Digital Commons Network^™

Expert Information And Expert Evidence: A Preliminary Taxonomy, Samuel R. Gross, Jennifer L. Mnookin

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Federal Rule of Evidence 702 speaks in very general terms. It governs every situation in which "scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact," and provides that, in that situation, "a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise . . . .' In 2000, following a trio of Supreme Court cases interpreting Rule 702, the Rule was amended to include a third requirement, in addition to the helpfulness of the testimony and the qualifications of the witness: reliability. Under Rule 702 …

What They Say At The End: Capital Victims' Families And The Press, Samuel R. Gross, Daniel J. Matheson

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Perhaps the most common complaint by American crime victims and their families is that they are ignored-by the police, by the prosecutors, by the courts and by the press. However true that may be for capital cases in general, there is at least one consistent exception: the great majority of newspaper accounts of executions include at least some description of the reactions of the victims' families and of any surviving victims. It seems to have become an item on the checklist, part of the "who, what, where, when, why, and how" of execution stories. When no family members are available, …

Litigator's Thumbnail Guide To The Warn Act, David A. Santacroce

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When large companies choose to lay off workers or close down plants without prior notice, they can be subject to extensive liability under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), including 60 days backpay to all affected workers, daily fines to local government, and attorney fees generated during the suit. In the following article, the author presents the bare bones basics of WARN in order for employees and their advocates to understand how and when WARN applies.

Learning To Trust: Thoughts From A Law Clinic, David A. Santacroce

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The State Bar Legal Education Committee is now the Legal Education and Professional Standards Committee. This marriage seems an apt occasion to raise, through the prism of students, the issue of trust in client relations, though not in the traditional sense of "getting the client to trust me." Rather, the more ignored "getting me to trust the client" is the focus.

The Uniform Probate Code's Elective Share: Time For A Reassessment, Lawrence W. Waggoner

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In this Article, Professor Waggoner proposes reforms to the Uniform Probate Code's (UPC) treatment of the elective share of the surviving spouse. First, the Article recommends that the UPC adopt a form of presentation that more transparently reflects the normative theories and empirical assumptions underlying the UPC's elective share framework. Second, the Article presents demographic data suggesting that the UPC's current elective share approximation schedule may be inappropriatef or a sizable faction of married couples, those remarryingf ollowing widowhood. Finally, the Article proposes two substantive revisions to the UPC's election share framework-the first proposal is to lengthen the approximation schedule; …

Agency Burrowing: Entrenching Policies And Personnel Before A New President Arrives, Nina A. Mendelson

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This Article examines executive branch agency actions concluded just before a new President takes office, such as "midnight" rulemaking and late-term hiring and promotion, which Professor Mendelson collectively refers to as "agency burrowing." Congress, the media, and some commentators have portrayed such activities as unsavory power grabs that undermine the President-elect's ability to direct the functions of administrative agencies. Rather than dismissing agency burrowing out of hand, however, Professor Mendelson argues for a more nuanced approach. In some cases, burrowing can make positive contributions to the democratic responsiveness of agencies, agency accountability, and the "rule of law." A fuller analysis …

In Defense Of The Search And Seizure Exclusionary Rule (Law And Truth - The Twenty-First Annual National Student Federalist Society Symposium On Law And Public Policy - 2002), Yale Kamisar

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think Dean Pye's advice about casebook writing was sound,6 and what he had to say also applies to discussions and debates about such issues as the search and seizure exclusionary rule. We cannot (at least we should not) begin with Mapp v. Ohio. We need a prelude.

Gifts, Gafts And Gefts: The Income Tax Definition And Treatment Of Private And Charitable 'Gifts' And A Principled Policy Justification For The Exclusion Of Gifts From Income, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

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Gifts have been given special treatment by the income tax laws since the first post-16th Amendment tax statute was adopted in 1913. The determination of how the income tax law should treat gifts raises a number of issues. For example: should gifts be given special treatment? If so, what should qualify as a gift? Should gifts to a private party be taxable to the donee? Should gifts to a private party be deductible by the donor? Should the donee's basis in a gift of property be determined by reference to the basis that the donor had, and should any modifications …

The Evolution Of Water Pollution Control In The United States - State, Local, And Federal Efforts, 1789-1972: Part Ii, William L. Andreen

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This is the second article in a twopart series that examines the legal and technological developments as well as the social and political forces that culminated in the enactment of one of the landmark statutes of the twentieth century the Clean Water Act The first article which appeared at 22 Stanford Environmental Law Journal 145 2003 focused on developments at the state and local level It traced the way in which water pollution progressed from a simple local issue to a complex state and regional problem by the 1920s The article then turned to the development of state regulation from …

A New Framework For Building Secure Collaborative Systems In Ad Hoc Network, Hans-Peter Bischof, Alan Kaminsky, Joseph Binder

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Maturing software development organizations are beginning to identify a distinct role in the software team: Software Process Engineer. A software process engineer designs the software processes used by the organization. The software process includes the process content (identification of the roles, activities, and work products of the processes, along with specific techniques, tools, guidance, examples and other supporting information) and the lifecycle model (the ordering of and dependencies between software engineering activities and work products). A process engineer assembles a process from existing process components, choosing and tailoring components to provide the balance of agility and discipline necessary for their …

Comparative Study Of Spectral Reflectance Estimation Based On Broad-Band Imaging Systems, Francisco Imai, Lawrence Taplin, Ellen Day

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We have been practicing spectral color estimation for museum artwork imaging and spectral estimation. We have had success using both narrow-band imaging based on a liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF) and various broad-band imaging approaches using the same monochromatic digital camera system. Details about our spectral color imaging system description, imaging procedures and the performance of spectral estimation methods used can be found in our previous technical reports.1,2 In previous reports we focused in methods of reconstruction from narrow-band images using LCTF, while we only reported preliminary analyses of reconstruction from wide-band images using six glass filtered images and a …

Hubble Space Telescope Observations Of Ngc 6240: A Case Study Of An Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxy With Obscured Activity, Joris Gerssen, Roeland P. Van Der Marel, David Axon, J. Christopher Mihos, Lars Hernquist, Joshua E. Barnes

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We present results from an HST study of the morphology and kinematics of NGC 6240. This merging galaxy with a double nucleus is one of the nearest and best-studied ultraluminous infrared galaxies. HST resolves both nuclei into seperate components. The distance between the northern and southern optical/near-infrared components is greater than that observed in radio and X-ray studies, arguing that even in K-band we may not be seeing all the way through the dust to the true nuclei. The ionized gas does not display rotation around either of the nuclei, or equilibrium motion in general. There is a strong velocity …

Aspects Of Land Use In Slash And Burn Agriculture, Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Dug Man Lee

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In this paper we first construct a theoretical model of land use by swidden cultivators when these cultivators can choose whether to grow a cash crop or a food/subsistence crop. Second, we study the land quality accumulation decision faced by shifting cultivators and, in the process, we show how to compute the optimal length of time during which cleared land is to be left fallow. Finally, we investigate the implications that the optimal land quality accumulation decision has for the relative price of the food crop in particular and slash and burn agriculture in general.

Surveys For Gray Whales, Eschrichtius Robustus, Near Cape Caution, British Columbia, Summer 2003, William Megill, Lei Lani Stelle, Becky Woodward

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The Coastal Ecosystems Research Foundation conducted several surveys for gray whales on the southern Central Coast of British Columbia during the summer of 2003. Three surveys were conducted in CERF’s usual study area near Cape Caution, and three along the west coast of Calvert Island. Additional shorter surveys were also conducted of the Rivers Inlet / Smith Sound region north of Cape Caution. A total of 50 animals were identified from the pigmentation on their flanks. Twelve of these were new to the area in 2003. All but three were photographed. The animals not photographed (due to a camera malfunction) …

Prevention Education, Wendy Dimatteo

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No abstract provided.

Consequences Of Alcohol And Medication, Bruce Pemberton

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No abstract provided.

Is It Addiction?, Jean Spence

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No abstract provided.

Cigarette Smoking, Diana Williams

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No abstract provided.

Substance Abuse Prevention Services For Deaf & Hard Of Hearing Children, Diana Williams

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No abstract provided.

Constraints On Cosmic Dynamics, Manasse Mbonye

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Also archived at: arXiv:gr-qc/0309135 v1 30 Sep 2003 Observationally, the universe appears virtually critical. Yet, there is no simple explanation for this state. In this article we advance and explore the premise that the dynamics of the universe always seeks equilibrium conditions. Vacuum-induced cosmic accelerations lead to creation of matter-energy modes at the expense of vacuum energy. Because they gravitate, such modes constitute inertia against cosmic acceleration. On the other extreme, the would-be ultimate phase of local gravitational collapse is checked by a phase transition in the collapsing matter fields leading to a de Sitter-like fluid deep inside the black …

Historical Perspectives (Apoptosis), James Curtin, Thomas Cotter

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Apoptosis is one of the most widely studied fields in biology and accounts for over 2% of all life science publications annually. It plays a fundamental role in development, and defects in the regulation of apoptosis are directly implicated in numerous well-known diseases including cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, tissue atrophy and auto-immune diseases. However, the field of apoptosis has humble beginnings and was neglected by biologists for much of its history. This chapter reviews the history of research in apoptosis and highlights key experiments that have contributed significantly to our current understanding of apoptosis. In addition, the topics covered in later …

The Sometimes-Bumpy Stream Of Commerce Clause Doctrine (Symposium: The Commerce Clause: Past, Present, And Future), Richard D. Friedman

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The title of this essay is a somewhat feeble use of an unoriginal pun.' I am not talking about the doctrine of the stream, but about the stream of the doctrine. That is, my principal subject is not the "stream of commerce doctrine," but rather the historical development of the doctrine governing Congress's power under the Commerce Clause in the twentieth century, and especially in the years centering on the New Deal. My basic thesis is this: Although the doctrine developed rapidly in the New Deal era, there were no major discontinuities in it. That does not mean that it …

Confrontation As A Hot Topic: The Virtues Of Going Back To Square One, Richard D. Friedman

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I have been working so obsessively on the accused's right to confront the witnesses against him 1 that I am gratified that the organizers of this conference have designated confrontation as one of the "hot topics" of Evidence law. I am not so egotistical as to think that my work has made confrontation into a hot topic; I am just glad to know that I am working where a good deal of action is, and that other scholars recognize that confrontation is an important area in which dramatic changes may be occurring.

Too Busy To Mind The Business? Monitoring By Directors With Multiple Board Appointments, Stephen P. Ferris, Murali Jagannathan, Adam C. Pritchard

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We examine the number of external appointments held by corporate directors. Directors who serve larger firms and sit on larger boards are more likely to attract directorships. Consistent with Fama and Jensen (1983), we find that firm performance has a positive effect on the number of appointments held by a director. We find no evidence that multiple directors shirk their responsibilities to serve on board committees. We do not find that multiple directors are associated with a greater likelihood of securities fraud litigation. We conclude that the evidence does not support calls for limits on directorships held by an individual.

The Reliability Of The Administrative Office Of The U.S. Courts Database: An Initial Empirical Analysis, Theodore Eisenberg, Margo Schlanger

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Researchers have long used federal court data assembled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) and the Federal Judicial Center (FJC). The data include information about every case filed in federal district court and every appeal filed in the twelve nonspecialized federal appellate courts. Much research using the AO data spans subject matter areas, and includes articles on appeals, caseloads and case-processing times, case outcomes, the relation between demographics and case outcomes, class actions, diversity jurisdiction, and litigation generally. Other research using the AO data covers particular subject matter areas, such as inmate cases, contract cases, corporate litigation, …

Bayh-Dole Reform And The Progress Of Biomedicine, Arti K. Rai, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

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Allowing universities to patent the results of government-sponsored research sometimes works against the public interest.

Japanese Justice System Reform In Comparative Perspective, Daniel H. Foote

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Over the past two years I have become so heavily involved in the justice system reform discussions - in particular the discussions regarding legal training - that it would be nearly impossible for me to address the assigned topic of reform from a detached perspective. Rather than attempt to do so, I will offer certain personal impressions of the reforms, with particular reference to legal education.

Eminent Domain Economics: Should ‘Just Compensation’ Be Abolished, And Would ‘Takings Insurance’ Work Instead?, Steve Calandrillo

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In a defeat for staunch property rights advocates, the Supreme Court ruled this spring that a prohibition on land development in the Tahoe basin did not amount to a de facto taking of land such that the constitutional mandate of just compensation was triggered. The Tahoe decision highlights the struggle in eminent domain jurisprudence over the proper treatment of so-called regulatory takings. It has long been taken for granted that when the government exercises its power of eminent domain to take private property in the name of the public good, it must reimburse displaced landowners. While compensation for physical takings …

"They Say He's Gay": The Admissibility Of Evidence Of Sexual Orientation, Peter Nicolas

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This Article seeks to fill an existing gap. Part II of this Article discusses the ways in which the sexual orientation of a victim, party, or witness is relevant within the meaning of Federal Rule of Evidence 401 and its state-law analogues, as well as when such evidence, although relevant, is nonetheless excluded due to its potential prejudicial impact.

Part III of this Article examines the hearsay rule and its exceptions to determine when, if ever, a person's assertion that he is gay can be admitted into evidence. Part IV of this Article discusses the applicability of the spousal privileges …

Whose Deal Is It? Teaching About Structural Inequality By Teaching Contracts Transactionally, Kellye Y. Testy

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Although Scott Burnham and others have urged the use of more contracts to teach Contracts for some time,'9 it is safe to say that the majority of Contracts courses in the United States do not put actual contracts front and center. While particular phrases or provisions surely are referenced in the steady diet of appellate decisions that comprise the first-year course, those decisions very rarely include the actual contract at issue for study. Moreover, in the increased compression of the first year course," few professors believe they can justify the time for transactional exercises or simulations in the rush to …