Judges Commons^™

Adjusting The Rear-View Mirror: Rethinking The Use Of History In Supreme Court Jurisprudence, Mitchell Gordon

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

The Recognition Of Same-Sex Relationships: Comparative Institutional Analysis, Contested Social Goals, And Strategic Institutional Choice, Nancy J. Knauer

ExpressO

The emerging field of comparative institutional analysis (CIA) has much to offer public policy analysts. However, the failure of CIA to address the dynamic process through which social goals are articulated limits the scope of its application to the largely prescriptive pronouncements of legal scholars. By examining the movement for equal recognition of same-sex relationships, this Essay builds on the basic observations of CIA and introduces a new dimension, namely the dynamic process through which social goals are articulated and social change is pursued. The acknowledgment that the production of social goals involves institutional behavior, as well as multiple sites …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

U.S. Supreme Court Tort Reform: Limiting State Power To Articulate And Develop Its Own Tort Law–Defamation, Preemption, And Punitive Damages, Thomas C. Galligan

ExpressO

U.S. Supreme Court Tort Reform: Limiting State Power to Articulate and Develop Its Own Tort Law–Defamation, Preemption, and Punitive Damages analyzes and critiques the three primary areas in which the U.S. Supreme Court has found federal constitutional limits on a state’s power to articulate, develop, and apply its common law of torts. It is the first piece to consider all three areas together as an emerging body of jurisprudence which Professor Galligan calls U.S. Supreme Court tort reform. After setting forth a modest model of adjudication, the article applies that model to each of the three areas: defamation and related …

Counter-Majoritarian Power And Judges' Political Speech, Michael R. Dimino

ExpressO

Canons of ethics restrict judicial campaigning and prohibit sitting judges from engaging in political activity. Only recently, in Republican Party v. White, 536 U.S. 765 (2002), has the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of these restrictions, concluding that judicial candidates must be allowed some opportunity to discuss legal and political issues in their campaigns. But White left many questions unanswered about the permissible scope of restrictions on judges’ political activity.

This Article suggests that those questions will be answered not by applying principles of free speech, but by analyzing the opportunities the restrictions provide for independent judicial policy-making. Restrictions on …

Rehnquist And Federalism: An Empirical Perspective, Ruth Colker, Kevin Scott

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

We attempt to articulate a vision of federalism, particularly the Rehnquist version of federalism. We find that there is little consistent thought on the role of the judiciary in protecting federalism. This lack of consensus makes it difficult to predict the decisions federalists might make, but we attempt to outline Chief Justice Rehnquist's contributions to understanding the role courts should play in protecting federalism. We then attempt to assess if Rehnquist adheres to his own vision of federalism. Using his votes since his elevation to Chief Justice in 1986, we test several hypotheses designed to determine if Chief Justice Rehnquist …

The Irrational Supreme Court, Michael I. Meyerson

ExpressO

Abstract: The Irrational Supreme Court

The pejorative “irrational” is used to describe many defects in legal reasoning, but is generally not meant to be understood as a literal lack of rational thinking. Similarly, the “rational basis test” is not meant to determine whether a legislature is “not endowed with reason or understanding,” but rather if it has acted with some hidden, invidious motive. Incredibly, though, the Supreme Court has frequently issued truly “irrational opinions,” simply due to the fundamental nature of group decision-making.

Much has been written about Nobel Prize winner Kenneth Arrow’s “Impossibility Theorem,” which proved that, when faced …

Book Review: Forensic Linguistics, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

Review of John Gibbons' text "Forensic Linguistics"

The Worst Way Of Selecting Judges—Except All The Others That Have Been Tried, Michael R. Dimino

Michael R Dimino

The Non-Political Branch (Reviewing Lee Epstein & Jeffrey A. Segal, Advice And Consent: The Politics Of Judicial Appointments (2005)), Michael R. Dimino

Michael R Dimino