Jurisprudence Commons^™

Stare Decisis As Judicial Doctrine, Randy J. Kozel

Randy J Kozel

Stare decisis has been called many things, among them a principle of policy, a series of prudential and pragmatic considerations, and simply the preferred course. Often overlooked is the fact that stare decisis is also a judicial doctrine, an analytical system used to guide the rules of decision for resolving concrete disputes that come before the courts.

This Article examines stare decisis as applied by the U.S. Supreme Court, our nation’s highest doctrinal authority. A review of the Court’s jurisprudence yields two principal lessons about the modern doctrine of stare decisis. First, the doctrine is comprised largely of malleable factors …

The Process Of International Law-Making: The Relationship Between The International Court Of Justice And The International Law Commission, Marija Dordeska

Dr Marija Dordeska

Weeds, Seeds, & Deeds Redux: Natural And Legal Evolution In The U.S. Seed Wars, Rebecca Stewart

Rebecca K Stewart

Ever since the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office began issuing utility patents for plants, the United States has sat squarely on the frontlines of what have come to be known as the “seed wars.” In the last two decades, the majority of battles in the U.S. seed wars have been waged in the form of patent infringement lawsuits. Typically these suits are filed by biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto against farmers accused of saving and planting patented seed that self-replicates to produce progeny embodying—and thus infringing—the biotech corporations’ patented inventions.

Yet in recent years, the seed wars have begun to …

Tell Us A Story, But Don't Make It A Good One: Resolving The Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories And Federal Rule Of Evidence 403, Cathren Page

Cathren Page

Abstract: Tell Us a Story, But Don’t Make It A Good One: Resolving the Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories and Federal Rule of Evidence 403 by Cathren Koehlert-Page Courts need to reword their opinions regarding Rule 403 to address the tension between the advice to tell an emotionally evocative story at trial and the notion that evidence can be excluded if it is too emotional. In the murder mystery Mystic River, Dave Boyle is kidnapped in the beginning. The audience feels empathy for Dave who as an adult becomes one of the main suspects in the murder of his friend Jimmy’s …

"Standing" In The Shadow Of Erie: Federalism In The Balance In Hollingsworth V. Perry, Glenn Koppel

Glenn Koppel

Abstract “Standing” in the Shadow of Erie: Federalism in the Balance in Hollingsworth v. Perry In Hollingsworth v. Perry, one of the two same-sex marriage cases decided by the Supreme Court in 2013, the Court declined to address the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, finding that the initiative proponents lacked standing to appeal the district court’s judgment declaring the proposition unconstitutional and enjoining its enforcement. Since the State’s Governor and Attorney General declined to appeal, the proponents sought to assert the State’s particularized interest in the proposition’s validity. State law, as interpreted by the California Supreme Court, grants authority to …

The Hollowness Of The Harm Principle, Steven D. Smith

Steven D. Smith

Among the various instruments in the toolbox of liberalism, the so-called “harm principle,” presented as the central thesis of John Stuart Mill’s classic On Liberty, has been one of the most popular. The harm principle has been widely embraced and invoked in both academic and popular debate about a variety of issues ranging from obscenity to drug regulation to abortion to same-sex marriage, and its influence is discernible in legal arguments and judicial opinions as well. Despite the principle’s apparent irresistibility, this essay argues that the principle is hollow. It is an empty vessel, alluring but without any inherent legal …

Holmes And Dissent, Allen P. Mendenhall

Allen Mendenhall

Holmes saw the dissent as a mechanism to advance and preserve arguments and as a pageant for wordplay. Dissents, for Holmes, occupied an interstitial space between law and non-law. The thought and theory of pragmatism allowed him to recreate the dissent as a stage for performative text, a place where signs and syntax could mimic the environment of the particular time and place and in so doing become, or strive to become, law. Holmes’s dissents were sites of aesthetic adaptation. The language of his dissents was acrobatic. It acted and reacted and called attention to itself. The more provocative and …

Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophy Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Donald J. Kochan, Melissa M. Berry, Matthew J. Parlow

Donald J. Kochan

Conflicts created by concurrences and pluralities in court decisions create confusion in law and lower court interpretation. Rule of law values require that individuals be able to identify controlling legal principles. That task is complicated when pluralities and concurrences contribute to the vagueness or uncertainty that leaves us wondering what the controlling rule is or attempting to predict what it will evolve to become. The rule of law is at least handicapped when continuity or confidence or confusion infuse our understanding of the applicable rules. This Article uses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rapanos v. United States to …

Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophony Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Matthew J. Parlow, Donald J. Kochan

Matthew Parlow

Attempting The Impossible: The Emerging Consensus, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins