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Probability And Proof In State V. Skipper: An Internet Exchange, Ronald J. Allen, David J. Balding, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman, David H. Kaye, Lewis Henry Larue, Roger C. Park, Bernard Robertson, Alexander Stein

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This is not a conventional article. It is an edited version of messages sent to an Internet discussion list. The listings begin with the mention of a recent opinion of the Connecticut Supreme Court, parts of which are reproduced below. The listings soon move to broader issues concerning probability and other formal systems, their limitations, and their uses either in court or as devices for understanding legal proof.

Asymmetrical Peremptories Defended: A Reply, Richard D. Friedman

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Three years ago, with the publication of his article ''An Asymmetrical Approach to the Problem of Peremptories" in this journal, Professor Friedman initiated a debate on the subject that was taken up in 1994 by three prosecutors who offered a rebuttal that was also printed in these pages. Professor Friedman continues the debate.

Helping The Grim Reaper: Oregon's Measure 16 And Three Court Cases Put Assisted Suicide On A Fast Track To Supreme Court, Yale Kamisar, N. Schuyler, T. Balmer

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Last November, Oregon's voters passed by initiative the first physician-assisted suicide law in the nation. Measure 16 authorizes physicians to prescribe lethal medicaiton for competent, terminally ill adults if they make three separate requests, wait 15 days to reconsider, and get a second medical opinion of their prognosis. The new law was challenged immediately on several legal grounds; plaintiffs have won a preliminary injunction, and arguments have been scheduled in cross motions for summary jugement. Lee v. Oregon (D Or. No. 94-6467-ITO).

The Oregon court's decision will mark the fourth time in the past year that the once-obscure issue of …

Fathers, The Welfare System, And The Virtues And Perils Of Child-Support Enforcement, David L. Chambers

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For half a century, Aid to Families with Dependent Children ("AFDC")' -the program of federally supported cash assistance to low-income families with children-has been oddly conceived. Congress has chosen to make assistance available almost solely to low-income single-parent families, not all low-income parents with children. At first many of the eligible single parents were women whose husbands had died. Over time, a growing majority were women who had been married to their children's father but who had separated or divorced. Today, to an ever increasing extent, they are women who were never married to the fathers of their children.2

Refining Conditional Probative Value, Richard D. Friedman

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The subject of conditional relevance, or what I think is better called "conditional probative value," must seem hopelessly ard to many. It continues to engage the attention of evidence scholars, however, because it forms part of the conceptual underpinnings of many parts of evidentiary law. Dale'Nance, one of the most astute evidence scholars of our time, has previously written at length on the subject' and has done so now more briefly in response to an article of mine. I offer an even briefer continuation of the discussion.

The Trace Of An Abelian Group:An Application To Digraphs, J. M. Burns, Brendan Goldsmith

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The trace of a finite Abelian group is used to give a short proof of a result of Arlinghaus and Harary on the digraph number of such a group

Breaking The Cycle Of Despair: Street Children In Guatemala City, Tamara Rice Lave

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No abstract provided.

Taming The Wayward Children Of Monsanto And Sylvania: Some Thoughts On Developmental Disorders In Vertical Restraints Doctrine, Marc A. Fajer

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Law Review Symposium: A Hard Party To Crash For Crits, Feminists, And Other Outsiders Symposium On Trends In Legal Citations And Scholarship, Jean Stefancic

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Playing Favorites Favorite Case Symposium, Richard Delgado

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Bora Laskin And The Legal Process School, Paul Horwitz

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Cohen V. California: Inconsequential Cases And Larger Principles Favorite Case Symposium, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

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The Superior Orders Defense In Legal Ethics: Sending The Wrong Message To Young Lawyers, Carol Rice Andrews

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Colonial Scholar: Do Outsider Authors Replicate The Citation Practices Of The Insiders, But In Reverse, The Symposium On Trends In Legal Citations And Scholarship, Richard Delgado

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Outsider Scholars: The Early Stories Symposium On Trends In Legal Citations And Scholarship, Jean Stefancic, Richard Delgado

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The Speech We Hate: First Amendment Totalism, The Aclu, And The Principle Of Dialogic Politics, Richard Delgado, David H. Yun

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Life Along The Mississippi: The Crookedest River In The World Yields Yet Another Boundary Dispute State Boundaries, William L. Andreen

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Are Twelve Heads Better Than One?, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

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The jury's competence, unlike that of the judge, rests partly on its ability to reflect the perspectives, experiences, and values of the ordinary people in the community - not just the most common or typical community perspective, but the whole range of viewpoints.

The Influence Of International Practice On The Revision Of Article 5 Of The Ucc, James J. White

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The topic of this symposium is the influence that international law has had on domestic law of the United States. I believe that the story of the revision of Article 5 of the Uniform Commercial Code fits here, but some might dispute that. Although it is certainly fair to say that international practice-in a sense international law-was a powerful influence on the revision of Article 5 of the Uniform Commercial Code, that practice, and the way in which that influence was exerted were almost entirely sui generis to the letter of credit law, practice and history.

Deep Inner Lives, Individualism And People Of Honour, William I. Miller

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With the exception of St Augustine and perhaps Abelard, often praised as modern before their time, it is not unusual to find it maintained that the individual was not available in any serious conceptual, psychological or even sociological way before the seventeenth century. Our thick and deep self, according to this view, is thus a rather recent phenomenon. Some more expansive souls find the individual already emerging a century earlier, during the Reformation. Within the last three decades, medievalists, chagrined at being contemned by classicists on one flank and an alliance of Renaissance scholars, early modernists, modernists and post-modernists on …

Prior Statements Of A Witness: A Nettlesome Corner Of The Hearsay Thicket, Richard D. Friedman

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In Tome v United States, for the fifth time in eight years, the Supreme Court decided a case presenting the problem of how a child's allegations of sexual abuse should be presented in court. Often the child who charges that an adult abused her is unable to testify at trial, or at least unable to testify effectively under standard procedures. These cases therefore raise intriguing and difficult questions related to the rule against hearsay and to an accused's right under the Sixth Amendment to confront the witnesses against him. One would hardly guess that, however, from the rather arid debate …

Strong Criticism Of The American System Of Trial By Jury, Yale Kamisar

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I grieve for my country to say that the administration of the criminal law in all the states in the Union (there may be one or two exceptions) is a disgrace to our civilization.

Taxation Of Damages After Schleier - Where Are We And Where Do We Go From Here?, Douglas A. Kahn

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This article will examine the reasoning of the Schleier decision and speculate as to how taxation of pre-1996 damages will likely apply in light of Schleier. First, the article will set forth a very brief history of the judicial and administrative constructions of the statutory exclusion, and explore tax policy justifications for providing an exclusion from gross income for certain damages. These latter two items (set forth in Parts II and III of this article) are areas that have been extensively addressed previously by several commentators, including the author of this article.' The reason for exploring tax policy issues is …

How To Think About The Federal Commerce Power And Incidentally Rewrite United States V. Lopez, Donald H. Regan

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Almost sixty years after the "revolution" of 1937, we still do not have an adequate theory of the commerce power. The Court was right to abandon the theory of dual federalism epitomized by Carter v. Carter Coal Co.;' and it has got the right results in the major cases decided since then. But our post-1937 theory, whether before or after Lopez, is a mess. On the one hand, we have a collection of doctrinal rules that, if we take them seriously, allow Congress to do anything it wants under the commerce power. On the other hand, we continue to pay …

Reforming Article 9 Priorities In Light Of Old Ignorance And New Filing Rules (Symposium: 'Managing The Paper Trail': Evaluating And Reforming The Article 9 Filing System), James J. White

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The other papers in this Symposium demonstrate that we have the technical capacity to build a filing system that will exceed the expectations of Grant Gilmore in every dimension.1 With more thought about what is put into the system and more clever software to get it out, the most sophisticated system possible under current technology will store and produce enough information about a debtor to give the ACLU a fright. All of the issues on improving the filing system are important, but I do not concern myself with any of them directly. I am here discuss a different question. In …

Against Assisted Suicide - Even A Very Limited Form (Symposium: Assisted Suicide, Health Care And Medical Treatment Choices), Yale Kamisar

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Professor Robert Sedler is a leading constitutional law professor and a well-known civil liberties lawyer. I think he is right about many things. To cite but one example, I think he was right when he led the ACLU's successful legal attack on certain University of Michigan restrictions on "hate speech."' But I cannot agree with him about physician-assisted suicide, no matter how narrowly he frames the issue.2

At Issue: Should Active Euthanasia Be Legalized?, Yale Kamisar, Cheryl K. Smith

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The distinction between letting people die and killing them by lethal injection is now an integral part of the medico-legal landscape. This is the compromise we have arrived at in the struggle to take a humane approach toward seriously ill patients while still preserving as many traditional restraints against killing as we possibly can. This may be neither the logician's or the philosopher's way, but it may nevertheless be a defensible pragmatic way to do so.

The Taxation Of Domestic Limited Liability Companies And Limited Partnerships: The Case For Eliminating The Partnership Classification Regulations F. Hodge O'Neal Corporate And Securities Law Symposium: Limited Liability Companies, Susan Pace Hamill

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No abstract provided.

Meet John Doe: It Is Time For Federal Civil Procedure To Recognize John Doe Parties, Carol Rice Andrews

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No abstract provided.

Ansco Reminiscences, Ira Current

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Article by Prof Emeritus Ira Current, retired faculty member, about his early days at Ansco (later Agfa/Ansco), his arrival and on-the-job anecdotes prior to WWII.