to the Caperton decision.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify – An Analysis Of Two Decades Of Judicial Review In The Veterans Benefits Adjudication System, Rory E. Riley

Rory E. Riley

Prior to the Veterans' Judicial Review Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs existed in "splendid isolation" - meaning that the department was insulated from judicial review by statute. After the due process revolution of the 1960's and pressure from various veterans’ organizations after the Vietnam war, Congress passed the Veterans' Judicial Review Act in 1988. The Act created the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, an article I court with exclusive jurisdiction over decisions by the Board of Veterans' Appeals. This article argues that 20 years after the Veterans' Judicial Review Act was implemented, the system has become more …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisionmaking, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Growing Pains: Building Arbitration's Legitimacy Through Everyday Arbitral Decisions, John B. Mcarthur

John B McArthur

Arbitration’s rapid growth has come under pressure in recent years. A Supreme Court decision holding that awards under the Federal Arbitration Act cannot be vacated on the merits even if they clearly are wrong has helped discredit arbitration. Misuse of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchise settings has led to proposals for radical constriction under the Arbitration Fairness Act. Facing these challenges, arbitrators need to ensure the quality of their awards by adhering to the rule of law and resisting the temptation to administer a personal brand of justice. They need to discourage silent awards and provide reasoned decisions …

Empowering The Sentencing Commission: A Different Resolution To The Cocaine Sentencing Drama, Kip D. Nelson

Kip D Nelson

No abstract provided.

Compelling The Courts To Question Gonzales V. O Centro: A Public Harms Approach To Free Exercise Analysis, Ari B. Fontecchio

Ari B Fontecchio

At its core, this article uses an original, empirical case study to argue that the Supreme Court's 2006 decision in Gonzales v. O Centro has elevated the level of scrutiny with which courts evaluate the government's compelling interest, expanding the safe harbor for harmful, religious activity. In O Centro, the Supreme Court rejected the government's compelling interest in regulating religious use of the Schedule I hallucinogenic substance hoasca. The case survey at the core of this article demonstrates that since this decision, lower courts have required the government to justify its regulation of potentially harmful activities with an almost unrealistically …

When Natural Science Meets The Dismal Science, Stephanie Tai

Stephanie Tai

Both the natural sciences—such as ecology, biology, chemistry, and physics—and economics—the so-called “dismal science”— have become integral to contemporary governance. This article examines how the Supreme Court and appellate courts have taken into account developments in natural science and economics in evaluating Commerce Clause challenges to environmental laws, and applies this examination to the context of wetlands regulation. I present a descriptive claim: that courts, especially the Supreme Court, have already been incorporating new developments in science and economics in their Commerce Clause opinions; this use of developments in scientific and economic research, I contend, arises out of the empirical …

The Art Of Statutory Interpretation: Identifying The Approach Of The Judges Of The United States Court Of Appeals For Veterans' Claims And The United States Court Of Appeals For The Federal Circuit, Linda D. Jellum

Linda D. Jellum

This article explores judicial approaches to statutory interpretation, a topic of interest to scholars, academics, and practitioners. Perhaps more than any other subject, understanding the theory of interpretation is critical to understanding statutory interpretation because theory drives every aspect of statutory interpretation. A judge’s theory of interpretation determines what information a judge will consider when searching for meaning. For example, some judges will not look at legislative history or social context for meaning unless the text of the statute is ambiguous or absurd. Assuming that the legislative history is helpful to their case, lawyers must learn to “talk the talk” …

Indecisive Reasons For Action: Socrates, Not Hercules, As Judicial Ideal, Eric J. Miller

Eric J. Miller

Ronald Dworkin famously introduces the idealized judge, Hercules, to demonstrate how to identify one right answer for any legal problem. Since judicial disagreement makes sense, according to Dworkin, against the background of plural theories of the good, Hercules solves a particular political problem: how to avoid apathy or indecisiveness in choosing among competing theories. Dworkin's judge is supposed to stand by his or her political convictions in the face of competing, plural points of view. Choosing the one right answer is thus a method of political commitment.

My claim is that Dworkin is caught between a rock and a hard …

Sex, Threats, And Absent Victims: The Lessons Of Regina V. Bedingfield For Modern Confrontation And Domestic Violence Cases, Aviva A. Orenstein

Aviva A. Orenstein

In 2004, Crawford v. Washington, authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, revolutionized the law of confrontation by requiring that, aside from two discrete exceptions, all testimonial statements (those made with the expectation that they will serve to prosecute the accused) be subject to cross-examination. This new interpretation of the Sixth Amendment confrontation clause has profoundly affected domestic violence cases, making it much harder to prosecute them successfully.

Although Justice Scalia’s approach to confrontation is new, it is strikingly similar to the analysis in Regina v. Bedingfield, a notorious English murder case, which excluded from the evidence an alleged statement by the …