Digital Commons Network^™

Congressional Power To Require Dna Testing, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

Many states fail to conduct, or even to permit, DNA testing of biological materials in circumstances in which the results might exonerate convicts under sentence of death. Senator Patrick Leahy thinks that Congress should enact a statute requiring states to provide for testing when it promises to reveal the truth. Leahy's idea is sensible as a matter of policy. I mean in this Article to argue that it is also constitutionally feasible.

Cleaning Up The Tracks: Superfund Meets Rails-To-Trails, Clifford J. Villa

Faculty Scholarship

For more than one hundred years, railroad cars rumbled and roared along tracks in the Coeur d'Alene River Basin, serving the mining industry in the Panhandle of northern Idaho. As in many parts of the American West, the history of railroads in northern Idaho largely reflects the history of mining in the region. The first gold was discovered in this area in 1883, the same year that the area saw its first line of the Northern Pacific Railroad. In 1885, the Bunker Hill mine was established near the present town of Kellogg. Four years later, the first rail line of …

The Uniform Mediation Act: To The Spoiled Go The Privileges, Scott H. Hughes

Faculty Scholarship

The Uniform Mediation Act, as currently written and approved by NCCUSL, may unnecessarily cause the destruction of self-determination in many cases. The provisions demonstrate favoritism for mediators and may result in damage to the integrity of the process. Further, the nature of the provisions restricting the parties access to the exceptions to the privilege may both increase the number of lawsuits against mediators and also encourage wrongful behavior on the part of disputants. None of this will ultimately inure to the benefit of mediation as an institution. If it is necessary to have a privilege for mediation, certain elements should …

Recurring Problems In Indian Gaming, Kevin Washburn

Faculty Scholarship

This essay briefly summarizes the history and legal framework of Indian gaming, describes the recent growth in the industry, and discusses some of the legal controversies that have been repeated across the country as states and tribes adjust to their respective roles in the Indian gaming industry.

Causation, Contribution And Legal Liability: An Empirical Study, Lawrence Solan, John Darley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Irish Legal History: An Overview And Guide To The Sources, Janet Sinder

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Why Laws Work Pretty Well, But Not Great: Words And Rules In Legal Intrepretation, Lawrence Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reciprocity, Utility, And The Law Of Aggression, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Integrating Indian Law Into A First Year Legal Writing Course, Barbara P. Blumenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

When the author designed the appellate problem for first-year law students, she chose Indian Law because the learning experience transcends subject-specificity. The author discusses how she designs the problem and introduces it to students, and notes reactions from students as they research and prepare their brief.

Television And Societal Effects: An Analysis Of Media Images Of African-Americans In Historical Context, Sherri L. Burr

Faculty Scholarship

This paper takes a historical approach to the depictions of African-Americans in television in the five decades since the 1950s and links those images to the changing roles and perceptions of African-Americans in society. Part I discusses the various television shows from the 1950s to the 1990s that featured African-Americans and have had a societal impact. Part II analyzes the chicken/egg relationship between networks and advertisers and asks whether television, given the economic forces affecting it, can be used as a force for change. Part III explores how these television images have affected foreigners and children. Television remains "without a …

Comparing Judicial Selection Systems, Lee Epstein, Jack Knight, Olga Shvetsova

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hunting The Dragon: Reforming The Massachusetts Murder Statute, Sean J. Kealy

Faculty Scholarship

Murder is the most serious of all crimes. Given the grave consequences of murder, both in act and in punishment, one would expect careful, clearly defined elements of the crime. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Some states, including Massachusetts, have statutes that retain outdated or archaic common law terms that are subject to constant redefinition by judges.

Why Courts Review Arbitral Awards, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

Judicial review of arbitral awards constitutes a form of risk management. In most countries courts may vacate decisions of perverse arbitrators who have ignored basic procedural fairness, as well as those of alleged arbitrators who have attempted to resolve matters never properly submitted to their jurisdiction. In some countries judges may also correct legal error or monitor an award's consistency with public policy.

Public scrutiny of arbitration is inevitable at the time of award recognition. Judges can hardly ignore the basic fairness of an arbitral proceeding when asked to give an award res judicata effect by seizing assets or staying …

What Happened To Property In Law And Economics?, Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Property has fallen out of fashion. Although people are as concerned as ever with acquiring and defending their material possessions, in the academic world there is little interest in understanding property. To some extent, this indifference reflects a more general skepticism about the value of conceptual analysis, as opposed to functional assessment of institutions. There is, however, a deeper reason for the indifference to property. It is a commonplace of academic discourse that property is simply a "bundle of rights," and that any distribution of rights and privileges among persons with respect to things can be dignified with the (almost …

The Dynamic Analytics Of Property Law, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

The standard property trilogy of private, commons, and state has become so outdated that it now impedes imagination and innovation at the frontiers of ownership. This essay suggests two approaches – creating new ideal types and synthesizing existing ones – that may help update our static property metaphors. Using these dynamic approaches to property analytics, legal theory can move beyond polarizing oppositions that have made jurisprudential debates unsolvable and rendered concrete problems invisible.

Three Nearly Sacred Books In Western Law, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

We American lawyers pride ourselves on the secular nature of our legal system. We celebrate the separation of Church and State. We think that the moving spirit of the law is to be found not in eternal truths about the universe but in the contingent needs of social and economic policy. "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience," said Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in a sentence that since 1881 has broadcast to every new generation of lawyers the pragmatic foundations of their craft.

We assume that we have little in common with the great …

The Soul Of A New Political Machine: The Online, The Color Line And Electronic Democracy, Eben Moglen, Pamela S. Karlan

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, we want to suggest two ways in which people's experience with the Internet may affect how they think politics ought to be organized, and to consider the consequences for the political aspirations of minority communities. First, the notion of "virtual communities” – that is, communities that affiliate along nongeographic lines – may provide new support for alternatives to traditional geographic districting practices. As Americans become more comfortable with the idea that people can belong to voluntarily created, overlapping, fluid, nongeographically defined communities, which may be as important as the physical communities in which they live, they may …

Criminal Theory In The Twentieth Century, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

The theoretical inquiry into the foundations of criminal law in the twentieth century, in both civil and common law traditions, is assayed by the consideration of seven main currents or trends. First, the structure of offenses is examined in light of the bipartite, tripartite, and quadripartite modes of analysis. Second, competing theories of culpability – normative and descriptive – are weighed in connection with their important ramifications for the presumption of proof and the allocation of the burden of persuasion on defenses. Third, the struggle with alternatives to punishment for the control and commitment of dangerous but non-criminal persons is …

Do Norms Matter?: A Cross-Country Evaluation, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

This Article starts with the recognition that the average private benefits of control vary significantly across countries. But why? The simplest explanation ascribes this variation to differences in law between jurisdictions: for example, the law of jurisdiction X could privilege controlling shareholders by allowing them to extract benefits from their corporation in the form of above-market salaries or non-pro-rata payments in connection with self-dealing transactions. But, this explanation cannot fit all cases. To illustrate, if the substantive law is essentially similar between two jurisdictions while the private benefits of control appear to be significantly different, then some other explanation must …

Outing The Madman: Fair Housing For The Mentally Handicapped And Their Right To Privacy Versus The Landlord's Duty To Warn And Protect, Frederic White

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past fifty years, America has steadily deinstitutionalized its mentally handicapped population, often with mixed results. The primary goal of this process was to place these long-forgotten people back into the so-called mainstream of American life, allowing them access to the same kinds of advantages schools, jobs, housing-that most of us take for granted. This road has not always been easy. In particular, providing safe and accessible housing for the mentally handicapped is an important step toward establishing meaningful self-sufficiency for these individuals. However, to ensure that the needs of all tenants are fulfilled, several potential conflicts between the …

Theorizing Yes: An Essay On Feminism, Law, And Desire, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, Professor Franke observes that, unlike feminists from other disciplines, feminist legal theorists have neglected to formulate a positive theory of female sexuality. Instead, discussions of female sexuality have been framed as either a matter of dependency or danger. Professor Franke begins her challenge to this scheme by asking why legal feminism has accepted unquestionably the fact that most women reproduce in their lifetimes. Why have not social forces that incentivize motherhood – a dynamic she terms repronormativity – been exposed to as exacting a feminist critique as have heteronormative forces that normalize heterosexuality? Furthermore, she continues by …

Berne Without Borders: Geographic Indiscretion And Digital Communications, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

This lecture examines the role of borders in the Berne Convention at the time of the treaty's first passage in 1886, and today. The later 19th century was an era of increasing commerce and communication among countries whose domestic production and reproduction of works of authorship had vastly increased, thanks in part to new technologies, such as photography, lithography, and high-speed printing. But at that time, the frontiers between nations often frustrated authors' hopes for control over, or at least compensation for, the international exploitation of their works. Authors' rights ceased at their national boundaries; the world beyond foreboded not …

The Politics Of Judicial Reform In Japan: The Rule Of Law At Last?, Setsuo Miyazawa

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the most recent changes in Japan's political environment that could radically alter its judicial system and legal profession in the near future. Reform of the judicial system and legal profession has now been placed on the national agenda, and the cast of players involved has spread from the traditional groups of legal professionals (judges, prosecutors, and attorneys) to the major actors of the larger political process, namely the Liberal Democratic Party (Jiya Minshu T6) ("LDP"), the ruling conservative party, and the Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren), one of the most influential organizations …

Limitation Of Shipowner Liability: Its American Roots And Some Problems Particular To Collision, Joseph Sweeney

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Restatement (Third) And The Place Of Duty In Negligence Law, Benjamin C. Zipursky, John C.P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Ethics Of Legal Academics: Law Schools As Mdps; Or, Should Law Professors Practice What They Teach Symposium: Ethics Of Law Professors, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

[A member of the House of Commons said in Samuel Johnson's presence] that he paid no regard to the arguments of counsel at the bar of the House of Commons, because they were paid for speaking. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, argument is argument. You cannot help paying regard to their arguments, if they are good, If it were testimony, you might disregard it, if you knew that it were purchased. There is a beautiful image in Bacon upon this subject: testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow; the force of it depends on the hand that draws it. …

Antitrust And The Draft Hague Judgments Convention, William S. Dodge

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Confronting The Future: Coping With Discovery Of Electronic Material, Richard L. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Private Choices And Public Law Richard A. Posner's Contributions To Family Law And Policy, Ben Depoorter, Francesco Parisi

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Profiling Of Threat Versus The Threat Of Profiling, Frank H. Wu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.