Digital Commons Network^™

Gender Bias In The Classroom, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Aids And The Right To Health Care, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Informed Decision-Making And The Law Of Torts: The Myth Of Justiciable Causation, Neil B. Cohen, Aaron D. Twerski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Copyright Protection Of Fictional Characters In Japan, Kenneth L. Port

Faculty Scholarship

There is a renewed interest in the United States in Japanese Copyright law. Specifically, new attention has been focused on the protection of computer software under the Japanese Copyright Act, but only a cursory attempt has been given in English language literature to the issue of whether fictional characters can be protected using copyright law in Japan independent of the original work. The objective of this Comment is to fill this void. First the Comment presents the fundamental concepts of American copyright law needed as background knowledge to understand the issue. The Comment then explores the existing satiation in Japan …

An Artificial Intelligence Course In A Liberal Arts Program, John F. Dooley

Faculty Scholarship

This paper describes the design and implementation of an undergraduate course in Artificial Intelligence (AI) within a liberal arts college curriculum. The course aims to introduce students to both the theoretical foundations and practical applications of AI while aligning with the ACM Curriculum ’78 guidelines. It emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach that integrates computer science concepts with broader ethical and societal considerations relevant to AI’s impact on human life.

The course content includes foundational topics such as problem solving, search strategies, knowledge representation, inference, and heuristic programming. Lisp is employed as the primary programming language to facilitate symbolic computation and the …

Public Safety Exception To Miranda Careening Through The Lower Courts, Daniel B. Yeager

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nicaragua: United States Assistance To The Nicaraguan Human Rights Association And The Nicaraguan Resistance, Suzanne B. Goldberg, Lee Crawford, Kevin Reed, John Tennant

Faculty Scholarship

The question of providing aid to the Nicaraguan Resistance has been significant to United States human rights policy throughout the Reagan Administration. Although events have changed repeatedly during the winter of 1988, including a truce between the Nicaraguan Government and the Resistance and a Congressional decision not to provide military aid to the Resistance, the underlying policy issues remain constant. The Harvard Human Rights Yearbook presents two notes, infra, discussing the Military Construction Appropriations Act of 1987, which granted $100 million in aid to the Nicaraguan Resistance. The first note discusses the Nicaraguan Human Rights Association (Asociacidn Nicaraguense Pro-Derechos Humanos …

Accountable Accountants: Is Third-Party Liability Necessary?, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Should accountants be liable to third parties if they conduct an audit in negligent manner? A half century ago, in Ultramares Corporation v. Touche, Niven & Co., Cardozo argued that they should not, unless their performance could be characterized as fraud. In recent years, courts in a minority of jurisdictions have concluded that Cardozo's argument is no longer compelling and they have found that "foreseeable" third parties could bring a tort action for ordinary negligence against the accountants. In addition to being subject to tort actions, accountants may also be liable under federal and state securities laws.

Suits against …

The First Amendment And The Ideal Of Civic Courage: The Brandeis Opinion In Whitney V. California, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

"[T]he working class and the employing class have nothing in common ....” So began the Preamble to the Constitution of the I.W.W., the Industrial Workers of the World. "Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the World organize as a class, take possession of the earth, and the machinery of production and abolish the wage system." Nicknamed the Wobblies, this group advocated a form of militant unionism built around the ideal of One Big Union embracing all industries. The I.W.W. enjoyed its strongest appeal among the miners, loggers, agricultural laborers, and construction workers of …

Children's Preference In Adjudicated Custody Decisions, Elizabeth S. Scott, N. Dickon Reppucci, Mark Aber

Faculty Scholarship

Historically, courts usually paid little attention to the child's wishes in deciding which parent should have custody upon divorce. Today, statutes in many states direct courts to consider the child's preference, often as one among several factors that guide decisionmaking. With some exceptions, the law gives only general guidance and does not specify under what circumstances and to what extent the child's desire should affect the decision. Little is known about how important this factor is, what variables influence the weight accorded the child's preference, or how courts obtain and evaluate evidence about the child's wishes.

This Article began as …

Mental Impairments And The Rehabilitation Act Of 1973, David Allen Larson

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the question of whether an asserted mental disorder should be regarded as a statutory impairment. The article begins by outlining the Rehabilitation Act and by discussing the diagnostic difficulties that exist in the mental health field. It then surveys specific cases arising under the Rehabilitation Act. Selected cases reviewing state statutory language are also examined. The article provides a broad discussion of the questions and concerns that must be considered when formulating a nondiscrimination policy protecting mentally impaired persons. It concludes by suggesting an approach for handling cases alleging discrimination due to a mental impairment.

The Misadventures Of State Postconviction Remedies, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

In a colloquium concentrating on the lower federal courts' jurisdiction to determine federal claims, it falls to me to treat state court opportunities to adjudicate the same issues in advance of, as an aid to, or in place of federal litigation. To do that, I will have to recount some conventional wisdom regarding the development of federal habeas corpus and state postconviction remedies in tandem during the last half century. In due course, I hope to solicit support for an unconventional conclusion to be drawn from that experience.

Fairy Tales Surrogate Mothers Tell, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

How did surrogate motherhood evolve from a "hare-brained, fly by night" idea of the late 1970s into one that had at least some mainstream, middle-class support in the mid-198os? Many explanations have been suggested. Although the rate of infertility has not increased, infertility is no longer a secret, and there are major public support groups, like RESOLVE, that advocate for infertile couples. New and powerful techniques like IVF (in vitro fertilization) have been developed, and although they help very few people, they have been widely publicized and approved. And babies are fashionable again. As one movie critic put it: "Men …

What Is Bayesianism? A Guide For The Perplexed, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

Bayes' Theorem, Bayesian statistics and Bayesian inference have been the subject of sharp dispute in various writings about legal rules of evidence and proof. This article disentangles the many meanings of "Bayesianism." It sketches several competing interpretations of probability, some leading schools of statistical inference, and the elements of Bayesian decision theory. In the process, it notes the aspects of Bayesian theory that have been applied in studies of forensic proof.

Defending Battered Women's Self-Defense Claims, Kit Kinports

Faculty Scholarship

This Article contends that many battered women who kill their abusive spouses can legitimately raise the standard self-defense claim. No substantial extension of self-defense doctrine is required to justify the acquittal of battered women on self-defense grounds. Furthermore, no special "battered women defense" is necessary or even desirable in such cases.

Part I of this Article summarizes the results of psychological research studying abused women and battering relationships. It further explains the concept of the :battered woman syndrome" which describes the effects of sustained physical and psychological abuse by one's husband. Part II discusses the requirements of a successful self-defense …

One Hundred And Two Years Later: The U.S. Joins The Berne Convention, Jane C. Ginsburg, John M. Kernochan

Faculty Scholarship

In historic votes on October 5 and October 12, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives unanimously approved legislation designed to bring U.S. law into compliance with the Berne Convention. The legislation was signed by President Reagan on October 31, 1988. Also signed by the President was a Senate Resolution of October 20 of Ratification of the Berne Convention. Following deposit of the requisite instruments with the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, U.S. adherence to Berne took effect on March 1, 1989.

For the U.S., this momentous step is the culmination of decades of struggle, including many failed attempts …

Bright Line Seizures: The Need For Clarity In Determining When Fourth Amendment Activity Begins, Edwin J. Butterfoss

Faculty Scholarship

This Article proposes that the Mendenhall-Royer standard, as presently interpreted, should be discarded because it is unworkable and fails to strike the appropriate balance between the liberty interests of citizens and the interest of the state in combatting crime. The test is unworkable because the outcomes of cases turn on subtle factual distinctions unrelated to an individual's actual freedom to end an encounter with a police officer, making it difficult for police officers to apply the standard in the field and adjust their conduct accordingly. Moreover, the standard provides insufficient protection for an individual's rights by failing to consider the …

Norman Redlich (Dean, New York University School Of Law), Charles L. Knapp

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

If Your Client Is Mentally Retarded, James W. Ellis, Ruth A. Luckasson

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction to defending clients who hae cognitive disabilites.

Rediscovering Traditional Tort Typologies To Determine Media Liability For Physical Injuries: From The Mickey Mouse Club To Hustler Magazine, John L. Diamond

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Task Force Reports On Women In The Courts: The Challenge For Legal Education, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Informed Decision-Making And The Law Of Torts: The Myth Of Justiciable Causation, Aaron Twerski, N. B. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hush: The Criminal Status Of Confidential Information After Mcnally And Carpenter And The Enduring Problem Of Overcriminalization, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Each of the last three decades has witnessed an intense public reaction to a distinctive type of "white collar" crime. In the early 1960's, public attention was riveted by the Electrical Equipment conspiracy and the image of senior corporate executives of major firms meeting clandestinely to fix prices. In the mid-1970's, the focus shifted to corporate bribery, as the media ran daily stories regarding questionable payments abroad and illegal political contributions at home. The representative white collar crime of the 1980's is undoubtedly "insider trading." The archetype of this new kind of criminal in the public's mind is Ivan Boesky …

A Vice Of Its Virtues: The Perils Of Precision In Criminal Codification, As Illustrated By Retreat, General Justification, And Dangerous Utterances, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

My subject, the problem of precision in criminal codes, is hardly novel. Greater precision has been a major aim of systematic codification, which can specify what behavior is criminal in a way that is more rational, coordinated, and exact than would be possible if liability were determined by occasional statutory enactment, by common-law development, or by a combination of occasional statutes and judicial development. Under this last approach, which was typical in the United States prior to the Model Penal Code, statutes loosely set out the list of offenses and their penalties; critical elements of offenses and many defenses of …

Mistake In The Model Penal Code: A False False Problem, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

No solution seems more gratifying to the modern theorist than to claim that an apparently serious problem is not really a problem at all. By branding nonfalsifiable propositions as nonsense, the Vienna circle of logical positivists discovered that the metaphysical concerns of others were really false problems. By ridding philosophy of false problems, Wittgenstein thought that he could let the fly escape from the bottle; he could release the philosophical spirit from its confounding constraints. Brainerd Currie brought this method to the law with his justly famous theory of false conflicts in the conflicts of laws. There was no need …

A Causation Approach To Criminal Omissions, Arthur Leavens

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the scope of criminal laws that impose liability for failures to prevent a proscribed harm. Traditionally, courts have only imposed criminal sanctions upon individuals for their failure to act where the individual has a "legal duty" to prevent a specific harm. Professor Leavens rejects this conventional approach as being an artificial and ultimately unfair way to set the limits of omission liability. He asserts that in order for the courts validly to utilize any concept -- including "legal duty"-- to define the scope of omission liability, that concept must fairly reflect the underlying criminal prohibition; namely, that …

America And Other National Variations On The Theme Of International Commercial Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Faculty Scholarship

Despite attempts at harmonization through treaty relations and State participation in multilateral organizations, the international arena is a composite of unsettled and unsettling structures. The volatility of global politics and discordant national perceptions of legitimate lawful conduct constitute a precarious, usually unsuitable, basis for an international rule of law. Domestic concepts of legality rarely serve as adequate instruments for molding the character of international relations. The irreducible principle of national sovereignty makes the world community resistant to the adoption of universal juridical standards and consecrates the fragmentation of national self-interest as the ultimate source of legality among nation-states. This article …

By The Neck Until Dead: A Look Back At A 70 Year Search For Justice, Clark Freshman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lesbians, Gays And Feminist At The Bar: Translating Personal Experience Into Effective Legal Argument - A Symposium, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Foregoing Life-Sustaining Treatment: What Are The Legal Limits In An Aging Society?, Karen H. Rothenberg

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.