Jurisprudence Commons^™

Structuring The Ethics Of Prosecutorial Trial Practice: Can Prosecutors Do Justice?, Fred C. Zacharias

Vanderbilt Law Review

Codes of professional responsibility take a very different approach to civil and criminal trials. In civil litigation, the codes presume that good outcomes result when lawyers represent clients aggressively. In criminal cases, the codes do not rely as fully on competitive lawyering. They treat prosecutors as advocates, but also as "ministers" having an ethical duty to "do justice."

Although the special prosecutorial duty is worded so vaguely that it obviously requires further explanation, the codes provide remarkably little guidance on its meaning. In effect, code drafters have delegated to prosecutors the task of resolving the special ethical issues prosecutors face …

The Tennessee Rule Against Perpetuities: A Proposal For Statutory Reform, C. Dent Bostick

Vanderbilt Law Review

For several decades, there has been agitation for reform of the common-law Rule Against Perpetuities. For the most part, the reformers have urged that improvements in the Rule and the manner of its application be accomplished through legislative enactment.' Only a few jurisdictions have opted for reform by the judiciary. Thus far, there has been no legislative reform of the Rule in Tennessee; the appellate courts of the state continue to apply the Rule inits common-law form with all the confusing rubrics attached to it by centuries of development. The condition of Tennessee's law on the subject contrasts sharply with …

Observations Of An Appellate Judge:The Use Of Law Clerks, Eugene A. Wright

Vanderbilt Law Review

Time-judicial time-is our most valuable commodity. We must employ it effectively and efficiently if we are to keep abreast of new developments in the law, new areas of litigation, and modern procedural improvements and to dispose of increasing backlogs of appealed cases. Circuit judges, each authorized two law clerks, have become increasingly dependent upon the help of their staffs to meet the demands of their expanding workload. The role of the law clerk is to aid the experienced judge in his ultimate task, decision-making. An appellate judge will have a varied background of skills and experience. Often he brings to …

The Interpretation Of Statutes In Modern British Law, W. Friedmann

Vanderbilt Law Review

Mr. Justice Frankfurter recently said that the number of cases coming before the Supreme Court of the United States which were not based on statutes was "reduced almost to zero." This growth of statutory as against pure case law is, of course, not confined to the United States. It inevitably accompanies the social welfare state and the increase in government which every modern industrial society has experienced and which two world wars, with their need for the total mobilization of resources, have further stimulated. Apart from these sociological factors which affect states with the most different legal systems, it is …