Digital Commons Network^™

Administrative Law Agonistes, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger Noll, Barry R. Weingast, Daniel B. Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Claiming Innocence, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

The advent of DNA testing technology almost two decades ago transformed how courts review claims of innocence. Our system discarded many of the rules of finality that traditionally barred most postconviction claims of innocence. In recent years almost every state enacted post-conviction DNA statutes, which I survey here. Yet our criminal system still remains at a crossroads and meritorious claims of innocence continue to face great obstacles. State statutes typically exclude entire categories of convicts who might convincingly prove their innocence and state courts often deny access to DNA testing. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has yet to adopt a constitutional …

Judging Innocence, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

This empirical study examines for the first time how the criminal justice system in the United States handled the cases of people who were subsequently found innocent through postconviction DNA testing. The data collected tell the story of this unique group of exonerees, starting with their criminal trials, moving through levels of direct appeals and habeas corpus review, and ending with their eventual exonerations. Beginning with the trials of these exonerees, this study examines the leading types of evidence supporting their wrongful convictions, which were erroneous eyewitness identifications, forensic evidence, informant testimony, and false confessions. Yet our system of criminal …

On-Line Distributed Traffic Grooming, R. Jordan Crouser, Brian Rice, Adrian Sampson, Ran Libeskind-Hadas

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

This paper addresses the problem of on-line traffic grooming in WDM paths. Each request consists of a source node, a destination node, and the desired bandwidth for the connection. Connections may be multi-hop, permitting the use of multiple lightpaths. We describe a new distributed on-line algorithm for this problem that is provably wide-sense non-blocking under cer- tain assumptions. Moreover, we use simulations to demonstrate that the algorithm is extremely effective even when some of these assumptions are relaxed.

Corporate Confessions, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

In corporate crime investigations, when prosecutors pursue charges against both employees and corporations, confessions raise several novel questions without clear answers in constitutional criminal procedure. First, corporations confess. The firm, a target of a criminal investigation, may itself admit to crimes by employees as part of a settlement agreement with prosecutors. While useful to study in their impact and form, as a constitutional matter such confessions can not be coerced, the Supreme Court has adopted a "collective entity rule" that corporate persons may not invoke Fifth Amendment privilege. Second,before itself confessing, the firm may encourage employees to provide statements to …

White Cartels, The Civil Rights Act Of 1866, And The History Of Jones V. Alfred H. Mayer Co., Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

In 2008, Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. turned forty. In Jones, the U.S. Supreme Court held for the first time that Congress can use its enforcement power under the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, to prohibit private racial discrimination in the sale of property. Jones temporarily awoke the Thirteenth Amendment and its enforcement legislation--the Civil Rights Act of 1866--from a century-long slumber. Moreover, it recognized an economic reality: racial discrimination by private actors can be as debilitating as racial discrimination by public actors. In doing so, Jones veered away from three decades of civil rights doctrine--a doctrine that had …

Cultural Values And Government, Walter E. Dellinger Iii

Faculty Scholarship

Mr. Dellinger Mr. Dellinger originally delivered these remarks for the panel entitled The Role of Government in Defining Our Culture, at the Federalist Society’s 2006 National Lawyers Convention, on Saturday, November 18, 2006, in Washington, D.C. commenting on the Ninth Circuit decision Finley v. National Endowment for the Arts. The case involved the constitutionality of the Helms Amendment which required that the National Endowment for the Arts take decency into account in choosing who should be awarded artistic grants.

Executive Preemption, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

Preemption of state regulatory authority by national law is the central federalism issue of our time. Most analysis of this issue has focused on the preemptive effects of federal statutes. But as Justice White observed in INS v. Chadha,“[f]or some time, the sheer amount of law . . . made by the [administrative] agencies has far outnumbered the lawmaking engaged in by Congress through the traditional process.” Whether one views this development as a “bloodless constitutional revolution” or as a necessary “renovation” of the constitutional structure in response to the complexity of modern society, the advent of the administrative state …

Why John Mccain Was A Citizen At Birth, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Maximum Carbon Intensity Limitations And The Agreement On Technical Barriers To Trade, Charles O. Verrill Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Emission of greenhouse gases is a global problem. Any nation seeking to restrict such emissions by its manufacturers should avoid putting them at a disadvantage in world and domestic markets where they are likely to compete with producers that do not bear the cost of emission controls. One approach being considered in the United States would be adoption of technical regulations limiting the carbon intensity of basic products, such as cement, aluminum, steel, etc., offered for sale in the US market (carbon intensity would be defined as the C02 equivalent emissions per ton of product). Domestic and imported products that …

Military Lawyering And Professional Independence On The War On Terror : A Response To David Luban, Charles J. Dunlap Jr., Linell A. Letendre

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Irrevocable Proxies, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

This short article explores the circumstances under which the power to vote shares owned by another may be made irrevocable. Irrevocable proxies often serve as integral ingredients within corporate governance arrangements because they serve as mechanisms that enable alliances among shareowners or enhance the holder’s voting power in disproportion to the holder’s residual economic interest in the corporation. The rights and duties of holders of irrevocable proxies are best understood against a background of common-law agency relationships, in which agent and principal always have the power–albeit having contracted otherwise–to terminate their relationship and the agent’s actual authority. Courts in the …

Corn Futures: Consumer Politics, Health, And Climate Change, Jedediah Purdy, James Salzman

Faculty Scholarship

The Mexicans have long been known as the Corn People, but that label perhaps provides a better fit for modern day Americans. The simple seeds of corn play a fundamental role unprecedented in the history of human agriculture. Corn now underpins two major sectors, arguably the two most important sectors, of our modern economy - food supply and energy supply. How we choose to consume this seed has far-ranging consequences for pressing issues as far apart as climate change and diabetes, energy policy and immigration, tropical deforestation and food riots.

Self-Execution And Treaty Duality, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution states that, along with the Constitution and laws of the United States, treaties made by the United States are part of the "supreme Law of the Land." At least since the Supreme Court's 1829 decision in Foster v. Neilson, however, it has been understood that treaty provisions are enforceable in U.S. courts only if they are "self-executing." The legitimacy and implications of this self-execution requirement have generated substantial controversy and uncertainty among both courts and commentators. This Article attempts to clear up some of the conceptual confusion relating to the self-execution doctrine and, …

The Function And Mechanism Of Chmp1a In Tumor Development, Jing Li

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Chmp1A (Chromatin modifying protein 1A/Charged multivesicular protein 1A) is a member of the ESCRT-III (Endosomal Sorting Complex Required for Transport) family, which mediates trafficking via MVB (multivesicular body) formation and sorting. Our studies suggest that Chmp1A is a novel tumor suppressor, especially in the pancreas. Knockdown of Chmp1A resulted in an increase of anchorage-independent growth of HEK 293T cells. Moreover, we showed that Chmp1A depleted HEK 293T cells forms tumor in xenograft mice. Knockdown of Chmp1A in PanC-1 cells promoted cell growth. In contrast, Doxycycline induced over-expression of Chmp1A in pancreatic cancer cells (PanC-1) resulted in cell growth inhibition, tumor …

Turning Space Into Place In The Sprawling “New City”: Shrinking Space, Visions Of Place, Homeowners In Conflict, Lael Leslie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Was there a "real place" to be found in the sprawling "new city" landscape? This interview study considers the categories of sprawl as a placeless, apolitical space, and of the suburban white middle class, to explore how "place" is variously understood by homeowners confronting rapid spatial reconfiguration. The interviewees are residents of a municipality located in one of New Jersey's "growth corridors." Emphasis is on homeowners' experiences, and on what they view as problems related to rapid growth.

Given the long settlement history of this northeastern seaboard region, this study finds that relations among homeowners had changed over time in …

After Innocence: Framing Wrongful Convictions, Susan A. Bandes

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

The debate about the future of the death penalty often focuses on whether its supporters are animated by instrumental or expressive values, and if the latter, what values the penalty does in fact express, where those values originated, and how deeply entrenched they are. In this article I argue that a more explicit recognition of the emotional sources of support for and opposition to the death penalty will have salutary consequences for the clarity of the debate. The focus on emotional variables reveals that the demarcation between instrumental and expressive values is porous; both types of values are informed (or …

The Impact Of A Home-Based Intervention Program On Maternal Reflective Functioning In First-Time Mothers, Maia Rebecca Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study investigates the impact of "Minding the Baby," a home-based intervention program, on maternal reflective functioning (RF). It was hypothesized that the reflective capacity of mothers who received the MTB intervention would increase over the course of the study, and that this increase would be reflected in the quality of their responses to clinical interviews administered before and after birth. The guiding premise of the intervention was that helping mothers develop a reflective stance would enable them to become more regulating, sensitive, and autonomy-promoting caregivers and thus positively affect a range of developmental outcomes in their infants.

The …

The Relationship Between Learning Style Preference And Achievement In The Adult Student In A Multicultural College., Matilde E. Roig

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Minority college students have varied learning styles and process information from distinct background and cultural perspectives, which influences their learning. Accordingly, the way faculty approach teaching affects student achievement. Few minorities are in scientific fields, with a shortage of scientists predicted. A problem exists in understanding the relationship between learning style preferences and achievement of minority college students. The purpose of the study was to investigate this relationship in adult minority students in a South Florida college's biology courses. Research questions pertained to relationships between learning style preferences, race, ethnicity and grades. This quantitative study used the online Felder-Soloman Inventory …

How The Merits Matter: Directors' And Officers' Insurance And Securities Settlements, Tom Baker, Sean J. Griffith

Faculty Scholarship

This Article seeks what may be the holy grail of securities law scholarship—the role of the "merits" in securities class actions--by investigating the relationship between settlements and directors' and officers' (D&O) liability insurance. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with plaintiffs' and defense lawyers, D&O insurance claims managers, monitoring counsel, brokers, mediators, and testifying experts, we elucidate the key factors influencing settlement and examine the relationship between these factors and notions of merit in civil litigation. We find that, although securities settlements are influenced by some factors that are arguably merit related, such as the "sex appeal" of a claim's liability elements, …

The Case For Symmetry In Creditors' Rights, Richard Squire

Faculty Scholarship

Using an original framework for evaluating bankruptcy rules, this article casts doubt on the efficiency of legal arrangements that give some creditors an absolute advantage over others in the division of a debtor's assets. Such arrangements, which I classify as asymmetrical, are widely used in the modem economy, and include the secured loan, American general partnership, and guaranty contract. In contrast, symmetrical arrangements, which include the corporation and common law partnership, confer no absolute advantage, because they give each creditor group a prior claim to a distinct debtor asset pool. I demonstrate that symmetrical arrangements produce lower debt appraisal costs, …

Voluntarism, Vulnerability, And Criminal Law: A Response To Professors Hills And O'Hear , Ethan J. Leib, Dan Markel, Jennifer M. Collins

Faculty Scholarship

This Response addresses the criticisms of our project by Professors Rick Hills and Michael O'Hear. Before we address those challenges, we first want to reiterate our gratitude to the B.U. Law Review for hosting an exchange based on our article, Punishing Family Status (forthcoming BU LR, December 2008), and to Professors Hills and O'Hear for their careful and subtle analysis of that article. Additionally, it's worth recapitulating what our bottom-line conclusions are so we can better see if there are any practical disagreements with our critics. Summarizing quickly: we support decriminalization in the cases of parental responsibility laws (based on …

Punishing Family Status , Jennifer M. Collins, Ethan J. Leib, Dan Markel

Faculty Scholarship

This Article focuses upon two basic but under-explored questions: when does, and when should, the state use the criminal justice apparatus to burden individuals on account of their familial status? We address the first question in Part I by revealing a variety of laws permeating the criminal justice system that together form a string of family ties burdens, laws that impose punishment upon individuals on account of their familial status. The seven burdens we train our attention upon are omissions liability for failure to rescue, parental responsibility laws, incest, bigamy, adultery, nonpayment of child support, and nonpayment of parental support. …

Something Old, Something New: Civic Virtue And The Case For Same-Sex Marriage, Tiffany C. Graham

Scholarly Works

In 1993, the Supreme Court of Hawaii issued a decision that forced the question of same-sex marriage from the hinterland of academic speculation to the front pages of newspapers all over the country. The nation was stunned when the court in Baehr v. Lewin held that same-sex marriage might be compelled by the state constitution of Hawaii. Since the Baehr decision, same-sex marriage has received a significant amount of attention. Many states have passed “baby DOMAs,” all of which limit marriage to the union of a man and a woman. In addition, several states have passed constitutional amendments that accomplish …

Prosecution Of Process Crimes: Thoughts And Trends, Allison Caffarone, Karen Patton Seymour, Stephen R. Peikin

Scholarly Works

The United States Department of Justice has come under attack in recent years because of its increased attention to, and prosecution of, crimes committed during the course of its investigations — obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements. These crimes have been labeled “cover-up” or “process crimes,” and the charging prosecutors have been criticized as bringing such charges only against high-profile defendants as to whom there is insufficient evidence to charge the “more serious” underlying offenses that prompted the initial investigation. Some critics have gone so far as to label these prosecutions “vindictive.” Much of this criticism is misplaced. …

Law Of The Land – Year In Review, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This column reviews trends and interesting cases in land use law as reported on “Law of the Land” during the last half of 2007. “Law of the Land” is a blog created to be of interest to land use lawyers, planners, developers, professors, and students. The blog is updated daily with a review of a recent land use case decided by a state or federal court. In addition, the site has reported on relevant gubernatorial executive orders, offered book reviews, and occasionally starts a discussion on current events issues, such as climate change and has led to robust debate about …

An Analysis Of Death Penalty Decisions From The October 2006 Supreme Court Term (Nineteenth Annual Supreme Court Review, October 2006 Supreme Court Term), Richard Klein

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

In The Trenches: Searches And The Misunderstood Common-Law History Of Suspicion And Probable Cause, Fabio Arcila

Scholarly Works

A detailed analysis of the common law during the Framers’ era, and of how it reflected the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions, shows that many judges believed they could issue search warrants without independently assessing the adequacy of probable cause, and that this view persisted even after the Fourth Amendment became effective. This conclusion challenges the leading originalist account of the Fourth Amendment, which Professor Thomas Davies published in the Michigan Law Review in 1999.

Learned treatises in particular, and to a lesser extent a few case decisions, had articulated a judicial duty to monitor probable cause. But it is a mistake …

A Response To Professor Steinberg’S Fourth Amendment Chutzpah, Fabio Arcila

Scholarly Works

Professor David Steinberg believes that the Fourth Amendment was intended only to provide some protection against physical searches of homes through imposition of a specific warrant requirement because the Framers' only object in promulgating the Fourth Amendment was to ban physical searches of homes under general warrants or no warrants at all. This response essay takes issue with his thesis by (1) discussing its implications, (2) reviewing some concerns with his methodology in reviewing the historical record, and (3) examining the theoretical implication underlying his thesis that, except as to homes, we have a majoritarian Fourth Amendment, and questioning whether …

Louis Marshall, Julius Henry Cohen, Benjamin Cardozo, And The New York Emergency Rent Laws Of 1920: A Case Study In The Role Of Jewish Lawyers And Jewish Law In Early Twentieth Century Public Interest Litigation, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

In this Article, Levine examines the litigation surrounding the New York Emergency Rent Laws of 1920. In particular, he focuses upon a series of cases litigated by two of the most prominent Jewish lawyers in United States in the first half of the twentieth century: Louis Marshall and Julius Henry Cohen. Among other notable aspects of the litigation, the cases reached the New York Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court, which at that time included two of the most eminent jurists in the history of the United States, Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, …