Judges Commons^™

Law And Identifiability, Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir, Ilana Ritov, Tehila Kogut

Indiana Law Journal

Psychological studies have shown that people react either more generously or more punitively toward identified individuals than toward unidentified ones. This phenomenon, named the identifiability effect, has received little attention in the legal literature, despite its importance for the law. As a prime example, while legislators typically craft rules that would apply to unidentified people, judges ordinarily deal with identified individuals. The identifiability effect suggests that the outcomes of these two forms of lawmaking may differ, even when they pertain to similar facts and situations.

This Article is a preliminary investigation into the relevance of the identifiability effect for law …

Confirm Myra Selby For The Seventh Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Indiana Law Journal

This Article canvasses Myra Selby’s dynamic professional record, the federal judicial selection process under President Obama, and the Seventh Circuit. It ascertains that Selby is an exceptionally competent, mainstream prospect and that the appellate court requires all of its members to deliver justice. However, Republican senators did not collaborate, particularly after they had captured a Senate majority—a circumstance that this presidential election year aggravates. The last section, therefore, proffers recommendations for Selby’s prompt Senate consideration and confirmation.

Intangible Fish And The Gulf Of Understanding: Yates V. United States And The Court's Approach To Statutory Interpretation, John M. Garvin

Indiana Law Journal

Is a fish a tangible object? The answer in most cases is obviously “yes.” But in Yates v. United States, the Supreme Court held that fish are outside the meaning of the phrase “tangible object” as it is used in the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002. This Note argues that the Yates decision provides a lens with which to examine the Court’s contemporary methods of statutory interpretation. In adopting the textualist vocabulary most famously associated with the late Justice Scalia, the Justices have committed to speaking the same language. Still, fundamental differences between the Justices remain. These differences expose the …

How Conservative Justices Are Undertermining Our Democracy (Or What's At Stake In Choosing Justice Scalia, Alan E. Garfield

Indiana Law Journal

In this essay, Professor Garfield contends that the conservative justices on the Supreme Court have allowed elected officials to manipulate laws to entrench themselves in office and to disenfranchise voters who threaten their power. The justices’ unwillingness to curb these abuses has largely redounded to the benefit of the Republican Party because Republicans control the majority of state legislatures and have used this power to gerrymander legislative districts and to enact voter‑suppressive laws such as voter ID laws. With Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected passing during the administration of a Democratic president, the conservatives’ control of the Court has been put …