Digital Commons Network^™

How Law Can Be Determinate, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

This Article, part of a longer study, considers one problem about the objectivity of law. The problem is whether the law as it exists provides determinate answers to many legal questions for judges, other officials, and citizens. I emphasize the word many. This Article does not focus on "hard cases" and then ask whether single correct answers for them exist. It does not inquire whether in some complicated sense all legal questions have determinate answers. This is a treatment of easy legal questions. To most lawyers, it may seem self-evident that many legal questions do have determinate answers; and that …

Women In The Aids Epidemic: A Portrait Of Unmet Needs, Arlene Zarembka, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

While rarely a month goes by that the topic of AIDS escapes discussion in the legal literature, a survey of legal publications reveals that the implications of AIDS for women has received scant treatment by legal commentators. Unfortunately, this neglect is not unique to the legal community, but reflects a larger societal disinterest in women with AIDS.

In fact, this epidemic looks quite different from the perspective of women. The medical, social, and legal needs of women affected by AIDS are in many ways needs that preexisted AIDS, but which have been magnified by the threat and implications of HIV …

Mapping The Human Genome And The Meaning Of Monster Mythology, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Pre-Columbian cartographers drew their maps to the extent of their knowledge, and then wrote in the margins, "Beyond this point there are dragons." With the voyage of Columbus, we lost both our fear of the geographic frontier and our innocence. We accept that knowledge can generally overpower fear; but we have also learned that the application of new knowledge often has a dark side that can lead to brutality and disaster. The discovery of America, for example, led to unforeseen value conflicts of justice and fairness involving native Americans that were "resolved" only by their merciless subjugation and genocidal destruction. …

Nancy Cruzan And The Right To Die, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

[...]the majority improperly implied that continued existence and treatment in a persistent vegetative state is either beneficial or neutral, whereas in fact "an erroneous decision not to terminate life-support robs a patient of the very qualities protected by the right to avoid unwanted medical treatment... [a] degraded existence is perpetuated; his family's suffering is protracted; the memory he leaves behind becomes more and more distorted.5 " Finally, Justice Brennan argued that the Missouri rules are simply out of touch with reality; people do not write elaborate documents about all the possible ways they might die and the various interventions doctors …

Surrogate Fatherhood?, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Our Localism: Part I – The Structure Of Local Government Law, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

Two themes dominate thejurisprudence of American local government law: the descriptive assertion that American localities lack power and the normative call for greater local autonomy. The positive claim of local legal powerlessness dates back to the middle of the nineteenth century and continues to be affirmed by treatises and commentators as a central element of state-local relations. The argument for local selfdetermination has a comparably historic pedigree and broad contemporary support. The scholarly proponents of greater local power – what I will call "localism" – make their case in terms of economic efficiency, education for public life and popular political …

Our Localism: Part Ii – Localism And Legal Theory, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

A central theme in the literature of local government law is that local governments are powerless, incapable of initiating programs on behalf of their citizens or of resisting intrusions by the state. How can scholars make this claim when under state legislation and federal and state judicial decisions local autonomy plays a critical role in the law of school finance, land-use regulation and local government formation and preservation? As we have seen, a partial response turns on the varying assessments of the nature of power. But much of the answer also has to do with differing assumptions about the underlying …

Justice Harlan's Conservatism And Altenative Possibilities, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Bruce Ackerman and Charles Fried's rich essays address the subject of Justice Harlan as a conservative. One who comes to this topic has in mind questions like: Was Justice Harlan a conservative? If so, what kind of a conservative was he? How did his judicial actions exemplify a conservative approach? Most importantly, is his conservatism an appealing model for modern judicial practice?

Professors Ackerman and Fried's slices on this topic reflect their own casts of mind and philosophies of judging. Fried looks at a broad range of Justice Harlan's opinions and sets them against particular conservative qualities that Fried commends. …

Harmless Error And The Valid Rule Requirement, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Nearly a decade ago in the pages of this journal, in discussing the nature of overbreadth challenges, I drew attention to what may be characterized as the "valid rule requirement." A defendant in a coercive action always has standing to challenge the rule actually applied to him. This means that he can resist sanctions unless they are imposed in accordance with a constitutionally valid rule, whether or not his own conduct is constitutionally privileged. The valid rule requirement focuses upon the rule as applied to the defendant by the jury instructions. In Pope v. Illinois the Court held that harmless …

The Rule Of Law And The Two Realms Of Welfare Administration, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Although it was not the first case in which the Supreme Court upheld a welfare claim, Goldberg v. Kelly is often thought of as the case that extended the rule of law to the welfare system. In doing so, it repudiated the "right/privilege" distinction that would confine procedural protections of economic interests to private law claims.

But Goldberg did not challenge basic assumptions about the nature of procedural fairness that the legal culture had developed principally in connection with private law claims. Its conception of fairness focused on claims initiated by individuals for relief for themselves, and on an adjudicatory …

Implementing Brown In The Nineties: Political Reconstruction, Liberal Recollection, And Litigatively Enforced Legislative Reform, James S. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

Opposed for a decade by a hostile national administration, faced with the prospect for decades to come of an unsympathetic federal judiciary, and amidst declarations of the Second Reconstruction's demise, civil rights organizations have undertaken recently to rethink their litigation agendas. I have two motivations for offering some thoughts in support of that task. First, the civil rights community has requested the assistance of the academy in reshaping the community's litigation agenda and, in my case, in identifying "new strategies for implementing Brown v. Board of Education." Second, my analysis of the principal "old" strategy for implementing Brown, …

Determinants Of Judicial Waiver Decisions For Violent Juvenile Offenders, Jeffrey Fagan, Elizabeth Piper Deschens

Faculty Scholarship

The selection of jurisdiction for adjudicating juvenile crime today is one of the most controversial debates in crime control policy, reflecting differences in assumptions about the causes of crime and philosophies of jurisprudence and punishment. For adolescent offenders, especially violent youth whose behaviors may pose particular social danger, critics view the traditional goals of the juvenile court and the "best interests of the child" standard as being at odds with public concerns for retribution and incapacitation of criminals. The choice between jurisdictions is a choice between the nominally rehabilitative dispositions of the juvenile court and the explicitly punitive dispositions of …

What's Next?: The Future Of Rico, G. Robert Blakey, John C. Coffee Jr., Paul E. Coffey, L. Gordon Crovitz

Faculty Scholarship

Opening Statement of Mr. Crovitz: Coming to the Notre Dame Law School to debate Robert Blakey on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law makes me feel like Daniel approaching the lion's den. I'm tempted to offer my own prayer, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no RICO."

Intoxication And Aggression, Jeffrey Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

Evidence of an association between use of illicit substances and aggressive behavior is pervasive. But the precise causal mechanisms by which aggression is influenced by intoxicants are still not well understood. Research on intoxication and aggression often has overlooked the nonviolent behavior of most substance users, controlled use of substances, and the evidence from other cultures of a weak or nonexistent relation between substance use and aggression. There is only limited evidence that ingestion of substances is a direct, pharmacological cause of aggression. The temporal order of substance use and aggression does not indicate a causal role for intoxicants. Research …

American Fiduciary Duty In An Age Of Narcissism, Calvin R. Massey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Anti-Federalist Ninth Amendment And Its Implications For State Constitutional Law, Calvin R. Massey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Locus Of Sovereignty Judicial Review, Legislative Supremacy, And Federalism In The Constitutional Traditions Of Canada And The United States, Calvin R. Massey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rational Decisionmaking About Marriage And Divorce, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The apparent normative goal of modem divorce law is the efficient termination of unsuccessful marriages. Once the couple (or either party) determine that the marriage is no longer satisfactory, then quick and easy exit is deemed desirable. As Carl Schneider suggests, the law has withdrawn from moral discourse about divorce, adopting a neutral stance toward marital dissolution. Although divorce typically imposes formidable psychological and economic costs, there are few legal incentives to remain married, or even to consider thoughtfully the decision to end the marriage. Moreover, although decisions about marriage and divorce have important legal implications, the law does nothing …

Toward A Wrongful Termination Statute For California, Joseph R. Grodin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

When The Judge Is Not The Primary Official With Responsibility To Read: Agency Interpretation And The Problem Of Legislative History, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

As the other pages of this journal reflect, writing about statutory interpretation commonly builds on unarticulated assumptions about the occasion for interpretation, the identity of the interpreter, and the character of the interpreted text. In this paradigm, the occasion for interpretation is a litigated case – an episode has occurred for which the application of the statute is problematic. The interpreter is a judge, a person who resolves litigation – typically episodic, typically backwards – working outside of politics, and bearing no generic responsibility (that is, responsibility outside the decision of the case before her) for the statutory regime. And …

The World Trading System: Law And Policy Of International Economic Relations, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

This book serves an important need by providing a clear overview of an increasingly complex subject. The author, a leading figure in international trade law, has distilled his accumulated wisdom into an accessible account of the major features of the world trading system. His intended audience includes not only lawyers, but political scientists, economists, government officials and others as well. While he acknowledges that his own "comparative advantage" is in the legal aspects of the field (p. 6), he places the legal concepts in their political and economic context to write a treatment that will be enlightening to readers from …

In Pursuit Of Workplace Rights: Household Workers And A Conflict Of Laws, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

At some point in their lives, most people who live in the United States labor for pay. By becoming "work force members," they are immediately entitled and obligated to participate in government programs, such as Social Security, that are designed to protect workers' health and financial security. In certain sectors of the work force, however, employer (and employee) noncompliance with these laws is rampant. The problem is particularly severe for private household workers migrant farmworkers, and undocumented workers generally. Officially acknowledged nonenforcement is widespread as well, leaving employers free to disregard explicit legal obligations with little fear of reprisal.

In …

Sunstein's New Canons: Choosing The Fictions Of Statutory Interpretation Exchange, Eben Moglen, Richard J. Pierce Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In Interpreting Statutes in the Regulatory State, Cass Sunstein grapples with two of the most difficult and important questions concerning governance of the modern administrative state. First, what institution should have the dominant role in interpreting ambiguous agency-administered statutes? And second, how should the institution perform that task? Sunstein rejects the Supreme Court's answer to the first question, characterizing its assignment of a dominant interpretive role to agencies in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v Natural Resources Defense Council as "the fox guarding the hen house." Sunstein prefers to charge judges with the responsibility of resolving most interpretive disputes. In answer to …

A Pocket Part Of Posey's: A Daring Expose Of Posey's Unreported Cases, Jim Paulsen, James Hambleton

Faculty Scholarship

So you have never heard of Posey's Unreported Cases? Or, maybe you have, but you have recurring nightmares in which a judge fixes you with a steely glare and growls: "Well, counsel, it looks like Ms. so-and-so's citation to Posey's is directly on point. What do you say about that?" Fear no more! In this column, you will find what is undoubtedly the most in-depth scholarly investigation ever attempted of Posey's Unreported Cases.

On the surface, the nature of the beast is easily described: Posey's Unreported Cases is a two-volume collection of "consent cases" decided by the old …

The Continued Importance Of The Maryland Declaration Of Rights, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

An analysis of the origins and development of Maryland's 'Declaration of Rights.'

The Case Against All Encompassing Federal Mass Tort Legislation: Sacrifice Without Gain, Aaron Twerski, R. A. Sedler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Market Share - A Tale Of Two Centuries, Aaron Twerski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Doctors And Lawyers And Wolves, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Relations between lawyers and physicians, and therefore between law and medicine, are getting more and more destructive and counterproductive. It used to be a joke, but it's not funny anymore. We can't afford the continuing and escalating acrimony between our professions and it's time that we take constructive steps in the public interest to deal with it.

Baseline Questions In Legal Reasoning: The Example Of Property In Jobs, Jack M. Beermann, Joseph William Singer

Faculty Scholarship

In what follows, we critique at-will employment by focusing on the baselines that underlie the analysis. Our ultimate goal is to develop persuasive arguments to move courts and businesses to provide greater job security for workers. One possible reason the courts have been so reluctant to change employment law is that judges analyze job security issues from the standpoint of a series of baselines which have the effect of creating a presumption against job security that is almost impossible to overcome. These baseline assumptions effectively place the burden of proof on advocates of job security.

Judges fail to recognize that …

The Right To Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment: Legal Trends And Emerging Issues, Karen H. Rothenberg

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.