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The Honest Scientist's Guide To Dna Evidence, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

The honest scientist recognizes that she herself is a test instrument, and a fallible one at that. Subjectivity inescapably enters into any human endeavor, and should not be denied. DNA testing is rife with subjective elements, no place more so than at the crucial stage of deciding whether a match exists. On the one hand, non-matching extraneous bands may sometimes be properly disregarded and patterns that do not quite meet objective matching criteria may be appropriately regarded as incriminatory matches. On the other hand, band patterns that do meet objective matching criteria may be treated as exonerative depending on how …

Advising The Neocapitalists, James J. White

Articles

I write to reflect on what American lawyers can and will do for these emerging free market economies. I am more skeptical than most.

What's An Opinion For? (Special Issue: Judicial Opinion Writing), James Boyd White

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The question the papers in this Special Issue address is whether it matters how judicial opinions are written, and if so why. My hope here is to suggest a way of elaborating the ques­tion that may provide the reader with a useful point of departure for reading the more extensive papers that follow.

On The Topology Of Uniform Environmental Standards In A Federal System And Why It Matters (Symposium: Environmental Federalism), James E. Krier

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Uniform standards are much favored among the makers of federal environmental policy in the United States, which is to say, among the members of Congress. By and large-judging at least from the legislation it has enacted-Congress expects the air and water eventually to meet the same minimum levels of quality in every state in the country, and expects each pollution source in any industrial category or subcategory to be controlled just as much as every other such source, notwithstanding the source's location or other peculiar characteristics. There are exceptions to these generalizations, but they are exceptions and not the rule.1 …

Imagining Children's Rights, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

Today, I will tell you some stories about real, live children, whose futures have been determined by our legal system. To speak of children's rights hypothetically, raises images of children suing to go live with their rich uncle or suing to demand a Nintendo system from their parents. I hope that by bringing you stories of the legal system's treatment of real children, you will have a better understanding of what I mean by children's rights and why they must be recognized. Although children's rights have been recognized in limited ways in the areas of free speech, criminal law and …

A Child's Right To Protection From Transfer Trauma In A Contested Adoption Case, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

On August 2, 1993, I arrived at the home of Jan, Robby, and Jessica DeBoer' a few hours before the transfer. At 2:00 P.M. I would carry Jessica out of her home and deliver her to the parents who had won the case,2 her biological mother and father. This task probably would have been easier had I not spent eight days in the trial court listening to the experts explain that this transfer from one set of parents to another would harm Jessica.3 It would have been easier had I not recently obtained affidavits from other experts to persuade the …

The Six Companies And The Geary Act: A Case Study In Nineteenth-Century Civil Disobedience And Civil Rights Litigation, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

In 1892, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in San Francisco urged the resident Chinese community to ignore a federal law. The United States Congress had just passed the Geary Act, which required all Chinese laborers living in the United States to register with the collector of internal revenue. Under the act, those who did not register would face arrest and likely deportation. The Benevolent Association, also known as the Six Companies," claimed that the act violated both the constitutional right to due process and treaty obligations with China. To combat the legislation, the association enlisted the assistance of the Chinese …

Property Rules And Liability Rules: The Cathedral In Another Light, James E. Krier, Stewart J. Schwab

Articles

Ronald Coase's essay on "The Problem of Social Cost" introduced the world to transaction costs, and the introduction laid the foundation for an ongoing cottage industry in law and economics. And of all the law-and-economics scholarship built on Coase's insights, perhaps the most widely known and influential contribution has been Calabresi and Melamed's discussion of what they called "property rules" and "liability rules."' Those rules and the methodology behind them are our subjects here. We have a number of objectives, the most basic of which is to provide a much needed primer for those students, scholars, and lawyers who are …

The Romance Of Revenge: An Alternative History Of Jeffrey Dahmer's Trial, Samuel R. Gross

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On Feb. 17, 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to fifteen consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing and dismembering fifteen young men and boys. Dahmer had been arrested six months earlier, on July 22, 1991. On Jan. 13 he pled guilty to the fifteen murder counts against him, leaving open only the issue of his sanity. Jury selection began two weeks later, and the trial proper started on Jan. 30. The jury heard two weeks of horrifying testimony about murder, mutilation and necrophilia; they deliberated for five hours before finding that Dahmer was sane when he committed thos crimes. After …

Upward Contempt, William I. Miller

Articles

Contempt and shame go hand in hand. Actions that should shame us, styles of self-presentation that should humiliate us if we are socially competent enough to have such a purchase on ourselves, are those actions and styles that generate and justify the contempt of others for us. Or, changing the causal order: one's contempt of us will generate shame or humiliation in us if we concur with the judgment of our contemptibility, that is, if the contempt is justified, or indignation and even vengeful fury if it is unjustified. Contempt is thus a mechanism of ranking people or of contesting …

The Challenge Of Asian Law, Whitmore Gray

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Several years ago, when U.S. trade across the Pacific finally surpassed that across the Atlantic, a small group of U.S. lawyers were already responding to the challenge of representing clients in transactions in Asia. While few had had the opportunity to take courses dealing with Asian law during their law school years, many entered the field because of undergraduate language and area studies courses. A few had taught courses dealing with Asia before beginning their law studies.

The Warren Court And Criminal Justice: A Quarter-Century Retrospective, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Many commentators have observed that when we speak of "the Warren Court," we mean the Warren Court that lasted from 1962 (when Arthur Goldberg replaced Felix Frankfurter) to 1969 (when Earl Warren retired). But when we speak of the Warren Court's "revolution" in American criminal procedure we mean the Warren Court that lasted from 1961 (when the landmark case of Mapp v. Ohio was decided) to 1966 or 1967. In its final years, the Warren Court was not the same Court that had handed down Mapp or Miranda v. Arizona.

How To Negotiate A Sales Contract, James J. White

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A. Introduction 1. In my experience, lawyers begin negotiating only after the business people have decided upon the description and quality of the product, the time of delivery, and the mode and amount of payment. The lawyers are left with the pathological problems - who gets what in case of trouble. 2. Most of those pathological problems relate to the seller's responsibility if the product does not conform to the contract or otherwise fails to please the buyer. These failures can cause economic loss to the buyer, economic loss to a remote purchaser, or personal injury or property damage to …

Gasshūkoku Ni Okeru Hōgakkai To Hōjitsumukai [The Worlds Of Academics And Legal Practice In The United States], Daniel H. Foote

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I prepared this paper for a symposium entitled, "Academics and Practitioners in Japan and the United States: Can the Two Worlds Ever Meet?" When I saw the symposium title, my first reaction was that it might seem strange to ask whether the worlds of academics and legal practice can ever meet in the United States. After all, to a large degree the history of the law school in the United States has been that of an institution dedicated to the training of legal practitioners; the vast majority of US law professors are members of the bar; and many, if not …

Resolution Of Traffic Accident Disputes And Judicial Activism In Japan, Daniel H. Foote

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The topic of resolution of traffic accident cases in Japan has already seen two works in English: a 1989 article by J. Mark Ramseyer and Minoru Nakazato in the Journal of Legal Studies and a 1990 article by Takao Tanase in the Law and Society Review. Why yet another article?

First, despite the fine treatment of a wide range of issues in those articles, neither of those works gave much attention to what I regard as one of the most interesting and important aspects of the Japanese treatment of automobile accident cases: namely, the role of the judiciary and the …

Four Views Of Japanese Attorneys, Daniel H. Foote

Articles

The four articles translated below appeared in a special collection entitled: Bengoshi--san Monosatari-or, A Tale of Lawyers. This collection was No. 198 in the Bessatsu Takarajma series, a series that contains such other tides as: How to Develop Brain Power (Noryoku toreningu no gijutsu, No. 41), The Court Game (Salban gemu, No. 169), and The Dark Side of Real Estate (Fudosan no ura, No. 177). As these titles ·reflect, publications in the series are aimed at the mass market. not the world of academics. A further caveat is thatr as with the majority …

Deception, Self-Deception, And Myth: Evaluating Long-Term Environmental Settlements, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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This paper draws upon six famous settlements that are known in various degrees to students of environmental law. Three are a matter of deep history: the 1970 Environmental Defense Fund settlement that led the last manufacturer of DDT in the U.S. to cease discharges into the Los Angeles sewer system and thence into Santa Monica Bay, the Kepone settlement of the mid-70s that followed in the wake of Judge Merhige's initial assessment of a record-breaking criminal fine of $13.24 million, and the Hudson River settlement of the early 1980s in which environmentalists gave up demands for cooling towers on several …

Chief Justice Rehnquist And The Indian Cases, Ralph W. Johnson, Berrie Martinis

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Since his appointment to the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has guided significant changes m Indian law He has articulated new tests for determining the status of tribes and their powers as sovereign nations. He has voted to disestablish tribes and limit their sovereign powers. He has voted to allow states to exercise jurisdiction over Indian and non-Indian activities and property on reservations.

The articulation of a legal philosophy is generally accepted, expected, and probably necessary for a Supreme Court Justice. At the same time it is instructive to know the views of the members of …

Inplane Anchoring Energy In Ferroelectric Liquid-Crystals - Evidence For Its Existence And Measurement., Yuri Panarin, S. Mac Lughadha, J. Vij

Articles

No abstract provided.

Chief Justice Rehnquist And The Indian Cases, Ralph W. Johnson, Berrie Martinis

Articles

Since his appointment to the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has guided significant changes in Indian law. He has articulated new tests for determining the status of tribes and their powers as sovereign nations. He has voted to disestablish tribes and limit their sovereign powers. He has voted to allow states to exercise jurisdiction over Indian and non-Indian activities and property on reservations.

The articulation of a legal philosophy is generally accepted, expected, and probably necessary for a Supreme Court Justice. At the same time it is instructive to know the views of the members of …

Deception, Self-Deception, And Mythology: The Law Of Salmon In The Pacific Northwest, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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This paper will present a Puritan Model of the Law of Lies, which is a prominent (but by no means only) model observable in U.S. law. We will then turn to the underpinnings in evolutionary theory of deception and self-deception. We will next apply these concepts to the worlds of salmon law and policymaking, which are marked conspicuously by evidences of deceit. Some conclusions will be offered on how deceit and self-deception are addressed in the law. We will conclude with some distinctions between the laws of deception and self-deception.

For the most part, our deceptions are governed by the …

Children's Task Force Reports, Donald N. Duquette, Cd Stephens

Articles

When the public thinks of children and the law, high-visibility cases like Baby Jessica and Baby Richard come to mind. The human drama of a small child caught up in a titanic custody struggle attracts unrelenting media attention and triggers cries for law reform. Yet for every Baby Jessica and Baby Richard, thousands of children pass through our courts with little public attention but with consequences to them just as momentous and life altering as those cases featured on the national news shows. In 1991 State Bar of Michigan leadership began to ask whether our profession and Michigan's courts are …

Tripartite Voidable Preferences, David G. Carlson

Articles

This paper applies Jacques Lacan's theory of retrospective cause to the jurisprudence of H.L.A. Hart and his followers. The thesis is that "effect" (judicial decision) precedes "cause" (law). The proper tense for legal discourse is, therefore, future anterior. The following points follow from this: (1) Positivism asserts that law is not necessarily connected to morality, but this is a priori wrong. Law wishes to be separate from morality, but it necessarily fails. (2) The theory vindicates Dworkin's notorious "right answers" theory, but makes the additional point that there is only one answer: you are guilty; you failed to conform to …

Security Interests In The Crucible Of Voidable Preference Law, David G. Carlson

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In this article, Professor David Gray Carlson analyzes the intersection of voidable preference law under 11 U.S.C. § 547 and security interests under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. The essay purports to articulate the metaphysical assumptions present in this intersection, no matter how rarified and peculiar, because, in this area of law, even the slightest and most fantastic metaphysical presupposition can change results and shift wealth between debtors and creditors. Given the current dearth of unsecured dividends in bankruptcy proceedings, everything turns on whether security interests survive the critique of voidable preference law. In his treatment, Professor Carlson …

Judging Girls: Decision Making In Parental Consent To Abortion Cases, Suellyn Scarnecchia, Julie Kunce Field

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Judges make determinations on a daily basis that profoundly affect people's lives. On March 28, 1991, the Michigan legislature enacted a statute entitled The Parental Rights Restoration Act (hereinafter "the Michigan Act" or "the Act"). This statute delegated to probate court judges the extraordinary task of deciding whether a minor girl may have an abortion without the consent of a parent. Nothing in law school and little in an average judge's experience provide a meaningful framework for making such a decision. Although many commentators, including the authors, argue that decisions about abortion should be left to the woman regardless of …

Repo Madness: The Characterization Of Repurchase Agreements Under The Bankruptcy Code And The U.C.C., Jeanne L. Schroeder

Articles

The article examines the legal characterization of repurchase agreements (repos) under the Bankruptcy Code and the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.), with a focus on proposed revisions to Articles 8 and 9. It argues that repos should be treated as sales rather than secured loans, primarily due to the repo buyer's unrestricted right to deal with the collateral. This characterization is supported by court rulings in cases such as In re Bevill, Bresler & Schulman and SEC v. Drysdale Securities Corp., which emphasize the transfer of ownership and the buyer's ability to engage with the securities. The article critiques current methods …

Instability In Self-Pulsation In Laser Diodes And Its Effect On All-Optical Synchonization, Jonathan Hyland, Gerald Farrell

Articles

The effect of short- and long-term frequency instability in self pulsation on all-optical synchronization using a twin-section laser diode is experimentally investigated. Short-term frequency instability broadens the unlocked full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the fundamental of the rf spectrum of the self-pulsating laser diode. We show experimentally that the value of the unlocked FWHM, and thus the level of short-term instability, has a direct effect on the optical power required to maintain synchronization. A novel means of reducing the FWHM is presented based on a reflective transmission line stub connected to the absorber of the twin-section self-pulsating laser …

Conditional Probative Value: Neoclassicism Without Myth, Richard D. Friedman

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The concept of conditional relevance is an essential aspect of the classical model of evidentiary law. Some of the great scholars of evidence have endorsed and shaped it.1 Under Federal Rule of Evidence 104(b) it plays a crucial role in the division of responsibility between judge and jury,2 as well as in the application of the personal knowledge3 and authentication 4 requirements. And the Supreme Court has applied it with great force.5 In recent years, though, the concept has come under attack from several notable scholars. The late Vaughn Ball led the assault, calling the concept a "myth."'6 Peter Tillers, …

On The Efficiency Of Secured Lending, David G. Carlson

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The article challenges the Law and Economics movement's assertion that secured lending is inefficient, arguing instead that it can be efficient by reducing risk and lowering the cost of credit. Carlson contests the movement's reliance on outdated theories like the Modigliani-Miller model, which he believes fails to account for real-world factors such as time and risk. He posits that secured lending can prevent debtor misbehavior, thereby making credit more accessible and reducing risks for creditors.

Virgin Territory: Margaret Radin's Imagery Of Personal Property As The Inviolate Feminine Body, Jeanne L. Schroeder

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Margaret Jane Radin's theory of property for personhood posits that certain personal property is deeply intertwined with individual identity, necessitating legal protections that go beyond traditional property rights. While her approach offers a feminist perspective by emphasizing the body and body-like objects as extensions of selfhood, critics argue that her framework lacks an account of community and intersubjectivity, rendering it incomplete. The article suggests that integrating insights from Hegel and Lacan could provide a more comprehensive understanding of property relations, addressing both personal and communal dimensions.