Law Commons^™

Optimizing Whistleblowing, Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

Whistleblowers have exposed misconduct in settings ranging from public health to national security. Whistleblowing thus consistently plays a vital role in safeguarding society. But how much whistleblowing is optimal? And how many meritless claims should we tolerate to reach that optimum? Surprisingly, legislators and scholars have overlooked these essential questions, a neglect that has resulted in undertheorized, stab-in-the-dark whistleblower regimes, risking both overdeterrence and underdeterrence.

This Article confronts the question of optimal whistleblowing in the context of financial fraud. Design choices, which play out along two axes, have profound effects on the successful implementation of whistleblowing policy. One axis varies …

The Inherent And Supervisory Power, Jeffrey C. Dobbins

Georgia Law Review

Parties to litigation expect courts to operate both
predictably and fairly. A core part of this expectation is
the presence of codified rules of procedure, which ensure
fairness while constraining, and making more
predictable, the ebb and flow of litigation.
Within the courts of this country, however, there is a
font of authority over procedure that courts often turn to
in circumstances when they claim that there is no
written guidance. This authority, referred to as the
“inherent” or “supervisory” power of courts, is an almost
pure expression of a court’s exercise of discretion in that
it gives courts the …

Decriminalizing Childhood, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

Even though the number of juveniles arrested, tried and detained has recently declined, there are still a large number of delinquency cases, children under supervision by state officials, and children living in state facilities for youth and adults. Additionally, any positive developments in juvenile justice have not been evenly experienced by all youth. Juveniles living in urban areas are more likely to have their cases formally processed in the juvenile justice system rather than informally resolved. Further, the reach of the justice system has a particularly disparate effect on minority youth who tend to live in heavily-policed urban areas.

The …

Judicial Federalism In The European Union, Michael Wells

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This article compares European Union judicial federalism with the American version. Its thesis is that the European Union’s long-term goal of political integration probably cannot be achieved without strengthening its rudimentary judicial institutions. On the one hand, the EU is a federal system in which judicial power is divided between EU courts, of which there are only three, and the well-entrenched and longstanding member state court systems. On the other hand, both the preamble and Article 1 of the Treaty of Europe state that an aim of the European Union is “creating an ever closer union among the peoples of …

Applications Of Neuroscience In Criminal Law: Legal And Methodological Issues, John B. Meixner Jr.

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The use of neuroscience in criminal law applications is an increasingly discussed topic among legal and psychological scholars. Over the past 5 years, several prominent federal criminal cases have referenced neuroscience studies and made admissibility determinations regarding neuroscience evidence. Despite this growth, the field is exceptionally young, and no one knows for sure how significant of a contribution neuroscience will make to criminal law. This article focuses on three major subfields: (1) neuroscience-based credibility assessment, which seeks to detect lies or knowledge associated with a crime; (2) application of neuroscience to aid in assessments of brain capacity for culpability, especially …

Reconceptualizing Non-Article Iii Tribunals, Jaime Dodge

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The Supreme Court’s Article III doctrine is built upon an explicit assumption that Article III must accommodate non-Article III tribunals in order to allow Congress to “innovate” by creating new procedural structures to further its substantive regulatory goals. In this Article, I challenge that fundamental assumption. I argue that each of the types of non-Article III innovation and the underlying procedural goals cited by the Court can be obtained through our Article III courts. The Article then demonstrates that these are not theoretical or hypothetical solutions, but instead are existing structures already in place within Article III. Demonstrating that the …

The Role Of Experts In Proving International Human Rights Law In Domestic Courts: A Commentary, Harold G. Maier

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Iqbal, Twombly, And The Lessons Of The Celotex Trilogy, Hillel Y. Levin

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This Essay compares the Twombly/Iqbal line of cases to the Celotex trilogy and suggests that developments since the latter offer lessons for the former. Some of the comparisons are obvious: decreased access and increased judicial discretion. However, one important similarity has not been well understood: that the driving force in both contexts has been the lower courts rather than the Supreme Court. Further, while we can expect additional access barriers to be erected in the future, our focus should be on lower courts, rather than other institutional players, as the likely source of those barriers.

Decisional Sequencing, Peter B. Rutledge

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Judicial decisionmaking consists of two sets of choices – (1) how to resolve the issues in a case and (2) how to decide the order in which those issues will be resolved. Much legal scholarship focuses on the first question; too little focuses on the second. This Article aims to fill that gap. Drawing across disciplines – philosophy, economics and political science – this Article articulates a theory of “decisional sequencing.” Decisional sequencing concerns the extent to which legal rules constrain – and do not constrain – the order in which judges and other quasi-judicial actors (like arbitrators) decide matters …

The Price Of Misdemeanor Representation, Erica J. Hashimoto

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Nobody disputes either the reality of excessive caseloads in indigent defense systems or their negative effects. More than forth years after Gideon v. Wainwright, however, few seem willing to accept that additional resources will not magically appear to solve the problem. Rather, concerned observers demand more funds while state and local legislators resist those entreaties in the face of political resistance and pressures to balance government budgets. Recognizing that indigent defense systems must operate in a world of limited resources, states should reduce the number of cases streaming into those systems by significantly curtailing the appointment of counsel in low-level …

Crumbs From The Master's Table: The Supreme Court, Pro Se Defendants And The Federal Guilty Plea Process, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

This Article will commence with a review of the rather significant evolution of Rule 11, including a review of several pertinent Supreme Court decisions that have helped shape its current structure. Thereafter, the predominant judicial methodology for conducting Rule 11 hearings will be discussed. Specifically, this Article will take a brief but critical look at, inter alia, the examination techniques employed by the judiciary when conducting Rule 11 hearings, and conclude that the process typically employed inadequately assesses whether a defendant's guilty plea was entered into knowingly and voluntarily. Next, this Article will discuss two very recent Supreme Court decisions--United …

"May It Please The Camera,...I Mean The Court"--An Intrajudicial Solution To An Extrajudicial Problem, Lonnie T. Brown

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This Article explores the depths of the ethical issues presented when lawyers zealously advocate on behalf of their clients to the media, as well as the negative public policy ramifications that such behavior generates. The latter effect most seriously signals the need for reform in this area. Part II of the Article provides insight into the principal source of the problem--the ineffectiveness of the existing regulatory devices. This section traces the evolution of the ethical rules that pertain to public commentary by lawyers from the early days of steadfast condemnation to the modern appraoch of cautious equivocation. It also considers …

Fifteen Famous Supreme Court Cases From Georgia, Dan T. Coenen

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John Inscoe, UGA professor of history and editor of the New Georgia Encyclopedia, invited Hosch Professor Dan T. Coenen to contribute a series of essays on the most significant U.S. Supreme Court cases that originated in the state of Georgia. This article, which proposes an unranked top 15 list, is built on this work.

Race And The Georgia Courts: Implications Of The Georgia Public Trust And Confidence Survey For Batson V. Kentucky And Its Progeny, George W. Dougherty, Randy Beck, Mark D. Bradbury

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Put simply, there is a perception among many Georgians that the court system treats minorities worse than whites. This Essay considers implications of the Georgia findings for a line of United States Supreme Court decisions designed to prevent racial discrimination by trial lawyers in the selection of trial juries.

Dissenting Opinions: In The Georgia Supreme Court, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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Under our system of justice, each jurisdiction necessarily evolves its own distinct tradition of judicial dissent. That evolution's impetus, history, pattern, and results all converge in an informative profile--affording yet another means of studying a state's highest appellate court. A dissent profile of the Georgia Supreme Court thus offers an additional evaluative view of the state's most important judicial cathedral.

Naked Politics, Federal Courts Law, And The Canon Of Acceptable Arguments, Michael Wells

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In this Article, I argue that there is a wide gap between the aspirations and the actual operation of Federal Courts law. I maintain that, despite the conversational rule forbidding it, raw substance in fact wields significant influence in the resolution of Federal Courts issues. For example, the familiar argument that federal courts should be favored because they are more "sympathetic" to federal claims is really an appeal to naked politics. The empirical premise of this and other arguments of naked politics is that there are structural differences between federal and state courts which affect the outcomes of close cases, …

Who's Afraid Of Henry Hart?, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

No law book has enjoyed greater acclaim from distinguished commentators over a sustained period than has Hart & Wechsler's The Federal Courts and the Federal System. Indeed, the praise seems to escalate from one edition to the next. Reviewing the first edition, published forty-three years ago, Philip Kurland called it "the definitive text on the subject of federal jurisdiction." Paul Mishkin added that "the analysis is of an order difficult to match anywhere." In his review of the second edition, published in 1973, Henry Monaghan began by praising the first for having "deservedly achieved a reputation that is extraordinary among …

Positivism And Antipositivism In Federal Courts Law, Michael Wells

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What is the proper role of rules in federal courts law? Some scholars associated with the Legal Process assert that rules are unimportant here. They believe that the values of principled adjudication and reasoned elaboration should take precedence over the making and application of rules. The area is, in the jargon of jurisprudence, "antipositivist." Others maintain that rules do, or at any rate should, count heavily in federal courts' decisionmaking. In this Article, I argue that Legal Process scholars are right to spurn formalism in most parts of federal courts law. But the Legal Process model of federal courts law …

Busting The Hart & Wechsler Paradigm, Michael L. Wells

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Federal Courts law was once a vibrant area of scholarship and an essential course for intellectually ambitious students. Now its prestige has diminished so much that scholars debate its future in a recent issue of the Vanderbilt Law Review, where even one of its champions calls it (albeit in the subjunctive mood) a “scholarly backwater.” What, if anything, went wrong, and what should Federal Courts scholars do about it? In his contribution to the Vanderbilt symposium, Richard Fallon defends the reigning model of Federal Courts law, an approach to jurisdictional issues that dates from the publication in 1953 of Henry …

French And American Judicial Opinions, Michael Wells

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In this Article, I examine the foundations of American judicial form, in particular the proposition that powerful instrumental considerations support the issuance of reasoned opinions. This project proceeds from the belief that the form of judicial opinions deserves serious scholarly attention despite the broad consensus about its value, because it frames the terms of debate on every issue courts confront. My analysis is built on the view that critical insights into the nature of one's own legal system can be gleaned only by "understand[ing] what [one's] system is not," a task that requires putting aside the internal perspective of a …

The Georgia Jury And Negligence: The View From The (Federal) Bench, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

This is the second part of a two-part inquiry into the quality of jury performance in Georgia negligence cases. Evaluation begins from within. That is an especially prominent truth in respect to the trial of negligence cases. The lay-professional partnership composing the civil trial system is unique. the professional's continuity provides a point of perfect perspective on the transient lay component--both its capacity and its performance. If the professional will share that perspective, it can structure a benchmark for foundational appraisal. To their great credit, the state and federal trial judges of Georgia are unstinting in assisting to construct that …

The Impact Of Substantive Interests On The Law Of Federal Courts, Michael L. Wells

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The thesis of this Article is that substantive factors exert a powerful and often unrecognized influence over the resolution of jurisdictional issues, and have done so throughout our history. The chief substantive factors at issue are the government's interest iin regulating behavior on the one hand, and the individual's interest in enforcing constitutional restraints upon government on the other. Part I of this Article examines the relationship between jurisdictional rules and substantive consequences, Part II describes the Court's conventional account of federal courts doctrine in terms of jurisdictional policy and institutional roles, and Part III shows that the reasons set …

Legal Advocacy, Performance, And Affection, D. Robert Lohn, Milner S. Ball

Scholarly Works

Professor Geoffrey Hazard's lecture addresses appellate advocacy. That advocate's brief is best, he says, that, short of surrender, concedes most to the opposing party. We assume that Professor Hazard would scarcely have ventured out of New Haven to participate in the distinguished Sibley Lectureship merely to commend to the consideration of the audience an interesting but minor rhetorical ploy. Therefore we read his comments as surely implying more. We interpret his lecture as an invitation to rethink the nature of the courtroom event. The textual openings to our examination of fundamentals are found in various of Professor Hazard's comments--for instance, …

The Role Of Comity In The Law Of Federal Courts, Michael L. Wells

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Considerations of comity often require federal courts to defer to state courts when federal issues could be raised in state proceedings. Contexts in which such deference is required include Younger abstention, habeus corpus exhaustion and procedural default, and Pullman and Burford abstention. In this Article, Professor Wells demonstrates that the Supreme Court's opinions fail to make a distinction between cases where comity requires restraint and those where it does not. The Court's motive in invoking comity is not to decrease access to federal courts, but instead to strike a compromise between the individual's interest in a federal forum and the …

Equal Protection For Juveniles: The Present Status Of Sex-Based Discrimination In Juvenile Court Laws, Samuel M. Davis, Susan C. Chaires

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The authors of this Article are concerned with sex-based discrimination in juvenile court laws. They first analyze those state laws that are sexually discriminatory and then explore the possibility of attacking these laws under the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. Finally, the potential impact of the Equal Rights Amendment upon these laws is discussed.

The Federal Anti-Injunction Statute In The Aftermath Of Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, John Daniel Reaves, David S. Golden

Scholarly Works

Last Term the Supreme Court rendered its decision in Atlantic Coast Line Railroad v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. This case involved the present anti-injunction statute, section 2283 of Title 28, which forbids federal court injunction of state court proceedings. Mr. Justice Black, writing for the majority, traced the roots of the statute's predecessor into the "fundamental constitutional independence of the states and their courts." He hinted that the act grew out of concern for constitutional inviolability of a state court's adjudicative process. Mr. Justice Black went on to announce that the anti-injunction statute is absolute; no judicially created exceptions …