Digital Commons Network^™

Letter To Judge Harry Edwards, James J. White

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Dear Harry: I write to second your statements concerning the disjunction between legal education and the legal profession and also to quibble with you. By examining the faculty, the curriculum, and the research agenda at Michigan, your school and mine, I hope to illustrate the ways in which you are right and to suggest other ways in which you and your clerk informants may be too pessimistic.

Cornerstones Of The Judicial Process, Jerold H. Israel

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Under our federated system of government, each state and the federal government have their own criminal justice processes. The federal system must comply with the constitutional prerequisites set forth in the Bill of Rights, and the state systems must comply with those Bill of Rights' provisions made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment,1 but those constitutional prerequisites allow considerable room for variation from one jurisdiction to another. In many respects, the fifty states and the federal government have used that leeway to produce considerable diversity in their respective criminal justice processes. At the same time, however, one can …

State Responses To Task Force Reports On Race And Ethnic Bias In The Courts, Suellyn Scarnecchia

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While several states have embarked on studies of race and ethnic bias in their courts, Minnesota is only the sixth to publish its report to date. As Minnesota joins the ranks of states with published reports, it is worthwhile to assess the impact of the five earlier published reports from other states. Final reports have been published in Michigan (1989), Washington (1990), New York (1991), Florida (1991) and New Jersey (1992). The published reports make findings and provide several specific recommendations for change. This article will review the published findings and recommendations of the task forces and will discuss the …

Preference Conundrums, James J. White, Daniel Israel

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Every law teacher and many law students and practitioners understand the intellectual sport to be found in Section 547 on preference law. Because the preference rules are so intricate, rigorously logical-but really not logical-they command more than their fair attention, not only in law school but also in continuing legal education and even in the courts. Our purpose in this article is not to answer any of the difficult questions or to give a global explanation of preference law. Rather it is to confront a few of the conundrums in Section 547 and to follow the paths of those conundrums …

On Telling Stories In School: A Reply To Farber And Sherry, Richard Delgado

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No abstract provided.

Scorn, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic

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This article reviews examples of scornful contemptuous belittling or sarcastic language by judges addressing litigants who are poor marginalized or seeking to redress unfamiliar injuries Often courts employ language of this sort when dismissing cases that strike them as offthewall or when imposing Rule 11 sanctions for claims that seem to them frivolous The authors develop a theory to understand and limit sarcasm and satire to situations that genuinely call for them

Special Effects Photography, Andrew Davidhazy

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Summary of a variety of special effect techniques originally the basis for a special effects section in the Focal Encyclopedia of Photography. Includes things like Sabattier, matte-box, stroboscopic, kaleidoscopic, bas-relief, and many others.

Infrared Photography, Andrew Davidhazy

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Infrared photography is of interest to the amateur and commercial photographer and to scientists and technologists because it produces images that are not possible with conventional photographic films. In its practice there is not much difference between infrared and normal photography. The same cameras and light sources can usually be used, together with the same processing solutions. Infrared photography, however, is usually only attempted by skilled photographers, scientists, and technicians with a particular purpose in mind.

There Is More To A Blur Than Meets The Eye!, Andrew Davidhazy

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Original title of this article was: Seeds keep falling on my head Another high speed event captured and quantified with basic equipment but at much lower cost and rivaling in accuracy what one might expect of much more sophisticated schemes. Good "technical" project for instructional purposes.

Some Stroboscopic Spinoffs In Photographic Technology, Andrew Davidhazy

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The potential of the high speed electronic flash and the stroboscope to significantly contribute to the fields of science and technology cannot be overemphasized. Important applications for these instruments and applied techniques have been described by Dr. Harold Edgerton and elaborated upon by numerous other workers. This paper presents a summary of some of these projects. They are presented here to not only gratefully acknowledge the direct connection to Dr. Edgerton's pioneering work but also to re-emphasize the usefulness of specific electronic flash and stroboscopic analysis techniques.

Defining "Disability": The Approach To Follow, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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The definition of "disability" has once again become a central issue in workers' compensation law. I am partly responsible. A decade ago I served as the Governor's Special Counselor on Workers' Compensation. In my Reportto the Cabinet Council on Jobs and Economic Development, I stated: "If I could write on a clean slate, I would prefer to see the Michigan definition brought even closer into the mainstream of American law by declaring that 'disability' means a 'limitation of an employee's wage earning capacity in work suitable to his or her qualifications and training resulting from a personal injury or work …

Eleonora V. Eckert, Christina B. Whitman

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One day, relatively early in my term as Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Law Review, Ele Eckert came to me with a draft of a student note that had been given to our secretary for typing. The secretary had turned to Ele in despair. Page after page of yellow legal paper had been filled with minuscule pencil scratches and then elaborately decorated with even more minuscule additions and emendations. Red lines and blue lines and green lines, overlapping each other and occasionally blurring together, wove in and out among the pencil scratches. I asked the editor who had produced this colorful, …

Social Justice And Fundamental Law: A Comment On Sager's Constitution, Terrance Sandalow

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Professor Sager begins his very interesting paper by identifying what he considers a puzzling phenomenon: the Constitution, as interpreted by courts, is not coextensive with "political justice." "This moral shortfall," as he refers to it, represents not merely a failure of achievement, but a failure of aspiration: as customarily interpreted, the Constitution does not even address the full range of issues that are the subject of political justice. Sager regards that failure as surprising-so surprising that, in his words, it "begs for explanation."'

Employment-At-Will—Is The Model Act The Answer?, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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Over the last quarter century, the most significant development in the field of labor and employment law has been a nationwide movement toward a revision of the at-will employment doctrine. Courts in over forty-five jurisdictions have used one or more of three main theories to carve out exceptions to the previously allpervasive principle. Unfortunately, though one can applaud the values embodied in these decisions, there are serious deficiencies in the common law modifications. The purpose of this Article is to outline those defects and to demonstrate that the interests of employees and employers alike would be better served by new …

Limiting The Role Of Patents In Technology Transfer, Rebecca Sue Eisenberg

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Federal policy since 1980 has reflected an increasingly confident presumption that patenting discoveries made in the course of government-sponsored research is the most effective way to promote technology transfer and commercial development of those discoveries in the private sector. Whereas policymakers in the past may have thought that the best way to achieve widespread use of government-sponsored research was to make the results freely available to the public, the new propatent policy stresses the need for exclusive rights as an incentive for industry to undertake the further investment to bring new products to market. Although this propatent policy may make …

Are Laws Against Assisted Suicide Unconstitutional?, Yale Kamisar

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On 15 February of this year, shortly after the number of people Dr. Jack Kevorkian had helped to commit suicide swelled to fifteen, the Michigan legislature passed a law, effective that very day, making assisted suicide a felony punishable by up to four years in prison. The law, which is automatically repealed six months after a newly established commission on death and dying recommends permanent legislation, prohibits anyone with knowledge that another person intends to commit suicide from "intentionally providing the physical means" by which the other person does so or from "intentionally participat[ing] in a physical act" by which …

Limiting The Role Of Patents In Technology Transfer, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

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Federal policy since 1980 has reflected an increasingly confident presumption that patenting discoveries made in the course of government-sponsored research is the most effective way to promote technology transfer and commercial development of those discoveries in the private sector. Whereas policymakers in the past may have thought that the best way to achieve widespread use of government-sponsored research was to make the results freely available to the public, the new propatent policy stresses the need for exclusive rights as an incentive for industry to undertake the further investment to bring new products to market. Although this propatent policy may make …

Response To Wayne P. Kelley, Margaret A. Leary

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I appreciate Mr. Kelley's comments and his concern about the "fundamental legal responsibility of federal depository libraries to provide free and unrestricted access to depository materials to the general public," or, as stated in 44 U.S.C. § 1911, "Depository libraries shall make Government publications available for the free use of the general public." I write to respond to the statements that "It is impossible to determine exactly what sort of access to depository materials is allowed at the University of Michigan Law Library from the [Snow] article," and "It appears that the ... policy does not meet our requirements."

Wayne R. Lafave: Search And Seizure Commentator At Work And Play, Yale Kamisar, Jerold H. Israel

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Starting in 1969,1 we have had the honor and pleasure of co-authoring a goodly number of casebooks, texts, treatises, pocket parts, and annual supplements (more than twenty) with Wayne LaFave.2 On each occasion we have been impressed by the quality of his mind and the judiciousness of his temperament, and impressed as well (and sometimes amazed) by his speed and efficiency.

Annual Report Of The Committee On Libraries, Legal Research And Publications, 1992-1993, Margaret A. Leary

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The committee's work this year focused primarily on a project to microfilm Michigan Supreme Court briefs; Investigating the Court's indexes and files to see whether it would be possible to create a master list of all documents filed with the Court which would be included in the filming project; Cinding vendors who might be able to carry out the microfilming; describing the project to them; and obtaining cost estimates.

Rodrigo's Seventh Chronicle: Race, Democracy, And The State, Richard Delgado

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Considers how democracy and the state both sit at the root of racism and points out how this is a natural extension of Enlightenment principles Explores the link between freemarket politics individualist competitiveness and racism Suggests moving toward a collectivist form of social organization emphasizing love and human solidarity

The Law And Arbitration: The Model Employment Termination Act, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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The Model Employment Termination Act(META), which the Uniform Law Commissioners have recommended for adoption by all state legislatures, could provide the most significant legal change of this quarter century in the American workplace. In addition, if the annual case load of grievance arbitrations in this country now stands at somewhere around 65,000, the Act holds the potential for at least quadrupling that figure. Our colleague Jack Stieber has calculated that there are 60 million U.S. employees who are not protected by union contracts or civil service laws, and are thus subject to the employment-at-will doctrine. They can be fired for …

The Scholar As Advocate, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

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Academic freedom in this country has been so closely identified with faculty autonomy that the two terms are often used interchangeably, especially by faculty members who are resisting restraints on their freedom to do as they please. While there may be some dispute as to whether or how far academic freedom protects the autonomy of universities or of students, the autonomy of faculty members seems to lie close to the core of the traditional American conception of academic freedom. As elaborated by the American Association of University Professors, this conception of academic freedom calls for protecting individual faculty members from …

Active V. Passive Euthanasia: Why Keep The Distinction?, Yale Kamisar

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In the past two decades, we have witnessed a "sea change in public, medical, and legislative judgments" about "letting die" and the "right to die." But it is no less true today than it was 35 years ago, when I first wrote about this subject, that in Anglo-American jurisprudence active euthanasia (what used to be called "mercy killing") is murder.

Japan’S ‘Foreign Workers’ Policy: A View From The United States, Daniel H. Foote

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No abstract provided.

"The Door That Never Opens"?: Capital Punishment And Post-Conviction Review Of Death Sentences In The United States And Japan, Daniel H. Foote

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The capital punishment system and current standards for collateral review of capital sentences appear quite similar in the United States and Japan. On a deeper level, though, the systems are moving in very different directions. Given. the extensive literature on capital punishment and capital habeas in the United States, this article focuses chiefly on Japan, examining the process by which the standards governing postconviction review have been relaxed and the impact of that change. Japan's Supreme Court bears the image of being a highly conservative, passive institution resistant to dramatic .change of any sort. Yet this examination reveals that, in …

A Washington State Income Tax - Again?, Hugh D. Spitzer

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This Article shows how, because of changes in key rulings of the United States Supreme Court and in other state court rulings on the character of income taxes, Washington’s legislature could now implement a graduated net income tax on both individuals and businesses. The Article concludes that such a net income tax measure could lawfully be enacted by today’s legislature without amending the state’s constitution.

Where Environmental Law And Biology Meet: Of Pandas' Thumbs, Statutory Sleepers, And Effective Law, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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The purpose of this article is to introduce some of the recent findings of evolutionary biology to the legal community and to urge their consideration in developing a more effective law. As background, Part II of this article will present a brief evolutionary history of our own species.

Part III offers a primer on Darwin's theory of natural selection and the concept of adaptation, with special attention to the elaboration of altruism as it is known in modern biology. Part IV discusses maladaptation as a counterpoise to adaptation and underscores the notion with some stories from natural history on subjects …

Statutory Misinterpretations: A Legal Autopsy, Eric Schnapper

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If the Supreme Court is willing to learn from past mistakes, the Court would find it particularly instructive to re-examine the now quite numerous civil rights decisions which have failed to survive congressional scrutiny. The United States Reports are today littered with the corpses of short-lived opinions purporting to interpret federal anti-discrimination statutes; most were dead on arrival in the bound volumes. October Term 1988 was a veritable Pickett's Charge of conservative misinterpretation. Patterson v. McLean Credit Union briefly displaced and destroyed much of section 1981; Public Employees Retirement System v. Betts temporarily overran parts of the Age Discrimination in …

The Administrative Claim Prerequisite To Suit Against The United States Under The Admiralty Jurisdiction Extension Act, Craig H. Allen

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The Admiralty Jurisdiction Extension Act (AJEA) confers federal admiralty jurisdiction over all causes of action for vessel-caused damage done or consummated on land. In extending admiralty jurisdiction to land-based damage, the Act not only opened admiralty courts to a new class of litigants, it also enlarged the range of possible claims which could be brought against the United States under the Suits in Admiralty Act (SAA) or the Public Vessels Act (PVA). At the same time, however, an important prerequisite to suit against the government was incorporated into the AJEA that is absent from the SAA or PVA: where an …