Digital Commons Network^™

Bayesian Exponential Random Graph Models With Nodal Random Effects, Stephanie Thiemichen, Nial Friel, Alberto Caimo, Goeran Kauermann

Articles

We extend the well-known and widely used Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) by including nodal random effects to compensate for heterogeneity in the nodes of a network. The Bayesian framework for ERGMs proposed by Caimo and Friel (2011) yields the basis of our modelling algorithm. A central question in network models is the question of model selection and following the Bayesian paradigm we focus on estimating Bayes factors. To do so we develop an approximate but feasible calculation of the Bayes factor which allows one to pursue model selection. Two data examples and a small simulation study illustrate our mixed …

A Nearly Perfect System For Convicting The Innocent, Albert W. Alschuler

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No abstract provided.

The Sin Of Turning Away From Reality: An Interview With Father Krzysztof Charamsa, David Paternotte, Mary Anne Case, Sarah Bracke

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No abstract provided.

Protecting The Free-Range Kid: Recalibrating Parents' Rights And The Best Interest Of The Child, David Pimentel

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No abstract provided.

The Course Source: The Casebook Evolved, Stephen Johnson

Articles

Law students are changing, law practice is changing, law schools are criticized for failing to prepare practice-ready lawyers, and there is nearly universal consensus that legal education must transform. However, the principal tool that many faculty members rely on to prepare their courses, the Langdellian casebook, is ill-suited for such transformation. This prototypical casebook, which is still the standard for many courses today, was designed for the Socratic dialogue and the case method mode of instruction. Although there is still a place for that method in legal education, other methods of instruction—the carriage bolts and lag screws of modern legal …

Presidential Leadership And The Separation Of Powers, Eric A. Posner

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No abstract provided.

Beyond Liberty: Toward A History And Theory Of Economic Coercion, Hiba Hafiz

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No abstract provided.

The United Nations Working Group On Arbitrary Detention: Procedures And Summary Of Jurisprudence, David Weissbrodt, Brittany Mitchell

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For nearly twenty-five years, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has provided a well-respected jurisprudence on fundamental human rights, such as: freedom of expression and religion; limits on administrative detention; restrictions on discrimination in detention; and violations of the right to fair trial. The Working Group has amassed a unique collection of legal principles applicable to individuals detained by the United States, including asylum seekers, immigrants, and refugees. The decisions of the Working Group have also applied to non-state actors.

'Against All Odds': Head Chefs Profiled, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire, Hannah Allen

Articles

This study based on a survey of 170 head chefs provides the first comprehensive empirical data on the profile of head chefs in the Republic of Ireland. Eighty-four percent of head chefs were male and the majority (48.8%) were in their thirties. There is an increased rise in the attainment of degrees (currently at 35%), but findings showed that it takes years to advance in the industry, where there is a high rate of turnover. This article both reviews and adds to the international literature on the occupation of chef and raises questions for further research such as: Why are …

"Ideology" Or "Situation Sense"? An Experimental Investigation Of Motivated Reasoning And Professional Judgment, Dan M. Kahan, David Hoffman, Danieli Evans, Neal Devins, Eugene Lucci, Katherine Cheng, Katherine Cheng, Katherine Cheng

Articles

This Article reports the results of a study on whether political predispositions influence judicial decisionmaking. The study was designed to overcome the two principal limitations on existing empirical studies that purport to find such an influence: the use of nonexperimental methods to assess the decisions of actual judges; and the failure to use actual judges in ideologically-biased-reasoning experiments. The study involved a sample of sitting judges (n = 253), who, like members of a general public sample (n = 800), were culturally polarized on climate change, marijuana legalization and other contested issues. When the study subjects were assigned to analyze …

Empirical Methods And Critical Race Theory: A Discourse On Possibilities For A Hybrid Methodology, Mario L. Barnes

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No abstract provided.

Bringing Demonstrative Evidence In From The Cold: The Academy's Role In Developing Model Rules, Maureen A. Howard, Jeffry C. Barnum

Articles

To this day, judges and advocates struggle with the definition and use of "demonstrative evidence." The ambiguity of this term (or its close cousins "illustrative evidence" and evidence offered "for illustrative purposes only") infects the judicial process with uncertainty, hindering advocates when preparing for trial and, in some cases, producing erroneous verdicts. For example, the Seventh Circuit recently reversed a case for improper use of a demonstrative exhibit, and on retrial the result swung from a defense verdict to an $11 million plaintiffs victory. Uncertainty about the admission and use of demonstrative evidence has festered for decades. Lawyers innovate in …

Visual Rulemaking, Elizabeth G. Porter, Kathryn A. Watts

Articles

Federal rulemaking has traditionally been understood as a text-bound, technocratic process. However, as this Article is the first to uncover, rulemaking stakeholders—including agencies, the President, and members of the public—are now deploying politically tinged visuals to push their agendas at every stage of high-stakes, often virulently controversial, rulemakings. Rarely do these visual contributions appear in the official rulemaking record, which remains defined by dense text, lengthy cost-benefit analyses, and expert reports. Perhaps as a result, scholars have overlooked the phenomenon we identify here: the emergence of a visual rulemaking universe that is splashing images, GIFs, and videos across social media …

In Praise Of (Some) Ex Post Regulation: A Response To Professor Galle, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

According to modern law-and-economics (“L&E”) orthodoxy, the primary—maybe even the only—legitimate justification for government regulation is to correct a market failure. This conclusion is based on two key assumptions. First, when markets are functioning reasonably well, they are better at achieving efficiency than the government is. Second, most markets function reasonably well most of the time. Although there is probably evidence to support these assumptions (for example, the relative prosperity of market-based economies in comparison with the relative poverty of centrally planned economies), both assumptions are usually taken as articles of faith by mainstream L&E scholars. This is why scholarly …

The Pendulum Swings: Reconsidering Corporate Criminal Prosecution, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

Corporate crime continues to occur at an alarming rate, yet disagreement persists among scholars and practitioners about the role of corporate criminal prosecution. Some argue that corporations should face criminal prosecution for their misconduct, while others would reserve criminal prosecution for individual corporate officials. Perhaps as a result of this conflict, there has been a dramatic increase over the last decade in the use of deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements for some corporate crimes, even as the government continues to bring criminal charges for other corporate crimes. To move beyond our erratic approach to corporate crime, we need a better …

Portmanteau Ascendant: Post-Release Regulations And Sex Offender Recidivism, J. J. Prescott

Articles

The purported purpose of sex offender post-release regulations (e.g., community notification and residency restrictions) is the reduction of sex offender recidivism. On their face, these laws seem well-designed and likely to be effective. A simple economic framework of offender behavior can be used to formalize these basic intuitions: in essence, post-release regulations either increase the probability of detection or increase the immediate cost of engaging in the prohibited activity (or both), and so should reduce the likelihood of criminal behavior. These laws aim to incapacitate people outside of prison. Yet, empirical researchers to date have found essentially no reliable evidence …

Assignments With Intrinsic Lessons On Professionalism (Or, Teaching Students To Act Like Adults Without Sounding Like A Parent), Beth H. Wilensky

Articles

There is little question that law schools ought to teach their students professionalism – indeed, they are required to do so to maintain accreditation. And there is little question that the required legal writing and research course is one of the places it ought to be taught. But teaching students to adopt the norms of professional behavior — both in law school and after graduation — is a challenge to law faculties, and particularly to the experiential learning faculty who frequently are on the front lines of teaching professionalism. While there are many ways to teach students what professional and …

Consideration Of Genetic Connections In Child Custody Disputes Between Same-Sex Parents: Fair Or Foul?, Jessica Feinberg

Articles

Historically, in child custody disputes involving same-sex couples who conceived their children through assisted reproductive technology, the law only recognized the relationship between the child and the member of the same-sex couple who was the child’s genetic parent. Consequently, non-genetic parents in these situations were frequently denied standing to seek custody or visitation following the dissolution of their relationship with the child’s genetic parent. Due to recent legal advancements, however, it is becoming far more common for both members of a same-sex couple to be legally recognized as the parents of a child conceived through assisted reproductive technology. Unfortunately, despite …

The Prosecutor's Duty To "Imperfect" Rape Victims, Tamara Rice Lave

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No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The Ambient Environment And Building Configuration On Occupant Productivity In Open-Plan Commercial Offices, Mark Mulville, Nicola Callaghan, David Isaac

Articles

Purpose

This paper sets out to understand the impact of the ambient environment on perceived comfort, health, wellbeing and by extension productivity in the workplace.

Design/methodology/approach

The research combined an occupant survey considering satisfaction with the ambient environment, health and wellbeing and workplace behaviour with the monitoring of ambient environmental conditions.

Findings

The paper demonstrates that the ambient environment can have a significant impact on occupant comfort, health and wellbeing, which in turn has implications for built asset performance. Within the ambient environmental factors considered, a hierarchy may exist with noise being of particular importance. Occupant behaviour within the workplace …

The Continuing Battle Over Economically Targeted Investments: An Analysis Of The Department Of Labor's Interpretative Bulletin 2015-01, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

In Interpretive Bulletin 2015-01 (IB 2015-01), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) renewed the now two-decades old battle over “economically targeted investments” (ETIs). As a matter of statutory interpretation, IB 2015-01, like its predecessors, is unpersuasive. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) requires plan trustees to invest “solely” to provide participants’ retirement benefits. A trustee who invests in ETIs violates this statutory obligation by pursuing collateral economic benefits for persons other than plan participants. As a matter of policy, the social investing which ETIs exemplify is unsound. At best, such social investing in practice merely shuffles investment …

Innovation Heuristics: Experiments On Sequential Creativity In Intellectual Property, Stefan Bechtold, Christopher Buccafusco, Christopher Jon Sprigman

Articles

All creativity and innovation build on existing ideas. Authors and inventors copy, adapt, improve, interpret, and refine the ideas that have come before them. The central task of intellectual property (IP) law is regulating this sequential innovation to ensure that initial creators and subsequent creators receive the appropriate sets of incentives. Although many scholars have applied the tools of economic analysis to consider whether IP law is successful in encouraging cumulative innovation, that work has rested on a set of untested assumptions about creators’ behavior. This Article reports four novel creativity experiments that begin to test those assumptions. In particular, …

The Hopes And Fears Of All The Years: 30 Years Behind And The Road Ahead For The Widespread Use Of Mediation, Lela P. Love, Ellen A. Waldman

Articles

Looking through the windshield in 1985, the dispute resolution community was enthusiastic about mediation's promise: the promise of a radically different paradigm premised on party-driven resolution and collaborative decision-making. Peering ahead, mediation's pioneers anticipated a quiet revolution in conflict management toward more therapeutic and democratic processes. What do events in the last three decades tell us about the high and low points — the successes and failures — in the journey of that endeavor? Looking forward, how might we best align reality with our highest aspirations and avoid the disappointing troughs we encountered in those past decades? This article addresses …

The Moral Psychology Of Copyright Infringement, Christopher Buccafusco, Dave Fagundes

Articles

Numerous recent cases illustrate that copyright owners sue for infringement even when an unauthorized use of their work causes them no economic harm. This presents a puzzle from the perspective of copyright theory as well as a serious social problem, since infringement suits designed to remedy non-economic harms tend to stifle rather than encourage creative production. While much scholarship has critiqued copyright’s economic theory from the perspective of authors’ incentives to create, ours is the first to explore this issue from the perspective of owners’ motivations to sue for infringement. We turn to moral psychology, and in particular to moral …

Abortion, Informed Consent, And Regulatory Spillover, Katherine Shaw, Alex Stein

Articles

The constitutional law of abortion stands on the untenable assumption that any state’s abortion regulations impact citizens of that state alone. On this understand-ing, the state’s boundaries demarcate the terrain on which women’s right to abortion clashes with state power to regulate that right.

This Article uncovers a previously unnoticed horizontal dimension of abortion regulation: the medical-malpractice penalties imposed upon doctors for failing to inform patients about abortion risks; the states’ power to define those risks, along with doctors’ informed-consent obligations and penalties; and, critically, the possi-bility that such standards might cross state lines. Planned Parenthood v. Casey and other …

The Tribes Of Maycomb County: The Continuing Quest To Transcend Our Differences, Steven H. Hobbs

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No abstract provided.

Framing Effects On Bidding Behavior In Experimental First-Price Sealed-Bid Money Auctions, Michael J. Vernarelli, Justin S. Skillman

Articles

Consumers often face prices that are the sum of two components, for example, an online purchase that includes a stated price and shipping costs. In such cases consumer behavior may be influenced by framing, i.e., how the components are bifurcated. Previous studies have demonstrated the effects of framing and anchoring in auctions. This study examines bidding patterns in a series of first-price sealed-bid experimental money auctions (where the commodity being auctioned is money itself). We hypothesize that bidders’ behavior is affected by the framing of the potential monetary payoff into “monetary prize” and “winner’s bonus” components. We find strong evidence …

Applying Kouzes & Posner's Leadership Concepts To Poverty Alleviation Work In The Developing World, John Oliphant

Articles

Many people in the developing world struggle with significant poverty. People who feel trapped in a cycle of poverty often describe feeling inferior and powerless. Those who are relatively wealthy and in leadership roles may suffer from a different pathology that some have described as a “god- complex” in which a sense of superiority may develop, leading to the belief that they have been chosen to decide what is best for the poor. As the leaders of organizations that do poverty alleviation work in the developing world contemplate what approach to take when formulating their leadership style, they would do …

Exposing The Gendered Myth Of Post Conflict Transition: The Transformative Power Of Economic And Social Rights, Madeleine Rees, Christine M. Chinkin

Articles

Post conflict transition has become an industry, with a plethora of states, NGOs, experts, institutes, academics and U.N. bodies, all seeking to find the right formula to effect real and sustainable peace where previously there has been none. It is valuable and important, nevertheless, to note that "more than [fifty] percent of peace agreements fail within the first five years of signature". The evidence is clear: transitions are not working.

In this essay we seek to explain and deconstruct some of the terminology applied to post conflict situations by briefly looking at conceptss of "gender equality" participation, political economy, neo-liberalism, …

Anti-Incarcerative Remedies For Illegal Conditions Of Confinement, Margo Schlanger

Articles

Opposition to mass incarceration has entered the mainstream. But except in a few states, mass decarceration has not, so far, followed: By the end of 2014 (the last data available), nationwide prison population had shrunk only 3% off its (2009) peak. Jail population, similarly, was down just 5% from its (2008) peak. All told, our current incarceration rate - 7 per 1,000 population - is the same as in 2002, and four times the level in 1970, when American incarceration rates began their rise. Our bloated prisoner population includes many groups of prisoners who are especially likely to face grievous …