Jurisprudence Commons^™

Legislative Inputs And Gender-Based Discrimination In The Burger Court, Earl M. Maltz

Michigan Law Review

In An Interpretive History of Modem Equal Protection, Michael Klarman poses a powerful challenge to the conventional wisdom regarding the structure of Burger Court jurisprudence. Most commentators have concluded that during the Burger era the Court lacked a coherent vision of constitutional law, and was given to a "rootless" activism or a "pragmatic" approach to constitutional analysis. Klarman argues that, at least in the area of equal protection analysis, the Burger Court's approach did reflect a unifying theme, which he describes as a focus on "legislative inputs." According to Klarman, this approach "directs judicial review towards purging legislative decision-making of …

Balancing Commerce, History, And Geography: Defining The Navigable Waters Of The United States, John F. Baughman

Michigan Law Review

This Note develops a simple set of principles useful for defining navigable waters in a contemporary context. Part I considers why federal admiralty jurisdiction exists, and traces the evolution of the phrase navigable waters as a term of art. Part II analyzes the conflicting contemporary definitions of navigable waters. Part III resolves the conflict by proposing guidelines that address the major concerns of all competing definitions. The system advocated is consistent with the goals of admiralty, constitutionally sound, easy to apply, and focuses attention on the nexus test to resolve the issue of whether particular cases "belong" in admiralty.

Section 1983 And Implied Rights Of Action: Rights, Remedies, And Realism, Michael A. Mazzuchi

Michigan Law Review

This Note criticizes the Court's current reconciliation of the implied right of action and section 1983 inquiries, and argues that the availability of lawsuits under section 1983 should be the same as under an implied right of action test. Part I, by offering a working definition of rights, suggests an approach to identifying statutorily created rights. Part II discusses the evolution of the Court's implied right of action ' jurisprudence, and explores several explanations for the Court's hesitancy to create implied rights of action. Part III examines the influence of the Court's implied right of action test on its jurisprudence …

A Mirror For The Magistrate, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Paradox And Pandora's Box: The Tragedy Of Current Right-To-Die Jurisprudence, Cathaleen A. Roach

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Article examines the trilogy of recent right-to-die cases and contrasts the results of those cases with recent national opinion polls and statistical surveys of the issue. Part II examines federal and state legislative responses to the debate. It suggests that both the courts and legislatures are out of sync with an emerging national consensus on the death-with- dignity debate. In fact, the federal legislative response may only exacerbate the problem. Instead of creating new rights, it feeds individuals into the existing state network, which is a quagmire of confusing and inequitable statutory provisions. Part III examines …

Equal Protection

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gender Based Peremptory Challenges And The New York State Constitution, Frederick T. Kelsey

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reformers' Regress: The 1991 Texas Workers' Compensation Act., Jill Williford

St. Mary's Law Journal

The revision of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act will affect most Texas taxpayers and workers. The Act, entering into force January 1, 1991, significantly restructures the preexisting seventy-six-year-old system. Before the advent of workers’ compensation systems employees relied on the court and common-law causes of action as the sole means of recovery. In 1913, Texas enacted one of the first versions of workers’ compensation in the United States. The original act created a system to compensate workers for injuries sustained during employment without regard to fault. Initially the act was elective for employers and mandatory for employees but was later …

An Independent And Adequate Procedural Rule Bars A State Prisoner, Who Has Defaulted His Entire Appeal, From Asserting A Federal Claim Unless The Prisoner Demonstrates Cause For, And Actual Prejudice Resulting From, The Procedural Default, Or In The Alternative, Proves A Fundamental Miscarriage Of Justice Will Result If The Federal Habeas Court Fails To Hear The Claim., Jared R. V. Woodfill

St. Mary's Law Journal

The current jurisprudential regime accepts a blanket procedural default policy which denies the federal habeas court its proper constitutional role. An ideological coup d’etat is needed which reappraises the modern procedural default doctrine and supplants it with a rule in the spirit of Fay v. Noia. Such a revolution would emphasize the federal habeas court’s role as a defender of constitutional rights. In an era of multifarious litigation and sociological jurisprudence, a habeas prisoner should not lose his life because a negligent public defender failed to preserve the right in procedural formaldehyde. On April 23, 1982, a court convicted Roger …

Tdhs V. E.B., The Coup De Grace For Special Issues., John J. Sampson

St. Mary's Law Journal

Although the bench and bar have been recalcitrant in recognition, the Texas Supreme Court has declared the special interest experiment a failure. For nearly eighty years Texas has engaged in an experiment requiring juries answer specific, factually detailed inquiries in various circumstances. The theoretical justifications of special issue inquiries were to ease appeals processes and add clarity to jury decisions. Although the goals were meritorious, the actual result was jury confusion, inefficiency, complexity, and too many retrials. The Texas Supreme Court’s ruling in TDHS v. EB signals the end of special issues and mandates the use of broad form submissions. …

Beyond The Warren Court And Its Conservative Critics: Toward A Unified Theory Of Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Donald A. Dripps

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I develops more fully the differences that divide liberal and conservative commentators on criminal procedure, taking special note of the series of Reports prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy and published recently in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform. Part II explains my disquiet with the suggestion that original-meaning jurisprudence ought to guide criminal procedure doctrine. Part II also defends the thesis that the fourteenth amendment protects the individual interest in freedom from unjust punishment, rather than any abstract interest in truth for its own sake. Part III considers two familiar controversies in criminal …

The Truth About Massiah, James J. Tomkovicz

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

First, the Article will summarize the Justice Department's discussion of the Massiah right to counsel and the exclusion of evidence under Massiah. Next, it will evaluate the nature of the Report and the character of legal scholarship. Finally, it will explore the substantive debate over Massiah. In that section, the Article will point out the matters on which the DOJ and I agree, will attempt to frame the fundamental questions raised by the Massiah doctrine, and will investigate potential sources of answers to those constitutional questions. Ultimately, it will provide the answers that I prefer, explaining the premises …

Justice Scalia And The Elusive Idea Of Discrimination Against Interstate Commerce, Richard B. Collins

Publications

No abstract provided.

Judging The Judges: Three Opinions, James Boyd White

Articles

For some time I have been working on the problem of judicial criticism, focusing especially on the question: What is it in the work of a judge that leads us to admire a judicial opinion with the result of which we disagree, or to condemn an opinion that "comes out" the way we would do if we were charged with the responsibility of decision? The response I have been making is that this kind of judicial excellence (and its opposite too) lies in the sort of social and intellectual action in which the opinion engages: in the character the court …

A Plea For Help: Pleading Problems In Section 1983 Municipal Liability Claims, Evan S. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Harry Kalven, The Proust Of The First Amendment, Lee Bollinger

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A Worth Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America by Harry Kalven, Jr.

Rethinking Absolute Priority After Ahlers, John D. Ayer

Michigan Law Review

There was no evident reason why the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Norwest Bank Worthington v. Ahlers. It can be conceded that the issue was important: in the midst of an agricultural depression, a farmer was trying to hang onto his farm without paying the full amount of his bank debt. The farmer argued that he ought to be able to do so because he was offering to contribute "new value" beyond what he was obliged to contribute - specifically, his efforts as a farmer.

For Ahlers is a case with a past, as well as a future. Thus, in …

Arizona V. Youngblood: Does The Criminal Defendant Lose His Right To Due Process When The State Loses Exculpatory Evidence?, Willis C. Moore

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legality And Empathy, Lynne N. Henderson

Michigan Law Review

This article rejects the assumption that legality - by which I mean the dominant belief system about the Rule and role of Law - and empathy are mutually exclusive concepts. Failure to recognize the phenomenon of empathy explicitly in legal decisions more generally may result from a fear of the emotional realm as irrational, rather than a rational. It may stem from a belief that the divide between "subject" and "object" is uncrossable. The resistance to empathy may be attributable to the adversarial ideology acquired during law school understanding the adversary is not important unless it serves one's instrumental …

The Hermeneutics Of Indian Law, Robert A. Williams Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of American Indians, Time, and the Law: Native Societies in a Modern Constitutional Democracy by Charles F. Wilkinson

New Jersey V. T.L.O.: The Supreme Court's Lesson On School Searches Symposium On Education Law., Gerald S. Reamey

St. Mary's Law Journal

Considerable disagreement persists as to the fourth amendment rights of students within schools. Particularly, this disagreement regards the extent to which fourth amendment rights possessed by students may frustrate reasonable attempts by educators to maintain the order necessary to preserve an educational environment. In New Jersey v. T.L.O., the Supreme Court considered an argument advanced by the State of New Jersey that the “pervasive supervision” of school children diminishes the legitimate expectation of privacy a child may have in property “unnecessarily” brought to school. The Court concluded that the necessity of maintaining security and order in the educational environment was …

Two Models Of The Fourth Amendment, Craig M. Bradley

Michigan Law Review

Fourth amendment critics rank in rows, and it has been repeatedly pointed out that individual cases are inconsistent with each other or that whole chunks of doctrine, such as the automobile exception or the plain view exception, are either misconceived, too broad, or too narrow. But these critics all play the Court on its own field, simply arguing as tenth Justices that the doctrines should be tinkered with in different ways than the Court has done. This Article, in contrast, suggests that current fourth amendment law, complete with the constant tinkering which it necessarily entails, should be abandoned altogether. Instead, …

Consequences Of Supreme Court Decisions Upholding Individual Constitutional Rights, Jesse H. Choper

Michigan Law Review

The thrust of this Article is to attempt to ascertain just what differences the Court's judgments upholding individual constitutional rights have made for those who fall within the ambit of their protection. It seeks to address such questions as: What were the conditions that existed before the Court's ruling? How many people were subject to the regime that was invalidated by the Justices? Was the Court's mandate successfully implemented? What were the consequences for those affected? At a subjective level, were the repercussions perceived as salutary by those (or at least most of those) who were the beneficiaries of the …

On Complaining About The Burger Court, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Warren Court (Was It Really So Defense-Minded?), The Burger Court (Is It Really So Prosecution-Oriented?), And Police Investigatory Practices, Yale Kamisar

Book Chapters

In one sense the Warren Court's "revolution" in American criminal procedure may be said to. have been launched by the 1956 case of Griffin v. Illinois (establishing an indigent criminal defendant's right to a free transcript on appeal, at least under certain circumstances) and to have been significantly advanced by two 1963 cases: Gideon v. Wainwright (entitling an indigent defendant to free counsel, at least in serious criminal cases) and Douglas v. California (requiring a state to provide an indigent with counsel on his first appeal from a criminal conviction). But these were not the cases that plunged the Warren …

Assaults On The Exclusionary Rule: Good Faith Limitations And Damage Remedies, Pierre J. Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Comment On The Burger Court And "Judicial Activism", Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Involuntary Public Figure Class Of Gertz V. Robert Welch: Dead Or Merely Dormant?, Dale K. Nichols

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article does not resolve the debate over involuntary public figures but argues instead that in light of the Court's pronouncements in Firestone, Hutchinson and Walston, the involuntary class should be abolished. Part I briefly traces the evolution and significance of public figure status in defamation law, and reviews various interpretations of the involuntary public figure references in Gertz. Part II examines the status of the involuntary class after Firestone, Hutchinson and Walston, and discusses the extent to which future use of the class remains logically consistent with those decisions. Finally, the article considers the merits of …

Roe V. Wade And The Lesson Of The Pre-Roe Case Law, Richard Gregory Morgan

Michigan Law Review

The politically unsettled and judicially confused law of abortion in 1971 and 1972, when the Court twice heard arguments and deliberated Roe, should have warned it not to decide the case. By doing so; the Court thrust itself into a political debate and stunted the development of a thoughtful lower-court case law. If the Court did perceive the warnings but continued toward a decision anyway, perhaps trusting that its own considerable wits would devise an answer the lower courts had not, the result suggests that the judicial system's axioms deserve more respect than they received. This Article, by showing …

The Eighteenth-Century Background Of John Marshall's Constitutional Jurisprudence, William E. Nelson

Michigan Law Review

This analysis of Marshall's constitutional jurisprudence avoids the pitfalls of previous theories. It does not see the Federalist political program as the source of Marshall's constitutional doctrines and thus does not need to explain how Marshall qualified his political principles or how he convinced non-Federalist judges to accept them. Instead, this essay argues that legal, not political, principles underlay Marshall's jurisprudence, but it attempts to understand those principles in a manner consistent with the unavoidable twentieth-century assumption that law is a body of flexible rules responsive to social reality rather than a series of immutable, unambiguous doctrines derived from a …