Digital Commons Network^™

John Milton's Areopagitica And The Modern First Amendment, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

The traditional liberal argument for free speech is now under fire from several directions. Critics from the left, the center, and the right find simplistic the claim that unregulated expression promotes the search for truth, the protection of self-government, the autonomy of individuals, and the control of concentrated power. Even if free speech does serve these values to a considerable degree, there are costs associated with liberty, costs the critics say are not sufficiently recognized in the standard liberal accounts.

As a general matter, but especially regarding the freedom of speech, liberalism is seen as too doctrinaire, too optimistic about …

Application Of International Water Law To Transboundary Groundwater Resources, And The Slovak-Hungarian Dispute Over Gabcikovo-Nagymaros, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

The growth in global population and economic development has resulted in tremendous pressures on existing sources of fresh water. Human water use over the past three centuries increased by a factor of thirty-five and is growing by four to eight percent annually. Coupled with recurring international disputes over water resources, poor water management, and the realization that water is an indispensable but finite resource, these trends have propelled the use and management of transboundary groundwater resources to the forefront of legal debate.

Until recently, matters relating to groundwater resources were relatively ignored in the context of international law applicable to …

Why Irac Should Be Igpac, Barbara P. Blumenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

While IRAC is generally a good organizational tool, I find that the R or rule part of this formulation is often unclear to students. Despite what they are taught in class, many want to see “rule” as a general premise only, forgetting that it must also include fact specific examples of how that general premise has been applied in the past. This failure leaves them without any precedent to which they can analogize the facts of their own case.

The Guardianship Puzzle: Whatever Happened To Due Process?, Diane E. Hoffmann, Joan L. O'Sullivan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Against The Peace And Dignity Of The State: Spousal Violence And Spousal Privilege, Malinda L. Seymore

Faculty Scholarship

Every indictment in Texas ends with the phrase, "[a]gainst the peace and dignity of the State." This phrase is in recognition of the fact that crimes are not purely personal matters between a defendant and a victim, but are offenses against society as a whole. By enacting changes to its spousal privilege statute, Texas has an opportunity to demonstrate that domestic violence offends the peace and dignity of the state.

Rationing Health Care And The Need For Credible Scarcity: Why American's Can't Say No, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

With adequate cost containment unlikely in the foreseeable future, health care use will have to be curtailed, ideally with open and explicit criteria for equitably allocating resources or rationing. Yet, consensus on any such criteria appears remote because Americans cannot say no to health care. Americans may refuse to accept rationing for two reasons. The absence of any global limitation on health care resources may encourage patients to believe that health care resources are not scarce and do not need to be rationed. A belief in vitalism--that everyone is morally entitled to unlimited longevity and good health--may discourage setting limits …

Assessing The Evolution And Available Actions For Recovery In Cultural Property Claims, Joshua E. Kastenberg

Faculty Scholarship

United States laws regarding antiquities are not settled, but an historic legal overview provides some guidance to the direction of cultural property claims. These laws gain importance with the realization that art is second only to narcotics in worldwide illegally trafficked items. Furthermore, there is an abundance of disputed cultural property within legitimate interests, such as museums and personal collections. Thus, before taking an overview of current legal protections, it may be helpful to briefly examine two current controversies.

House Passess Unbalanced Clean Water Act, Denise D. Fort

Faculty Scholarship

The Clean Water Act and the associated state statutes and regulations provide the framework for New Mexico's regulation (and nonregulation) of our rivers and streams. Both the federal and state laws need improvement if they are to work in New Mexico. As readers of The Green Fire Report well know, the "improvements" contemplated by the new Congress are unlikely to improve our water. H.R. 961, the House bill recently passed by the House, is simply unacceptable. President Clinton has indicated that he will veto the bill as passed by the House. Your efforts are needed to contact your federal legislators …

Elizabeth's Story: Exploring Power Imbalances In Divorce Mediation, Scott H. Hughes

Faculty Scholarship

Case study of many spouses who enter the divorce process with severe deficits in their abilities to deal with the emotional, economic, intellectual, and logistical issues which arise. Mediation may not be adviseable when there is an inequality of bargaining power due to abuse, inexperience, ignorance, socialization and/or the grieving process.

Responsibility, Causation, And The Harm-Benefit Line In Takings Jurisprudence, Glynn S. Lunney Jr

Faculty Scholarship

As one of the guarantees provided in the Bill of Rights, the Fifth Amendment's Compensation Clause restricts government's otherwise largely plenary power over privately-held property rights. While the Compensation Clause does not directly limit government's ability to change, modify, or even eliminate existing privately-held property rights, in certain instances it circumscribes government's ability to force individual property owners to bear the cost of such government-imposed changes. Specifically, for those government-imposed property redistributions found to be "takings" within the meaning of the Compensation Clause, the Fifth Amendment requires federal and state governments to compensate the property holder for the taking, and …

Supreme Court Roundtable: Fogerty V. Fantasy, Inc. And Campbell V. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., Beryl R. Jones-Woodin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Its Time For A State Environmental Policy Act, Denise D. Fort

Faculty Scholarship

What single law should be the first step in protecting New Mexico's environment from the consequences of our cascading population? My nomination would go to a State Environmental Policy Act, commonly called a "state NEPA." These laws are on one level very simple, requiring only that state governments "stop and think" before taking actions with significant environmental costs. After twenty-five years of experience with the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), however, we know that a law that allows citizens input into governmental action has a profound effect on governmental action.

The "Straight Mind" In Russ’S The Female Man, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

In The Female Man Russ contrasts our present-day heterosexual society with two revolutionary alternatives: a utopian world of women and a dystopian world of women warring with men. The novel functions as what Monique Wittig calls a "literary war machine" because it tries "to pulverize the old forms and formal conventions." Specifically, Russ critiques the "straight mind"—heterosexual institutions that regulate gender—by showing how two representatives from "our world" respond to those institutions. She also shows two alternative worlds that further undermine, but do not solve, the way heterosexual institutions regulate gender.

In responding to the straight mind and to the …

The Contribution Of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies To Faint Galaxy Counts, Stacy S. Mcgaugh

Faculty Scholarship

Recent observations have revealed a population of blue galaxies at intermediate redshift with a space density well in excess of expectations from the local luminosity function and standard cosmology. The colors and luminosities of these faint blue galaxies are similar to nearby low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. Such galaxies are severely underrepresented in surveys used to define the local luminosity function, but could in principle be detected in deep surveys. If LSB galaxy density is high enough, the faint-galaxy counts could be explained without requiring rapid galaxy evolution. To explore the consequences of including LSB galaxies, we construct catalogs of …

Comparing Implied And Express Constitutional Freedoms, David S. Bogen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Religious Outlaws: Narratives Of Legality And The Politics Of Citizen Interpretation, Barbara L. Bezdek

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Catholic Legal Education At The Edge Of A New Millennium: Do We Still Have The Spirit To Send Forth Saints?, Randy Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Substantive Due Process And Parental Corporal Punishment: Democracy And The Excluded Child, Mary Kate Kearney

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Decisions And Linguistic Analysis: Is There A Linguist In The Court?, Lawrence Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Law School Training Of American Indians As Legal-Warriors, Gloria Valencia-Weber

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores four areas involved in training lawyers appropriate to the needs of tribal nations. First, the American Indian tribes, as the indigenous sovereigns, present legal needs and opportunities unique from other minority groups. Development of Indian law depends on the exercise of sovereign power by the Indian nations, not constitutional equal protection of an ethnic minority. The architectural work of developing the governments, i.e., creating tribal law and operating tribal courts, calls for the legal-warrior's critical ability to meld customary perspectives with knowledge and skills acquired in legal professional training. Second, the specialty of American Indian law as …

Shrinking Indian Country: A State Offensive To Divest Tribal Sovereignty, Gloria Valencia-Weber

Faculty Scholarship

In Sac and Fox, the Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC) argued that the Sac and Fox reservation was disestablished in the 1891 Allotment Agreement, and therefore the tribe was deprived of a cognizable land base on which it could exercise governmental power immune from the reach of the state. Based on this characterization of the land base, the OTC then argued that it could reach into Sac and Fox land and impose income and vehicle taxes. The tribe, of course, rejected any such characterization of its land base and resisted any attempt by the state to interfere with its sovereign control …

The American Tradition Of Language Rights: The Forgotten Right To Government In A Known Tongue, Jose R. "Beto" Juarez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Vampires Among Us, Floralynn Einesman

Faculty Scholarship

The integrity of an individual's person is a cherished value of our society. That we today hold that the Constitution does not forbid the States minor intrusions into an individual's body under stringently limited conditions in no way indicates that it permits more substantial intrusions, or intrusions under other conditions.

Marlowe's Faustus: Contract As Metaphor?, Daniel B. Yeager

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Institutional Commitment To Minorities And Diversity: The Evolution Of A Law School Academic Support Program, Jackie Slotkin

Faculty Scholarship

Given the severe underrepresentation of minorities in the legal profession, law schools have begun to realize their obligation to provide minorities with access to a quality legal education. This Article profiles the ongoing efforts of one private, free-standing law school to fulfill its commitment to diversity in education.

Arbitral Justice: The Demise Of Due Process In American Law, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Faculty Scholarship

Arbitration consists of a process for resolving disputes in a final and binding manner outside the traditional court system. The rules that govern arbitration provide for flexible proceedings and do not require the strict application of legal rules.

Owing largely to the holdings of the U.S. Supreme Court, arbitration law and procedure have emerged from the obscurity of specialized practice and entered the adjudicatory mainstream.

In 1925, with the enactment of the U.S. Arbitration Act, the U.S. Congress declaredthe rehabilitation of arbitral justice and dispute resolution. These provisionsanticipated, in effect, the modern, world-wide legislative legitimization ofarbitration. Primarily because of the …

The Modern Parol Evidence Rule And Its Implications For New Textualist Statutory Interpretation, Stephen F. Ross, Daniel Trannen

Faculty Scholarship

Part I of this article focuses on the history of parol evidence in contract interpretation, describing both Williston's and Corbin's definition and application of the parol evidence rule. With the adoption of the UCC and the Second Restatement, we suggest that Corbin's position-that expansion of admissibility of parol evidence will more accurately reflect the drafters' manifest intentions and minimize the judge's personal biases-has been accepted by experts and legislators alike. In Part II, we summarize the use of legislative history in statutory interpretation, focusing on the rise of the New Textualism and its critique of the use of legislative history …

Defending, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Revolt Of The Masses: Armed Civilians And The Insurrectionary Theory Of The Second Amendment, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

On Resegregating The Worlds Of Statute And Common Law, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

In the early afternoon of a humid, 97 degree summer day, James Gottshall was part of a crew of mostly 50- to 60-year-old men replacing track for Conrail. Michael Norvick, the crew supervisor, pressed the men to finish the work. He discouraged observance of the scheduled breaks. Richard Johns collapsed in the heat; Norvick ordered the men back to work as soon as a cold compress had revived him. Five minutes later Johns collapsed again, the victim of a heart attack. Gottshall began 40 minutes of ultimately fruitless cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Johns, his friend for 15 years. Norvick was unable …