Legal History Commons^™

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 …

The Gratuities Debate And Campaign Reform – How Strong Is The Link?, George D. Brown

George D. Brown

The federal gratuities statute, 18 USC § 201(c), continues to be a source of confusion and contention. The confusion stems largely from problems of draftsmanship within the statute, as well as uncertainty concerning the relationship of the gratuities offense to bribery. Both offenses are contained in the same statute; the former is often seen as a lesser-included offense variety of the latter. The controversy stems from broader concerns about whether the receipt of gratuities by public officials, even from those they regulate, should be a crime. The argument that such conduct should not be criminalized can be traced to, and …

Judicial Integrity: A Call For Its Re-Emergence In The Adjudication Of Criminal Cases, Robert M. Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

A court can invalidate or rectify certain kinds of offensive official action on the grounds of judicial integrity. In the past, it has served as a check on overzealous law enforcement agents whose actions so seriously impaired due process principles that they shocked the bench’s conscience. The principle not only preserves the judiciary as a symbol of lawfulness and justice, but it also insulates the courts from becoming aligned with illegal actors and their bad acts. The 1992 case of U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, however, may have signaled a departure from past practices. This article reviews current Supreme Court cases and …

Toward A More Independent Grand Jury: Recasting And Enforcing The Prosecutor’S Duty To Disclose Exculpatory Evidence, R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

This Article analyzes the Supreme Court’s decision in Williams, in which the Court struck down an attempt by the Tenth Circuit to impose an obligation on federal prosecutors to disclose substantial exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. The author discusses the contours of this case and the ethical underpinnings of a prosecutor’s disclosure obligations before the grand jury, and sets forth a new framework for consideration of such issues.

The Right To Counsel Fees In Public Interest Environmental Litigation, Zygmunt J.B. Plater, Joseph H. King Jr

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

No abstract provided.

Thinking Like Thinkers: Is The Art And Discipline Of An "Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion" Lost On Lawyers?, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

In his 1910 book, How We Think, John Dewey proclaimed that “the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquainting the attitude of suspended conclusion. . .” This Article explores that insight and describes its meaning and significance in the enterprise of thinking generally and its importance in law school education specifically. It posits that the law would be best served if lawyers think like thinkers and adopt an attitude of suspended conclusion in their problem solving affairs. Only when conclusion is suspended is there space for the exploration of the subject at hand. The …

A Theory Of The Perverse Verdict, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

The concept of a perverse verdict is one that pervades the Criminal justice system of nearly all common law jurisdictions. The English Criminal Justice system is no exception and the concept has become institutionalised as if it were a true occurrence. This paper challenges the idea and argues that it is, technically, a legal non-event given the system of trial by jury. The theory is that besides the jury, no one else is invested with the power and authority to declare a verdict and this position is supported both by legal custom and the mechanism of the criminal justice system. …

Legal Mechanization Of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response To Professor Branson With Some Supplemental Thoughts, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Response argues that as ATS jurisprudence “matures” or becomes more sophisticated, the legitimate limits of the law regress. The further expansion within the corporate defendant pool – attempting to pin liability on parent, great grandparent corporations and up to the top – raises the stakes and complexity of ATS litigation. The corporate social responsibility discussion raises three principal issues about how a moral corporation lives its life: how a corporation chooses its self-interest versus the interests of others, when and how it should help others if control decisions may harm the shareholder owners, and how far the corporation must …

Curtains, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

This is the story of life in all its glory and eternal ramifications. This is the story of us.

I Wept, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

It is not always what we expect to find in love but sometimes, we look in the worng places. We fail to notice that what we always wanted and sought was always in front of us.

Vanity Of Vanities, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

All that we see and all that we do are emptied into the eternal abyss of nothingness and vain glory. All the we have and all own us are intertwined in the great deception of man. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, all is vanity

A Criminal Moment In Time, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Criminal law jurisprudence considers the concepts of motive, intent and the forbidden act integral to the justice process. Throughout the common law jurisdictions, this trio overshadows a central theme that is a precursor to all criminal acts – the idea of a social responsibility continuum or cognitive dependency. While motive is dispositional on a wider application, intent is situational and is a product of one’s socio-cultural experience. The forbidden act, though central to the process, constitutes ‘a faithful mirror of thought’ – the consummation of a deliberate and manipulated cognition. The nexus between the three subjects extends beyond the Cartesan …

Jury Deliberations – How Do Reasoning Skills Interplay With Decision-Making?, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

We may well wonder how the Casey Anthony reached its verdict in spite of what many of us thought was a raft of compelling evidence. In order to understand some of the nuances at play, it is important to understand some of the issues that confront a jury and how the criminal justice system ensures or attempts to ensure a fair outcome in our trial by jury system

Jury Continuum, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Jury deliberations – how do reasoning skills interplay with decision-making?We may well wonder how the Casey Anthony jury reached its verdict in spite of what many of us thought was a raft of compelling evidence for conviction. In order to understand some of the nuances at play, it is important to understand some of the issues that confront a jury and how the criminal justice system ensures or attempts to ensure a fair outcome in our trial by jury system. At the risk of stating the obvious, one of the most enduring features of our criminal justice system is the …

El Derecho De Sucesiones Se Debe Atemperar A Los Cambios De La Sociedad Del Siglo Xxi, Edward Ivan Cueva

Edward Ivan Cueva

No abstract provided.

Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This short nontechnical article reviews the Arrow Impossibility Theorem and its implications for rational democratic decisionmaking. In the 1950s, economist Kenneth J. Arrow proved that no method for producing a unique social choice involving at least three choices and three actors could satisfy four seemingly obvious constraints that are practically constitutive of democratic decisionmaking. Any such method must violate such a constraint and risks leading to disturbingly irrational results such and Condorcet cycling. I explain the theorem in plain, nonmathematical language, and discuss the history, range, and prospects of avoiding what seems like a fundamental theoretical challenge to the possibility …

Juvenile Justice Reform 2.0, Tamar R. Birckhead

Tamar R Birckhead

Before the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court’s exercise of judicial review did not support the notion that constitutional litigation could be an effective instrument of social reform. The Court’s principled rejection of racially segregated public education, however, gave new legitimacy to the concept of judicial review, transforming it from an obstacle into a principal means of achieving social progress. Since then, federal courts have impacted public policy in many areas – from housing, welfare, and transportation to mental health institutions, prisons, and juvenile courts. Yet, there are inherent structural challenges to effecting …

Constitutional Rights And Judicial Independence: Lessons From Iowa, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

Iowa held its 2010 judicial retention elections in the shadow of Varnum v. Brien, the 2009 Supreme Court opinion recognizing same sex marriage. As the result of highly politicized campaign, three talented jurists lost their seats on the Court.

This commentary examines that election and offers a structural solution that might better protect constitutional rights against majoritarian intimidation.

While Effusive, "Conclusory" Is Still Quite Elusive: The Story Of A Word, Iqbal, And A Perplexing Lexical Inquiry Of Supreme Importance, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The meaning of the word “conclusory” seems really, quite elusory. Conclusory is a widespread, common, and effusive word in the modern legal lexicon. Yet you would not necessarily know that by looking through many dictionaries. “Conclusory” has been a late comer to the pages of most dictionaries. Even today, not all dictionaries include the word “conclusory”, those that do have only recently adopted it, and the small number of available dictionary definitions seem to struggle to capture the word’s usage in the legal world. Yet the word “conclusory” has taken center stage in the procedural plays of civil litigation with …