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Building The Federal Judiciary (Literally And Legally): The Monuments Of Chief Justices Taft, Warren And Rehnquist, Judith Resnik Jul 2012

Building The Federal Judiciary (Literally And Legally): The Monuments Of Chief Justices Taft, Warren And Rehnquist, Judith Resnik

Indiana Law Journal

The “federal courts” took on their now familiar contours over the course of the twentieth century. Three chief justices—William Howard Taft, Earl Warren, and William Rehnquist—played pivotal roles in shaping the institutional, jurisprudential, and physical premises. Taft is well known for promoting a building to house the U.S. Supreme Court and for launching the administrative infrastructure that came to govern the federal courts. Earl Warren’s name has become the shorthand for a jurisprudential shift from state toward federal authority; the Warren Court offered an expansive understanding of the role federal courts could play in enabling access for a host of …


Stare Decisis In The Inferior Courts Of The United States, Joseph Mead Jul 2012

Stare Decisis In The Inferior Courts Of The United States, Joseph Mead

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

While circuit courts are bound to fallow circuit precedent under "law of the circuit" the practice among federal district courts is more varied and uncertain, routinely involving little or no deference to their own precedent. I argue that the different hierarchical levels and institutional characteristics do not account for the differences in practices between circuit and district courts. Rather, district courts can and should adopt a "law of the district" similar to that of circuit courts. Through this narrow proposal, I explore the historical stare decisis practices in federal courts that are not Supreme.


Ideology 'All The Way Down'? An Empirical Study Of Establishment Clause Decisions In The Federal Courts, Gregory C. Sisk, Michael Heise May 2012

Ideology 'All The Way Down'? An Empirical Study Of Establishment Clause Decisions In The Federal Courts, Gregory C. Sisk, Michael Heise

Michigan Law Review

As part of our ongoing empirical examination of religious liberty decisions in the lower federal courts, we studied Establishment Clause rulings by federal court of appeals and district court judges from 1996 through 2005. The powerful role of political factors in Establishment Clause decisions appears undeniable and substantial, whether celebrated as the proper integration of political and moral reasoning into constitutional judging, shrugged off as mere realism about judges being motivated to promote their political attitudes, or deprecated as a troubling departure from the aspirational ideal of neutral and impartial judging. In the context of Church and State cases in …


Fill The Bench And Empty The Docket: Filibuster Reform For District Court Nominations, Jeremy Garson Jan 2012

Fill The Bench And Empty The Docket: Filibuster Reform For District Court Nominations, Jeremy Garson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Judges are, without question, vital to our justice system. They interpret, adapt, and apply the law. They resolve disputes for the parties to the case at issue and provide guidance to others in analogous situations. They are the gears that keep the wheels of justice moving. Unfortunately, in the case of our federal courts, many of these gears are missing. Eighty-three of our 874 federal judgeships are vacant, including thirty-four that have been declared “judicial emergencies.” Our Constitution vests the President with the power to nominate federal judges and the Senate with the power to confirm or reject them, and …


Commentary, Considering Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, And Bisexual Nominees For The Federal Courts, Carl W. Tobias Jan 2012

Commentary, Considering Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, And Bisexual Nominees For The Federal Courts, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias details the ultimately unsuccessful nomination of Edward DuMont to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 2010-11 to illustrate the obstacles encountered by LGBT individuals in the federal judicial selection process.


Understanding The Value Of Judicial Diversity Through The Native American Lens, Paige E. Hoster Jan 2012

Understanding The Value Of Judicial Diversity Through The Native American Lens, Paige E. Hoster

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Judicial Assault On The Clean Water Act, Mark Squillace Jan 2012

The Judicial Assault On The Clean Water Act, Mark Squillace

Publications

No abstract provided.


Justifying Diversity In The Federal Judiciary, Carl W. Tobias Jan 2012

Justifying Diversity In The Federal Judiciary, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

This Essay thus scrutinizes Obama’s judicial selection effort, which confirms many ideas that Scherer espouses while showing how political deficiencies in the modern selection process erode diversity and legitimacy, and perhaps Scherer’s provocative solution. This response ultimately discusses some promising measures beyond Scherer’s recommendation that could enhance diversity and legitimacy in light of the threat that politicization poses


The Constitutionality Of Federal Jurisdiction-Stripping Legislation And The History Of State Judicial Selection And Tenure, Brian T. Fitzpatrick Jan 2012

The Constitutionality Of Federal Jurisdiction-Stripping Legislation And The History Of State Judicial Selection And Tenure, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Few questions in the field of Federal Courts have captivated scholars like the question of whether Congress can simultaneously divest both lower federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear federal constitutional claims and thereby leave those claims to be litigated in state courts alone. Such a divestiture is known today as “jurisdiction stripping,” and, despite literally decades of scholarship on the subject, scholars have largely been unable to reconcile two widely held views: jurisdiction stripping should be unconstitutional because it deprives constitutional rights of adjudication by independent judges and jurisdiction stripping is nonetheless perfectly consistent with …