Digital Commons Network^™

Rethinking The Theory Of Legal Rights, Jules S. Coleman, Jody S. Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

In the economic approach to law, legal rights are designed, in part, to overcome the conditions under which markets fail. In correcting for market failure, economic analysis endorses two rules for assigning legal rights. The first specifies the allocation of rights under conditions of rational cooperation, full information and zero transaction costs. Provided that exchange is available and that obstacles to exercising it are insignificant, rational cooperators will negotiate around inefficiencies. Under these conditions, legal rights are not assigned in order to establish optimal levels of resource deployment directly; rather, they establish well-defined entitlements or negotiation points which create a …

Access To Health Care And Equal Protection Of The Law: The Need For A New Heightened Scrutiny, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

Proposals to reduce national expenditures for health care under Medicare and other programs raise questions about the limits on legislative power to distribute health care benefits. The constitutional guarantee of equal protection has been a weak source of protection for the sick, largely because they fail to qualify for special scrutiny under traditional equal protection analysis. Recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court suggest that the Justices seek a newer, more flexible approach to reviewing claims of unequal protection. This Article examines the application of the equal protection guarantee to health-related claims. It argues that traditional equal protection analysis …

The Battered Woman Syndrome And Self-Defense: A Legal And Empirical Dissent, David L. Faigman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rising Above Principle, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Suspect As A Source Of Testimonial Evidence: A Comparison With The English Approach, Gordon Van Kessel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Hearsay Rule And The Stability Of Verdicts: A Response To Professor Nesson, Roger C. Park

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Confidence In Probability: Burdens Of Persuasion In A World Of Imperfect Knowledge, Neil B. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Reluctant Witness For The Prosecution: Grand Jury Subpoenas To Defense Counsel, Stacy Caplow

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Insanity Defense In Fact And Fiction: A Review Essay Of Norval Morris's Madness And The Criminal Law, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mentally Retarded Criminal Defendants, James W. Ellis, Ruth A. Luckasson

Faculty Scholarship

This Article attempts to provide a preliminary overview of the issues in the Mental Health Standards as they relate to defendants with mental retardation. Part I reviews the history of the treatment of retarded defendants in the criminal justice system. Part II describes the characteristics of people with mental retardation and the consequences of those characteristics. Part III then discusses the extent to which mental retardation should be exculpatory of criminal responsibility. Part IV analyzes the critical importance of competence issues to mentally retarded defendants. Part V elaborates upon dispositional issues including civil commitment and sentencing. Parts VI and VII …

Executive Targeting Of Congressmen As A Violation Of The Arrest Clause, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Report: Five Wins And Nine Losses For Free Speech Fans, Joel Gora

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Adverse Possession, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The law of adverse possession tends to be regarded as a quiet backwater. Both judicial opinions and leading treatises treat the legal doctrine as settled. The theory underlying the doctrine, although routinely discussed in the opening weeks of first-year property courses, is only rarely aired in the law reviews any more. Indeed, the most frequently cited articles on adverse possession date from the 1930s and earlier. Perhaps most tellingly, adverse possession seems to have completely escaped the attention of the modem law and economics movement – almost a sure sign of obscurity in today's legal-academic world.

Nevertheless, two recent events …

The Right And The Reasonable, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

As the common law relies on the concept of "reasonableness," the civil law relies on the concept of "Right." Professor Fletcher argues that reliance on reasonableness enables the common law to develop rules that can be voiced in a single standard. Such rules permit what Professor Fletcher terms 'flat" legal thinking. In contrast, the civil law's reliance on the concept of Right leads it to develop rules that proceed in two stages: the first rule asserts an absolute right; the second, a limitation based upon criteria other than Right. The application of such rules proceeds by what Professor Fletcher terms …

Legal Informality And Redistributive Politics, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Until recently, one of the most consistent themes in both right and left critiques of the legal system has been the repudiation of procedural formality, that is, of specialized, rule-bound procedures. The left critique portrayed formality as facilitating the manipulation of the legal system by the privileged to the disadvantage of others. Both right and left critiques portrayed formality as expressing and fostering alienation and antagonism.

In recent years, however, attitudes toward formality on the left have become increasingly complex and ambivalent. This development may be partly a reaction to the rising prominence of a conservative rhetoric that links proposals …

Explaining Habeas Corpus, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

The conventional rationale underlying postconviction habeas corpus in the Federal forum is that the individual's interest in freedom from unlawful detention warrants a second look at Federal claims already rejected by the State courts. The subject-matter jurisdiction of the habeas courts is explicitly limited to petitions from applicants who allege they are in 'custody' in violation of Federal Law. The courts, however, circumvent the 'custody' requirement if it threatens to obstruct effective Federal postconviction review to protect persons from recalcitrant State authorities. The proposed alternative explanation of habeas corpus is that it makes available a Federal forum in which to …

Reflections On The Substance Of Finality, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Thinking Like A Statistician: The Report Of The American Statistical Association Committee On Training In Statistics In Selected Professions, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

In 1983, a subcommittee of the American Statistical Association composed of legal educators and one judge issued a report describing existing programs for educating law students in statistics and offering recommendations for improving these programs. This article summarizes that report.

The Press And The Public Interest: An Essay On The Relationship Between Social Behavior And The Language Of First Amendment Theory, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

I would like to explore in this essay one aspect of the contemporary American debate over the theory of freedom of speech and press. The subject I want to address is this: whether the principle of freedom of speech and press should be viewed as protecting some personal or individual interest in speaking and writing or whether it should be seen as fostering a collective or public interest. Sometimes this issue is stated as being whether the first amendment protects a "right to speak" or a "right to hear," though in general the problem seems to be whether we should …

Miranda Revisited: Broadening The Right To Counsel During Custodial Interrogation--Commonwealth V. Sherman, Beth Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

The judicially created Miranda protections require law enforcement officials to inform criminal suspects of their right to counsel prior to proceeding with custodial interrogation. In Commonwealth v. Sherman, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts considered whether a criminal defendant validly waived his right to counsel when a police officer failed to inform him that an attorney, appointed to represent him in an unrelated case, had requested to be present during his interrogation. Concluding that, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, the defendant did not voluntarily waive his right to counsel, the court suppressed the defendant's in-custody statements to police. …

Lawyers, Politics, And The "Lawyers' Interest": An Historical Inquiry, James W. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The assumption that the occupational identification of "lawyer" is the salient feature in evaluating political motivation is interesting, if questionable, according to the Author. Does occupational identity overwhelm other identities? Are politically active lawyers really a homogeneous group? Are they less affected by competing identities associated with wealth, geography, familial and constituency concerns, political ideology, party considerations, or any of the myriad other sources of public and private motivation of behavior? Surely the hypothesis that politically active lawyers behave differently from nonlawyers is worth investigating. This Article offers some preliminary responses to these questions posed, which are grounded in empirical …

Visions Of Practice In Legal Thought, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

This essay contrasts the vision of law practice expressed in the established professional culture with a vision derived from recent Critical legal writing.

Institutional Litigation In The Post-Chapman World, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Punishment, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Although punishment has been a crucial feature of every legal system, widespread disagreement exists over the moral principles that can justify its imposition. One fundamental question is why (and whether) the social institution of punishment is warranted. A second question concerns the necessary conditions for punishment in particular cases. A third relates to the degree of severity that is appropriate for particular offenses and offenders. Debates about punishment are important in their own right, but they also raise more general problems about the proper standards for evaluating social practices.

The main part of this theoretical overview of the subject of …

The Minnesota Commitment Act Of 1982 Summary And Analysis, Eric S. Janus, Richard M. Wolfson

Faculty Scholarship

Minnesota law governing commitments has been substantially

revised and recodified in the Minnesota Commitment Act of 1982.

The prior law is repealed and the new law is substituted for it effective

August 1, 1982.

This article has three purposes. First, the significant changes in

the civil commitment law are identified and their implications explored.

Second, where appropriate, the legal background underlying

the changes is explored in order to place the changes in context.

Third, the article identifies ambiguities and inconsistencies in the

Act, posits resolutions, and suggests areas for legislative attention.

Review Of The Law And Process Of Post-Conviction Remedies By Ira P. Robbins, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

There are days when the availability of the federal writ of habeas corpus as a vehicle for challenging criminal convictions collaterally seems assured. The arrival of Professor Robbins' new casebook is itself strong, affirmative evidence. At last a major publishing house has acknowledged that the great body of habeas corpus statutes, rules, and precedents warrants a full-length, hard-bound casebook for classroom use. Implicitly, surely, the publisher assumes that the postconviction writ is here to stay, that it forms a stable and legitimate part of our jurisprudence. 3 At the same time, some members of the Court, particularly Chief Justice Burger …

The Exhaustion Doctrine In Federal Habeas Corpus: An Argument For A Return To First Principles, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

The exhaustion doctrine in federal habeas corpus contemplates not the relinquishment of federal jurisdiction to determine the merits of federal claims arising in state criminal prosecutions, but the appropriate timing of an undoubted federal power to adjudicate in due course. Simply stated, the doctrine postpones federal review until petitioners have exhausted state judicial remedies still available for the treatment of their federal claims at the time they wish to apply for federal relief. The resulting delay is justified on the twin grounds that earlier federal intervention would disrupt the orderly administration of state criminal prosecutions and deprive the state courts …

The Reagan Administration's Habeas Corpus Proposals, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

"Democracy," said Churchill, "means that if the door bell rings in the early hours, it is likely to be the milkman." He might have added that if the caller is not the milkman, but a police officer, Anglo-American democracy contemplates that the writ of habeas corpus will be available to the citizen awakened and dragged off into the darkness. The Great Writ has no substantive content of its own but provides the machinery for putting claims before state and federal courts-for translating substantive principles of liberty into effective law. The writ is process, but more than process. It is the …

Pretrial Procedure Under The Massachusetts Rules Of Criminal Procedure, Eric D. Blumenson, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

The Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure became effective on July 1, 1979. While many of their provisions helpfully codify previously existing practice and case law, the Rules have in some areas effected a major transformation of criminal procedure. This article examines the changes wrought by the Rules in the pretrial arena, with emphasis on those areas that remain somewhat unfamiliar to the practitioner or untested against constitutional challenge in the courts. While the Rules appear to have done an admirable job of simplifying and rationalizing the criminal trial process, their emphasis on mutuality and reciprocity have in some cases created …

Expenses: The Roadblock To Justice, Maurice Rosenberg, Peter F. Rient, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.