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Articles 1 - 30 of 30
Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
A Planet By Any Other Name…, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan
A Planet By Any Other Name…, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan
Michigan Law Review
In case you haven't heard, Pluto isn't a planet anymore (and maybe it never was). In grade school, we all memorized the planets, giving little thought to what made something a planet besides revolving around the Sun and being part of some familiar mnemonic. However, scientific discoveries about Pluto and other parts of space led scientists to question Pluto's planetary status and ultimately, to strip Pluto of its standing among the planets. This leads to the inevitable question-what is a planet?-which turns out to be a more difficult and fascinating question than one might think. The Pluto Files grapples with …
God Vs. The Gavel: A Brief Rejoinder, Douglas Laycock
God Vs. The Gavel: A Brief Rejoinder, Douglas Laycock
Michigan Law Review
I recently reviewed God vs. the Gavel by Professor Marci Hamilton, and she published a brief response. My review briefly summarized the book and then made three principal points, addressing Hamilton's institutional competence thesis, her "no-harm" principle, and the remarkable number of legal and factual errors in the book. In this reply, I will review each of these points in turn.
Classic Revisited: Penal Theory In Paradise Lost, Jillisa Brittan, Richard A. Posner
Classic Revisited: Penal Theory In Paradise Lost, Jillisa Brittan, Richard A. Posner
Michigan Law Review
Milton's great poem can be enjoyed as a supernatural adventure story in the epic tradition-indeed almost as a science-fiction fantasy. An incredibly powerful supernatural figure-call him Father-lives on planet Heaven somewhere in outer space, surrounded by lesser supernatural beings, called Angels. Father begets Son asexually, and declares his intent to give him vice regal authority. Infuriated at Son's being promoted over him, the foremost Angel, L leads a third of the Angels in violent rebellion against Father and Son. At first it seems the rebels will best the loyal Angels. But Father sends in Son to defeat the rebels all …
A Theory In Search Of A Court, And Itself: Judicial Minimalism At The Supreme Court Bar, Neil S. Siegel
A Theory In Search Of A Court, And Itself: Judicial Minimalism At The Supreme Court Bar, Neil S. Siegel
Michigan Law Review
According to the prevailing wisdom in academic public law, constitutional theory is a field that seeks to articulate and evaluate abstract accounts of the nature of the United States Constitution. Theorists offer those accounts as guides to subsequent judicial construction of constitutional provisions. As typically conceived, therefore, constitutional theory tends to proceed analytically from the general to the particular; its animating idea is that correct decisions in constitutional cases presuppose theoretical commitments to the methodological principles that should guide constitutional interpretation and the substantive values such interpretation should advance. In its enthusiasm for abstraction, constitutional theory has, at times, generated …
The Unruliness Of Rules, Peter A. Alces
The Unruliness Of Rules, Peter A. Alces
Michigan Law Review
Analytical jurisprudence depends on a posited relation between rules and morality. Before we may answer persistent and important questions of legal theory - indeed, before we can even know what those questions are - we must understand not just the operation of rules but their operation in relation to morality. Once that relationship is formulated, we may then come to terms with the likes of inductive reasoning in Law, the role of precedent, and the fit, such as it is, between Natural Law and Positivism as well as even the coincidence (or lack thereof) between inclusive and exclusive positivism. That …
Meaning's Edge, Love's Priority, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Meaning's Edge, Love's Priority, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Michigan Law Review
The story is told of an American wending his way through the British Museum. Reaching the Rosetta Stone, he reached right over the railing, touched the scarred slab, and lamented: "It doesn't feel meaningful." Whereupon an old Briton was heard to mumble: "The poor American's got this old thing confused with the Blarney Stone." A bully presses his case, but meaning is much more modest. Powerless to insist upon itself, meaning lies in wait of discovery. What distinguishes the Rosetta Stone from other rocks of the same kind and size is that it was someone's - or rather a group's …
Interpretation And Institutions, Cass R. Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule
Interpretation And Institutions, Cass R. Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule
Michigan Law Review
Suppose that a statute, enacted several decades ago, bans the introduction of any color additive in food if that additive "causes cancer" in human beings or animals. Suppose that new technologies, able to detect low-level carcinogens, have shown that many potential additives cause cancer, even though the statistical risk is often tiny - akin to the risk of eating two peanuts with governmentally-permitted levels of aflatoxins. Suppose, finally, that a company seeks to introduce a certain color additive into food, acknowledging that the additive causes cancer, but urging that the risk is infinitesimal, and that if the statutory barrier were …
Interpretive Theory In Its Infancy: A Reply To Posner, Cass R. Sunstein, Adrien Vermeule
Interpretive Theory In Its Infancy: A Reply To Posner, Cass R. Sunstein, Adrien Vermeule
Michigan Law Review
In law, problems of interpretation can be explored at different levels of generality. At the most specific level, people might urge that the Equal Protection Clause forbids affirmative action, or that the Food and Drug Act applies to tobacco products. At a higher level of generality, people might argue that the Equal Protection Clause should be interpreted in accordance with the original understanding of its ratifiers, or that the meaning of the Food and Drug Act should be settled with careful attention to its legislative history. At a still higher level of generality, people might identify the considerations that bear …
Reply: The Institutional Dimension Of Statutory And Constitutional Interpretation, Richard A. Posner
Reply: The Institutional Dimension Of Statutory And Constitutional Interpretation, Richard A. Posner
Michigan Law Review
Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue in Interpretation and lnstitutions that judicial interpretation of statutes and constitutions should take account both of the institutional framework within which interpretation takes place and of the consequences of different styles of interpretation; they further argue that this point has been neglected by previous scholars. The first half of the thesis is correct but obvious; the second half, which the authors state in terms emphatic to the point of being immodest, is incorrect. Moreover, the authors offer no feasible suggestions for how the relation between interpretation and the institutional framework might be studied better …
Legal Orientalism, Teemu Ruskola
Legal Orientalism, Teemu Ruskola
Michigan Law Review
Fifty years ago comparative law was a field in search of a paradigm. In the inaugural issue of the American Journal of Comparative Law in 1952, Myres McDougal remarked unhappily, "The greatest confusion continues to prevail about what is being compared, about the purposes of comparison, and about appropriate techniques." In short, there seemed to be very little in the field that was not in a state of confusion. Two decades later, referring to McDougal's bleak assessment, John Merryman saw no evidence of progress: "few comparative lawyers would suggest that matters have since improved." And only a few years ago, …
Miranda'S Fall?, Kenji Yoshino
Miranda'S Fall?, Kenji Yoshino
Michigan Law Review
If one wishes to revisit a classic, Albert Crunus's The Fall is a riskier choice than Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which Steven Lubet eloquently discussed last year in these pages. It is not only that Camus's work will be less familiar to legal audiences than Lee's, despite the fact that The Fall is becoming recognized through critical "revisitation" as perhaps Crunus's greatest novel. It is also that the legal protagonist of The Fall, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, does not have Atticus Finch's immediate appeal. Finch is idealistic, Clamence is existential; Finch is pious, Clamence is debauched; Finch is hopeful, Clamence …
Foreword: The Question Of Process, J. Harvie Wilkinson Iii
Foreword: The Question Of Process, J. Harvie Wilkinson Iii
Michigan Law Review
Many in the legal profession have abandoned the great questions of legal process. This is too bad. How a decision is reached can be as important as what the decision is. In an increasingly diverse country with many competing visions of the good, it is critical for law to aspire to agreement on process - a task both more achievable than agreement on substance and more suited to our profession than waving the banners of ideological truth. By process, I mean the institutional routes by which we in America reach our most crucial decisions. In other words, process is our …
Apparently Substantial, Oddly Hollow: The Enigmatic Practice Of Justice, Heidi Li Feldman
Apparently Substantial, Oddly Hollow: The Enigmatic Practice Of Justice, Heidi Li Feldman
Michigan Law Review
The Practice of Justice: A Theory of Lawyers' Ethics, by William H. Simon, is one of the most thoughtful and important books in legal theory - not just legal ethics - published in the past ten years. Like David Luban's seminal contribution to legal ethics, Lawyers and Justice: An Ethical Study, published a decade ago, Simon's book is a deliberate rival to accounts of lawyers' professional responsibility that begin with a command to zealous advocacy, end with a prohibition on outright illegal conduct, and offer nothing in between. Authors and commentators have grown increasingly dissatisfied with this as the basic …
Vampires Anonymous And Critical Race Practice, Robert A. Williams Jr.
Vampires Anonymous And Critical Race Practice, Robert A. Williams Jr.
Michigan Law Review
I can only explain what Vampires Anonymous has done for me by telling my story. I know, stories, particularly autobiographical stories, are currently being dissed by some law professors. Raised in an overly obsessive, objectively neutralized cultural style, they are plain and simple Storyhaters. Their middle to upper class parents had money, a home in the burbs, and nice kids who were going to go on from their fancy grade schools and college preparatory gigs to Harvard/Stanford/Yale - all those types of pricey places where law professors usually come from. These kids were raised to be objective, neutral, neutered, fair, …
Law Without Mind, Steven D. Smith
Law Without Mind, Steven D. Smith
Michigan Law Review
A large part of the work done by lawyers and judges involves the interpretation of enacted law - primarily, statutes and the Constitution. Not surprisingly, legal scholars offer a good deal of advice, usually unsolicited, about how the task of interpretation should be performed. At present, such scholarly advice commonly recommends variations on an approach that may be called "present-oriented interpretation." This approach discourages judges from equating a law with its historical meaning or "original understanding." Instead, it urges them to construe statutes and constitutional provisions in a way that will render the law "the best it can be" in …
Iii. Recent French Extradition Cases, Michigan Journal Of International Law
Iii. Recent French Extradition Cases, Michigan Journal Of International Law
Michigan Journal of International Law
This section of the appendix contains the first published collection of recent French extradition cases dealing with the application of the political offense exception to terrorists. Because of the selective fashion in which French decisional law is reported, many French extradition cases are never reproduced in any French case reporter. The purpose of this appendix is to provide an English speaking audience with the substance of opinions which are otherwise nearly impossible to obtain. The editors hope that this collection will aid comparative research and contribute to an informed debate on the political offense exception.
Mason: The Supreme Court: Palladium: Of Freedom, Joseph E. Kallenbach
Mason: The Supreme Court: Palladium: Of Freedom, Joseph E. Kallenbach
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Supreme Court: Palladium: Of Freedom . By Alpheus T. Mason.
Llewellyn: Jurisprudence: Realism In Theory And Practice, Charles D. Kelso
Llewellyn: Jurisprudence: Realism In Theory And Practice, Charles D. Kelso
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Jurisprudence: Realism in Theory and Practice By Karl N. Llewellyn.
Hurst: Law And Social Process In United States History, Robert S. Hunt
Hurst: Law And Social Process In United States History, Robert S. Hunt
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Law and Social Process in United States History. By James Willard Hurst.
Wasserstrom: The Judicial Decision- Toward A Theory Of Legal Justification, William B. Harvey
Wasserstrom: The Judicial Decision- Toward A Theory Of Legal Justification, William B. Harvey
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Judicial Decision- Toward A Theory of Legal Justification By Richard A. Wasserstrom.
Llewellyn: The Common Law Tradition- Deciding Appeals, Luke K. Cooperrider
Llewellyn: The Common Law Tradition- Deciding Appeals, Luke K. Cooperrider
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Common Law Tradition- Deciding Appeals. By Karl N. Llewellyn.
Beutel: Some Potentialities Of Experimental Jurisprudence As A New Branch Of Social Science, Samuel I. Shuman
Beutel: Some Potentialities Of Experimental Jurisprudence As A New Branch Of Social Science, Samuel I. Shuman
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Some Potentialities of Experimental Jurisprudence as a New Branch of Social Science. By Fredrick K. Beutel.
Lawson: A Common Lawyer Looks At The Civil Law, F. S. C. Northrop
Lawson: A Common Lawyer Looks At The Civil Law, F. S. C. Northrop
Michigan Law Review
A Review of A Common Lawyer Looks at the Civil Law. By F. H. Lawson.
Mason: Security Through Freedom. American Political Thought And Practice., William R. Jentes S.Ed.
Mason: Security Through Freedom. American Political Thought And Practice., William R. Jentes S.Ed.
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Security Through Freedom. American Political Thought and Practice. By Alpheus Thomas Mason.
Vanderbilt: The Challenge Of Law Reform, Glenn R. Winters
Vanderbilt: The Challenge Of Law Reform, Glenn R. Winters
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Challenge of Law Reform. By Arthur T. Vanderbilt.
Petrazycki: Law And Morality, William R. Jentes S.Ed.
Petrazycki: Law And Morality, William R. Jentes S.Ed.
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Law and Mortality. By Leon Petrazycki
In Suport Of The Thayer Theory Of Presumptions, Charles V. Laughlin
In Suport Of The Thayer Theory Of Presumptions, Charles V. Laughlin
Michigan Law Review
A learned judge once said to a young lawyer, "If you are ever a trial court judge, never give reasons for your decisions. Your rulings will probably be right, but your reasons will likely be wrong." That statement may aptly apply to judicial pronouncements relating to the subject of presumptions. Decisions are largely free from criticism so far as concerns the results reached, but the reasoning processes by which they are reached appear to be in hopeless confusion. It is believed that a theory can be presented which will both reconcile these confusions of judicial techniques and explain the general …
Book Reviews, Edwin W. Patterson, Edson R. Sunderland, C E. Griffin
Book Reviews, Edwin W. Patterson, Edson R. Sunderland, C E. Griffin
Michigan Law Review
The title of this brilliant little volume might, more accurately, have been, "The Spirits of the Common Law," for it depicts the common law as the battleground of many conflicting spirits, from which a few relatively permanent ideas and ideals have emerged triumphant. As a whole, the book is a pluralistic-idealistic interpretation of legal history. Idealistic, because Dean Pound finds that the fundamentals of the 'common law have been shaped by ideas and ideals rather than by economic determinism or class struggle; he definitely rejects a purely economic interpretation of legal history, although he demands a sociological one (pp. io-ii). …
Book Reviews, Nathan Isaacs, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, Arthur H. Basye, Leonard D. White, Victor H. Lane, Edwin D. Dickinson
Book Reviews, Nathan Isaacs, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, Arthur H. Basye, Leonard D. White, Victor H. Lane, Edwin D. Dickinson
Michigan Law Review
What does a judge do when he decides a case? It would be interesting to collect the answers ranging from those furnished by primitive systems of law in which the judge was supposed to consult the gods to the ultra-modern, rather profane system described to me recently by a retrospective judge: "I make up my mind which way the case ought to be decided, and then I see if I can't get some legal ground to make it stick." Perhaps the widespread impression is the curiously erroneous one lampooned by Gnaeus Flavius (Kantorowitz). The judge is supposed to sit at …
Recent Decisions
Michigan Law Review
Agency--Ratification--Knowledge Necessary; Agency--Undisclosed Principal--Defence Against Agent; Bailments--Action by Bailee against Third Person; Bankruptcy--Homestead Exemption--State Law not Enforced; Bankruptcy--Homestead Exemption; Bills and Notes--Cashier's Check--Indorsed for Illegal Consideration; Carriers--Street Railway--Track Used by Another Company; Chattel Mortgage--Sufficiency of Description; Conflict of Laws--Statute of Frauds--Statute Affecting Remedy--Representations as to Another's Credit; Constitutional Law--14th Amendment--Class Legislation--License Law; Evidence--Physical Examination of Plaintiff in Personal Injury Suit; Insurance--Construction of Terms of Indemnity Policy; Insurance--Agreement to Issue New Policy--Effect of Failure to Surender Old Policy and Make Demand Within Time Stipulated; Landlord and Tenant--Covenant for Re-Entry--Re-Entry by Ejectment Only--Summary Proceedings; Landlord and Tenant--Covenant Not to Assign--Runs with the …