Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

Functional Analysis Of The Plain-Error Rule, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this article, I attempt to do two things at once. First, I attempt to analyze the Supreme Court's jurisdiction to conduct "plain-error" review of state court decisions. The plain-error issue merits consideration not only because of its intrinsic interest and arguable complexity, but also because the question whether the Supreme Court is authorized to engage in plain-error review is an open one that I would like to help resolve. My second objective, however, is the more important of the two. In the context of analyzing plain-error review, what I really want to do is analyze legal analysis itself. There …