Digital Commons Network^™

From Tort To Crime: Some Reflections On The Criminalization Of Fiduciary Breaches And The Problematic Line Between Law And Ethics, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Within the context of mail and wire fraud prosecutions, criminal liability for breach of fiduciary duties is being imposed with increasing frequency. Professor Coffee discusses the disturbing failure of the courts to require that the fiduciary's conduct have caused legally cognizable harm to the beneficiary. He concludes that an affirmative defense should be available to fiduciaries to show the lack of proximate cause between a breach and the injury. In addition, federal enforcement should occur only after state and private remedies have proven inadequate.

Toward A Theory Of Prior Restraint: The Central Linkage, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

The doctrine of prior restraint embodies a temporal preference. Acts of expression that could be sanctioned by means of criminal punishment or a civil damage award may not be regulated "in advance." The factor of timing, however, cannot serve to distinguish methods of regulation as neatly as this statement would seem to imply. In addition to a retrospective impact relating to punishment or compensation, criminal prohibitions and civil liability rules are meant to have a prospective impact – to deter speakers from engaging in harmful acts of expression in the future. If impact on speech before the moment of its …

Regulatory Reform In A Time Of Transition, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

As Americans have become both disheartened at the performance of their governments and conscious of their penetration into what were once private lives, regulatory reform has been urged with increasing fervor at both federal and state levels. Some of the reform talk is lawyer's talk, some of it is directed to the most fundamental aspects of the government order, and there is a good bit in between. My purpose here is to examine a number of the directions being suggested at the federal level for regulatory reform during the coming decade. While it would be helpful also to consider state …

Silence As A Moral And Constitutional Right, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Like the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, the privilege against self-incrimination stands as a barrier to the government's acquisition of information about criminal activities. The moral analogue in private relations to the Fourth Amendment right is quite straightforward. One person should not rummage about the private spaces of another seeking signs of bad behavior unless he has very powerful reasons. The Fourth Amendment similarly limits the government, generally permitting searches only upon probable cause. The private moral analogue to the Fifth Amendment's right of silence is harder to identify, its analysis is more complex and the judgments …

Principles Of Relational Contracts, Charles J. Goetz, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Recent scholarship has demonstrated that a significant proportion of private contracts do not easily fit the presuppositions of classical legal analysis. One reason for this is the pivotal role played in conventional legal theory by the concept of the complete contingent contract. Parties in a bargaining situation are presumed able, at minimal cost, to allocate explicitly the risks that future contingencies may cause one or the other to regret having entered into an executory agreement. Under these conditions, the role of legal regulation can be defined quite precisely. Once the underlying rules policing the bargaining process have been specified, contract …

"Twisting Slowly In The Wind": A Search For Constitutional Limits On Coercion Of The Criminal Defendant, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In the corridor outside Courtroom Four, Foster Clark approached the prosecutor. "I was wondering," he said, "are we really going to have to try this case?"

"Well," the prosecutor said, "that depends. He's dead on and gone to heaven, if that's what you mean. He doesn't have a prayer."

"I was wondering if we could work something out," Clark said. "I haven't really had a chance to talk with him, but I was wondering."

"So talk to him," the prosecutor said. "Find out where he stands, and call me."

* * *

"Look," the prosecutor said, "you know I can't …

"No Soul To Damn: No Body To Kick": An Unscandalized Inquiry Into The Problem Of Corporate Punishment, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?
—Edward, First Baron Thurlow 1731-1806

The Lord Chancellor of England quoted above was neither the first nor the last judge to experience frustration when faced with a convicted corporation. American sentencing judges are likely to face a similar dilemma with increasing frequency in the near future, for a number of signs indicate that corporate prosecutions will become increasingly commonplace. At first glance, the problem of corporate punishment seems perversely insoluble: moderate fines do not deter, …

Authority And Consent, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

My starting point is the assumption that there is no general obligation to obey the law, not even a prima facie obligation and not even in a just society. This assumption is perhaps becoming more popular. In recent years it has been defended by several writers. There is more that needs to be said in its support, but I will not attempt to do so here. Instead, I will reflect on a problem posed by accepting it, a problem concerning the relations between an individual citizen and the state. It is common to think that the state has authority over …

Our Perfect Constitution, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Monaghan takes issue with "due substance" theorists, who view the Constitution as protecting rights and values generated by current conceptions of political morality. In this Article, he examines and criticizes the theories advanced to justify looking to those current conceptions as an acceptable mode of reasoning about constitutional meaning. Professor Monaghan's own view is that the proper mode of ascertaining constitutional meaning is one that looks to original intent and precedent, a view that acknowledges the Constitution does not guarantee perfect government.

Protecting Privacy Under The Fourth Amendment, Rory Little

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sleight Of Handwriting: The Holographic Will In California, Gail Boreman Bird

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Report On The National Commission: Good As Gold, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research ended its work by substantially endorsing the status quo which places primary reliance on local Institutional Review Boards for subject protection. This was predictable because of the Commission's researcher-dominated composition which permitted it to assume that (1) research is good; (2) experimentation is almost never harmful to subjects; and (3) researcher-dominated IRBs can adequately protect the Interests of human subjects. The successor Presidential Commission can learn much by reexamining these premises.

The Case For Medical Licensure, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Locke et al. argue elsewhere in this issue that medical licensure should be abolished. Their reasoning is direct and seductive - but their free market cure is worse than the disease they describe. Their major premise, for example, is simply wrong: "Any governmental action that violates individual rights is improper." For this notion they cite the ultraconservative novelist Ayn Rand who talks about things that are "right" for humans to do. But there are two confusions: (I) rights do not exist in a vacuum; in an interdependent society the rights of individuals must sometimes be balanced against the rights of …

Byu Education Week Lectures On The History Of Mormon Lawyers, James H. Bachman

Faculty Scholarship

• Introduction.

• Pt. I. Attitudes within the Mormon Church toward the study of law.

• Pt. II. The pioneer lawyer.

• Pt. III. The increasing stature and impact of Mormon lawyers

• The J. Reuben Clark era.

• Pt. IV. The J. Reuben Clark Law School and Mormon Lawyers today.

• Bibliography.

Defects And The Central Peak In Srtio3, Rolfe G. Petschek

Faculty Scholarship

It has been suggested that defects cause the central peak in SrTiO3. This paper presents a mean-field study of point defects which couple so strongly to the order parameter that nonlinear interactions in neighboring cells are important. Fair agreement with experimental results from electron paramagnetic resonance is found with a concentration of defects fitted to inelastic neutron scattering results. The hindered reorientation of domains is found to be consistent with this concentration of defects.

Glass-Steagall: Some Critical Reflections, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Glass-Steagall: Some Critical Reflections, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Identity Crisis For The Corporate Lawyer, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Shifting Perspective In Product Liability: From Quality To Process Standards, Aaron Twerski, Alvin S. Weinstein, William H. Donaher, Henry R. Piehler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Artists, Art Collectors And Income Tax, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

The federal income tax law treats artists and art collectors differently. Similar transactions concerning artworks produce disparate income tax results, depending on whether they involve the artist or the collector. On balance, these results seem to favor the collector over the artist. But notwithstanding the dismay of some artists and their advocates, the differences in result flow, in the main, from the differences in the source of the taxpayer's investment in the work.

The collector buys the work with after-tax income. Any gain is properly treated as an investment return and is eligible for capital gain benefits.' The collector, however, …

Lifetime Gifts - A Quantitative Approach, Roger A. Pies, Daniel S. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How To Make The Massachusetts Patients' Bill Of Rights Work, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The movement for enhanced patients' rights is based on two premises: (I) citizens possess certain rights that are not automatically forfeited by entering into a relationship with a physician or health care facility; and (2) most physicians and health care facilities fail to recognize these rights, fall to provide for their protection or assertion, and limit their exercise without recourse.

The primary argument against patients' rights is that patients have "needs" and defining these needs in terms of rights leads to the creation of an unhealthy adversary relationship.' It is not, however, the creation of rights, but the disregard of …

Usery Limits On National Interest, David S. Bogen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interspousal Immunity In Pennsylvania, John L. Gedid

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Labor-Antitrust: The Problems Of Connell And A Remedy That Follows Naturally, Michael J. Cozzillio, Joseph T. Casey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Panel: State Action And The Constitutional Accountability Of Private Utilities, Joel Gora

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Meeting The Equal Credit Opportunity Act's Specificity Requirement: Judgmental And Statistical Scoring Systems, Winnie F. Taylor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Defining The Role Of The Physician: Medical Education, Tradition, And The Legal Process, Robert L. Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

The professional conflict and animosity that have developed between the legal and medical professions are symptomatic of something that is basic and disturbing to the traditional science and practice of medicine. Even a cursory review of the literature will reveal that physicians, lawyers, philosophers, and others (with greater or lesser degrees of insight and awareness) are currently engaged in serious reevaluations of such concepts as the definition of medicine as science and/or art, the structure and administration of effective medical curricula, and the goals of the medical profession itself. Such analyses require not only that physicians evaluate what they ought …

The First Amendment And The Free Press: A Comment On Some New Trends And Some Old Theories, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

Responding to the trend of media rights being subjugated through the legal process, this article examines Justice Stewart's suggestion that the media should be treated with extra deference in First Amendment cases. This examination looks at the sufficiency of the press's claim of judicial harshness, whether the press should be treated differently than other speakers, and also compares press freedom in foreign nations.

Rape Victim Shield Laws And The Sixth Amendment, J. Alexander Tanford, Anthony J. Bocchino

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.