Judges Commons^™

Justice Blackmun And The Spirit Of Liberty, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

As we see in this symposium, Justice Harry Blackmun is as controversial in death as he was in life. We live in a time of increasing absolutism, where things are either black or white, red or blue, you are either for me or against me, my way or the highway. It is when we are swayed by the sirens of absolutism that we are most likely to make mistakes, for absolutism diminishes our capacity to see nuance, much less to appreciate and account for it in our reasoning. This is a dangerous thing in a court, and in a democracy. …

Supreme Court Nomination John G. Roberts: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 109th Cong., Sept. 15, 2005 (Statement Of Peter B. Edelman, Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), Peter B. Edelman

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Overview, October Term 2004, Georgetown University Law Center, Supreme Court Institute, Kelly Falls

Supreme Court Overviews

No abstract provided.

Judicial Citation To Legislative History: Contextual Theory And Empirical Analysis, Michael B. Abramowicz, Emerson H. Tiller

Law and Economics Papers

Judge Leventhal famously described the invocation of legislative history as "the equivalent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one's friends." The volume of legislative history is so great and varied, some contend, that judges cite it selectively to advance their policy agendas. In this article, we employ positive political and contextual theories of judicial behavior to examine how judges use legislative history. We consider whether opinion-writing judges, as Judge Leventhal might suggest, cite legislative history from legislators who share the same political-ideological perspective as the opinion-writing judge? Or do judges make …

Mixed Signals And Subtle Cues: Jury Independence And Judicial Appointment Of The Jury Foreperson, Andrew Horwitz

Law Faculty Scholarship

Imagine that you are falsely accused of a serious crime and that you are now on trial before a judge and jury. You knew before the trial began that the judge had a reputation as a “law and order” judge, as a judge who was not at all receptive to the arguments of most criminal defense attorneys. You have been watching as the judge and your attorney have been engaged in what appears to be an adversarial battle throughout the trial, but you have taken some comfort in the fact that it will be the jury, not the judge, who …

“Stop Me Before I Get Reversed Again”: The Failure Of Illinois Appellate Courts To Protect Their Criminal Decisions From United States Supreme Court Review, 36 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 893 (2005), Timothy P. O'Neill

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Triage: Reflections On The Debate Over Unpublished Opinions, Mitu Gulati, David C. Vladeck

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court Report 2004-05: The End Of The Rehnquist Era, Julie M. Cheslik

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Futility Of Appeal: Disciplinary Insights Into The "Affirmance Effect" On The United States Courts Of Appeals, Chris Guthrie, Tracey E. George

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In contrast to the Supreme Court, which typically reverses the cases it hears, the United States Courts of Appeals almost always affirm the cases that they hear. We set out to explore this affirmance effect on the U.S. Courts of Appeal by using insights drawn from law and economics (i.e., selection theory), political science (i.e., attitudinal theory and new institutionalism), and cognitive psychology (i.e., heuristics and biases, including the status quo and omission biases).

The Federal Appellate Court Appointments Conundrum,, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Selection of federal appellate court judges is now extremely controversial. Slowed nominee processing, accusations and countercharges between Democrats and Republicans, as well as "paybacks," have characterized appointments since 1990. One tenth of the 179 active circuit judgeships authorized by the United States Congress are perennially vacant, and substantial numbers of these positions can remain open for years. The Senate Judiciary Committee increasingly votes along straight political party lines, and Democratic senators even relied on filibusters to deny nominees positions on the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as well as the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth …

Appellate Court Appointments In The Second Bush Administration, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Prof. Tobias discusses the renominations by President George W. Bush of twelve candidates for the United States courts of appeals, all previously opposed by Democratic senators during the President's initial term. Likely reasons and predicted consequences for these renominations are offered.

Fourth Circuit Publication Practices, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Certain publication practices, especially dependence on issuing unpublished opinions, are one major response of federal courts to the increasing number of appeals. Few observers have assessed how specific tribunals employ these practices, although a recent study elucidates them. The Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals (Commission) gathered much useful data, which have remained strikingly constant, on each court. Because Fourth Circuit's publication practices and reliance on unpublished decisions allow the court to manage a large docket and suggest that it may not enunciate the common law, this Article scrutinizes those practices.

The Article first describes the …

Aliens In Our Midst Post-9/11: Legislating Outsider-Ness Within The Borders, Sylvia R. Lazos, Raquel E. Aldana

Scholarly Works

Three recent books written by Professors Bill Ong Hing, Kevin R. Johnson, and Victor C. Romero provide skillfully crafted roadmaps with which to understand the key emerging issues that will shape immigration law well into the next decade: the relationship of immigration control to national security. This Review captures the insights provided by these three authors to examine the restrictive laws and policies aimed at noncitizens in the name of national security as highlighted by the current efforts to federalize driver’s licenses. As this Review explains, these three books map the current antagonistic attitudes towards noncitizens post 9/11, and serve …

Does A Diverse Judiciary Attain A Rule Of Law That Is Inclusive? What Grutter V. Bollinger Has To Say About Diversity On The Bench, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

Race matters, but judges and courts have failed to fashion a rule of law that is inclusive of all racial perspectives and realities in the United States. The reason for this dismal performance lies in how predominantly White judges, and therefore courts, conceptualize race. This article illustrates this proposition by analyzing the Rehnquist Court's race relations jurisprudence in three Supreme Court decisions handed down in 2003: Grutter v. Bollinger,Gratz v. Bollinger,and Georgia v. Ashcroft.Even as the United States Supreme Court entered increasingly complex areas of race relations, the Court continued to apply a simplistic concept of how race functions. The …

Mr. Justice Posner? Unpacking The Statistics, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Call For Change: Improving Judicial Selection Methods, Jason J. Czarnezki

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Empirical data show that, despite the significant electoral success of state court judges, elections still impact judicial decision making. Using the State of Wisconsin as an example, this Essay suggests that Wisconsin and other state legislatures, with the support of bar associations and academics, should revisit the historical underpinnings of judicial elections and consider both whether electing judges conforms with the historical goals of having an elected judiciary and whether the available empirical data support the belief that elected judges can be systematically consistent and independent in the decision making process.

European Union's New Role In International Private Litigation, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

No abstract provided.

Hail To The Chief: Former Law Clerks For William Rehnquist Recall What They Learned And How He Touched Their Lives, Craig M. Bradley, Laura E. Little, John C. Englander, Celestine Richards Mcconville

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died Sept. 3, is remembered for his disarming warmth and humor, breadth of knowledge about the law, and insistence that there is life outside the office. Few knew him better than the legions of clerks who tolled with and learned from him. Indeed, the sheer number who attended his funeral testifies to how highly he was regarded. Here, four former clerks from the decades of the 1970s, '80s and '90s write about their own particular memories of the late chief justice.

Congress's Power To Enforce Fourteenth Amendment Rights: Lessons From Federal Remedies The Framers Enacted , Robert J. Kaczorowski

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Robert Kaczorowski argues for an expansive originalist interpretation of Congressional power under the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the Civil War Congress actually exercised, and the Supreme Court repeatedly upheld plenary Congressional power to enforce the constitutional rights of slaveholders. After the Civil War, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment copied the antebellum statutes and exercised plenary power to enforce the constitutional rights of all American citizens when they enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and then incorporated the Act into the Fourteenth Amendment. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment thereby exercised the plenary power the Rehnquist Court claims the …

The Judgment Of The Boss On Bossing The Judges: Bruce Springsteen, Judicial Independence, And The Rule Of Law, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Judicial Accountability To The Past, Present, And Future: Precedent, Politics And Power, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sentencing Decisions: Matching The Decisionmaker To The Decision Nature, Paul H. Robinson, Barbara A. Spellman

All Faculty Scholarship

The present sentencing debate focuses on which decisionmaker is best suited to make the sentencing decision. Competing positions in this debate typically view the sentencing decision as monolithic, preferring one decisionmaker over all the others. A monolithic view of the decision unnecessarily invites poor decisionmaking. The sentencing decision is properly viewed as a series of distinct decisions, each of which can best be performed by a decisionmaker with certain qualities. This Essay demonstrates how a system of optimal decisionmaking might be constructed -by sorting out the different attributes called for by the distinct aspects of the sentencing decision and matching …