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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Excessive Force: Justice Requires Refining State Qualified Immunity Standards For Negligent Police Officers, Angie Weiss Oct 2020

Excessive Force: Justice Requires Refining State Qualified Immunity Standards For Negligent Police Officers, Angie Weiss

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

At the time this Note was written, there was no Washington state equivalent of the § 1983 Civil Rights Act. As plaintiffs look to the Washington state courts as an alternative to federal courts, they will find that Washington state has a different structure of qualified immunity protecting law enforcement officers from liability.

In this Note, Angie Weiss recommends changing Washington state's standard of qualified immunity. This change would ensure plaintiffs have a state court path towards justice when they seek to hold law enforcement officers accountable for harm. Weiss explains the structure and context of federal qualified immunity; compares …


Linguistics As A Knowledge Domain In The Law, Janet Ainsworth Jan 2006

Linguistics As A Knowledge Domain In The Law, Janet Ainsworth

Faculty Articles

This article focuses on the use of linguistic expertise by trial courts to aid in fact-finding. It identifies many of the ways the legal system has been enriched by donations from linguistic scholarship. In addition, it discusses the underutilized-at-present use of linguistic knowledge by appellate courts as a tool for crafting and applying doctrinal rules. Whereas courts have adopted economics analysis in determining appropriate legal rules, linguistic science has been neglected. Linguistic predictions are more testable and falsifiable than economic predictions. Linguistic research can be useful—particularly in the areas of comprehensibility of texts and resolving textual ambiguity. Indeed, legislatures and …


The Court Against The Courts: Hostility To Litigation As An Organizing Theme In The Rehnquist Court’S Jurisprudence, Andrew Siegel Jan 2006

The Court Against The Courts: Hostility To Litigation As An Organizing Theme In The Rehnquist Court’S Jurisprudence, Andrew Siegel

Faculty Articles

Previous commentators on the Rehnquist Court's history, seeking an overarching explanation for the Court's cases, have focused their attention primarily on a revitalized "federalism," an agenda-driven "conservatism," and a constitutionally fixated "judicial supremacy." While each of these themes is undoubtedly present in the Court's later jurisprudence, this article argues that one cannot understand the Rehnquist Court's complicated intellectual matrix without taking account of its profound hostility towards the institution of litigation and its concomitant skepticism as to ability of litigation to function as a mechanism for organizing social relations and collectively administering justice. The article takes a pointillist approach, commenting …