Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Jurisprudence Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Hiding Behind The Cloak Of Invisibility: The Supreme Court And Per Curiam Opinions, Ira Robbins Jun 2012

Hiding Behind The Cloak Of Invisibility: The Supreme Court And Per Curiam Opinions, Ira Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Per curiam--literally translated from Latin to "by the court"-is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as "[a]n opinion handed down by an appellate court without identifying the individual judge who wrote the opinion." Accordingly the author of a per curiam opinion is meant to be institutional rather than individual, attributable to the court as an entity rather than to a single judge The United States Supreme Court issues a significant number of per curiam dispositions each Term. In the first six years of Chief Justice John Roberts’ tenure, almost nine percent of the Court full opinions were per curiams. The prevalence …


Professionalism And Advocacy At Trial – Real Jurors Speak In Detail About The Performance Of Their Advocates, Mitchell J. Frank, Osvaldo F. Morera Jan 2012

Professionalism And Advocacy At Trial – Real Jurors Speak In Detail About The Performance Of Their Advocates, Mitchell J. Frank, Osvaldo F. Morera

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The Persistence Of Proximate Cause: How Legal Doctrine Thrives On Skepticism, Jessie Allen Jan 2012

The Persistence Of Proximate Cause: How Legal Doctrine Thrives On Skepticism, Jessie Allen

Articles

This Article starts with a puzzle: Why is the doctrinal approach to “proximate cause” so resilient despite longstanding criticism? Proximate cause is a particularly extreme example of doctrine that limps along despite near universal consensus that it cannot actually determine legal outcomes. Why doesn’t that widely recognized indeterminacy disable proximate cause as a decision-making device? To address this puzzle, I pick up a cue from the legal realists, a group of skeptical lawyers, law professors, and judges, who, in the 1920s and 1930s, compared legal doctrine to ritual magic. I take that comparison seriously, perhaps more seriously, and definitely in …