Digital Commons Network^™

State Taxation Of Marijuana Distribution And Other Federal Crimes, Robert A. Mikos

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The financial crisis has breathed new life into proposals to reform marijuana law. Commentators suggest that legalizing and taxing marijuana could generate substantial revenues for beleaguered state governments-as much as $1.4 billion for California alone. This Article, however, suggests that commentators have grossly underestimated the difficulty of collecting a tax on a drug that remains illegal under federal law. The federal ban on marijuana will impair state tax collections for two reasons. First, by giving marijuana distributors powerful incentives to stay small and operate underground, the federal ban will make it difficult for states to monitor marijuana distribution and, consequently, …

Iss Recommendations And Mutual Fund Voting On Proxy Proposals, Randall S. Thomas, James Cotter, Alan Palmiter

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article analyzes mutual fund voting data from 2003-2008, the first five proxy seasons for which this data is available, and seeks to identify the extent to which mutual funds vote consistently with the voting recom- mendations of RiskMetrics' ISS Corporate Governance Services (ISS). We compare voting by mutual funds to voting by all shareholders during this time period and then focus on mutual fund voting on non-election and non-routine proxy proposals-both those submitted by management and by shareholders. The questions we examine are: (1) Over the past five voting seasons, have mutual funds (and shareholders generally) voted on proxy …

The Specter Of Sisyphus: Re-Making International Financial Regulation After The Global Financial Crisis, Yesha Yadav

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The global financial crisis is forcing a thorough re-evaluation of the international regulatory architecture. The crisis has shown not only the cracks in regulatory oversight, but also a market operation that had long outgrown and outwitted its overseers. This Article has argued that the international financial market may be seen as having its own distinct personality, the recent expansion bringing with it a unique set of regulatory risks. Accordingly, just as with domestic regulatory systems, the regulation of the international financial marketplace ought to be rooted in the legal and economic rationales that have been advanced in support of financial …

Saving Lives Through Punitive Damages, W. Kip Viscusi, Joni Hersch

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article proposes that the value of statistical life ("VSL ") be used to set the total damages amount needed for deterrence when punitive damages are warranted in wrongful death cases. The appropriate level of total damages should be achieved by adjusting the value of punitive damages. Compensatory damages should not be distorted to establish the total damages level needed for efficient deterrence. Attempts to introduce hedonic damages as a compensatory damages component, and proposals to use the VSL on a routine basis when setting compensatory damages awards, are misguided and will undermine the insurance and compensation functions of compensatory …

The Heterogeneity Of The Value Of Statistical Life: Introduction And Overview, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The refinement in worker fatality risk data used in hedonic wage studies and evidence from new stated preference studies have facilitated the exploration of the heterogeneity of the value of statistical life (VSL). Although the median VSL estimate for workers is $7-$8 million, the VSL varies considerably within the worker population. New estimates of the income elasticity of VSL are 1.0 or above, which are consistent with theoretical models linking VSL to the coefficient of relative risk aversion. The specific relationship between VSL and risk aversion is, however, more complex than previously understood. Age differences in VSL are substantial, with …

Front Matter

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Agency Independence, Lisa Schultz Bressman, Robert B. Thompson

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Independent agencies have long been viewed as different from executive-branch agencies because the President lacks authority to fire their leaders for political reasons, such as failure to follow administration policy. In this Article, we identify mechanisms that make independent agencies increasingly responsive to presidential preferences. We find these mechanisms in a context where independent agencies traditionally have dominated: financial policy. In legislative proposals for securing market stability, we point to statutorily mandated collaboration on policy between the Federal Reserve Board and the Secretary of the Treasury. In administration practices for improving securities regulation, we focus on White House coordination of, …

Zoning And Land Use, Arthur J. Anderson, Thomas Mann

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Non-Musical Career Of Fred Moss: A Precis, William J. Bridge

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Social Networking In The Workplace: Are Private Employers Prepared To Comply With Discovery Requests For Posts And Tweets, Lisa Thomas

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Citizens United & Corporate & Human Crime, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Citizens United v. Election Commission held that, like human citizens, corporations can exercise their right to free speech by spending as much money as they like trying to influence elections. This article does not attack or defend that decision, but rather explores its implications for criminal liability, corporate and otherwise. Most prominently, Citizens United reinforces the long-accepted but still highly controversial proposition that, despite their inanimate nature, corporations can be criminally prosecuted for harm they cause. Less obviously, Citizens United provides fodder for those who would soften current corporate liability and punishment rules. Less obviously still, the decision could bolster …

Entrenching Environmentalism, Christopher Serkin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This piece for the University of Chicago Law Review Symposium: Reassessing the State and Local Government Toolkit, examines how local governments can use private law mechanisms to entrench policy in ways that circumvent typical legal limitations. The piece examines in detail a specific example of a town donating conservation easements over property it owns to a third-party not-for-profit conservation organization in order ensure that the property would not be developed in the future. This is nearly the functional equivalent of passing an unrepealable zoning ordinance restricting development, something existing anti-entrenchment rules would never permit. The piece examines the costs and …

Governing For Sustainable Coasts: Complexity, Climate Change, And Coastal Ecosystem Protection, J.B. Ruhl, Robin K. Craig

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The world’s coastal ecosystems are among the most complex on Earth, and they are currently being governed unsustainably, by any definition. Climate change will only add to this complexity, underscoring the necessity of finding new ways to govern for these ecosystems’ sustainable use. After reviewing the problems facing coastal ecosystems and innovations in their governance, this article argues that governance of coastal ecosystems must move to place-based adaptive management regimes that incorporate innovative and flexible regulatory mechanisms, such as market-based incentives.

The Complementarity Conundrum: Are We Watching Evolution Or Evisceration?, Michael A. Newton

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Rome Statute nowhere defines the term "complementarity, " but the plain text of Article 1 compels the conclusion that the International Criminal Court was intended to supplement the foundation of domestic punishment for violations of international norms rather than supplant domestic prosecutions. The practice of complementarity may well be the fulcrum supporting the Court's long term legitimacy; and this principle is all the more important because it is designed to provide intellectual leverage to move non-States Party towards treaty accession. The Rome Statute curtails sovereign authority by displacing domestic trials only in exceptional circumstances, and it includes detailed procedural …

The 1909 Copyright Act In International Context, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The passage of the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act was embedded in a significant period of evolution for international copyright law. Just a year before, the Berne Convention had been revised for the second time. This Berlin (1908) Act of the Convention in remembered in particular for the introduction of a broad prohibition against formalities concerning the "exercise and enjoyment" of copyright. 1909 was also just one year before a new copyright bill was brought before the Brit-ish Parliament. This Copyright Act, finally adopted in December 1911 and which entered into force in July 1, 1912, greatly influenced laws in many …

Saving Lives Through Punitive Damages, Joni Hersch, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article proposes that the value of statistical life ("VSL ") be used to set the total damages amount needed for deterrence when punitive damages are warranted in wrongful death cases. The appropriate level of total damages should be achieved by adjusting the value of punitive damages. Compensatory damages should not be distorted to establish the total damages level needed for efficient deterrence. Attempts to introduce hedonic damages as a compensatory damages component, and proposals to use the VSL on a routine basis when setting compensatory damages awards, are misguided and will undermine the insurance and compensation functions of compensatory …

Punitive Damages By Numbers: Exxon Shipping Co. V. Baker, Joni Hersch, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker is a landmark that establishes an upper bound ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages of 1:1 for maritime cases, with potential implications for other types of cases as well. This article critiques the Court’s reliance on the median ratio of punitive to compensatory damages in samples of verdicts to set an upper bound for punitive damages awards. Our critique of the approach draws on the properties of statistical distributions and a new analysis of cases with punitive damages awards. The Court’s conclusion that a 1:1 ratio establishes a …

The Case Of The Black-Gloved Rapist: Defining The Public Defender's Role In The California Courts, 1913-1948, Sara Mayeux

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This essay traces [these] two competing visions of the public defender in California from 1913 to 1948, and examines how and why the second view ultimately prevailed, at least doctrinally. On the ground, some public defenders may have continued to see themselves primarily as public servants, and some trial judges may have endorsed this view. But in the 1940s, California appellate judges rejected the Progressive ideal of the public defender. They constructed the public defender as an opponent of the state, leaving intact (at least in theory) the American adversary system of criminal justice.

In so doing, they followed the …

Power, Exit Costs, And Renegotiation In International Law, Timothy Meyer

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Scholars have long understood that the instability of power has ramifications for compliance with international law. Scholars have not, however, focused on how states’ expectations about shifting power affect the initial design of international agreements. In this paper, I integrate shifting power into an analysis of the initial design of both the formal and substantive aspects of agreements. I argue that a state expecting to become more powerful over time incurs an opportunity cost by agreeing to formal provisions that raise the cost of exiting an agreement. Exit costs - which promote the stability of legal rules - have distributional …

Right Problem; Wrong Solution, Nancy J. King, Joseph L. Hoffmann

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court, in a powerful and eloquent majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, vindicated the right of a non-U.S. citizen, held in custody at a military base outside the United States, to use the writ to challenge the legality of his incarceration.1 Boumediene was a triumph of both the individual petitioner and the judiciary over the powers of the executive, and represents a high-water mark in the long and celebrated history of habeas.

Chronotope And Regional Chinese Independent Films, Jingya Liu

Lingnan Theses

This thesis aims to re-categorize Chinese independent films from a region-based perspective as a critical response to existing literature on Chinese independent films. This thesis analyzes three independent films made in three different regions of China in order to investigate regional Chinese independent cinema as a recently rising phenomenon: respectively, Jia Zhangke’s Xiaowu (1997) made in Shanxi Province, Ying Liang’s Taking Father Home (Bei yazi de nanhai, 2006) in Sichuan Province, and Robin Weng’s Fujian Blue (Jinbi huihuang, 2007) in Fujian Province.

By using Bakhtin’s concept of chronotope (literally time-space) as the fundamental framework and exploring the many aspects of …

當代中國文化明星的製造 : 變動的文化生產場, Weizi Huang

Lingnan Theses

本文借助並修訂了布爾迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）的理論框架，透過對中國大陸二十世紀九十年代以來文化明星的製造進行研究來理解變動中的文化生產場 (field of cultural production)，並探討在其間知識分子作為的新可能。文化明星問題之所以值得特別研究，首先是由於它處於當代中國文化生產的中心，涉及到電視、圖書、平面媒體、互聯網等不同的文化生產次場域（sub-field），以及製作人、 出版人、文化明星本人、“粉絲” (fans) 和批評者所代表的不同力量。考察圍繞著製造文化明星的複雜的關係網絡，正可以勾勒出當代中國變動的文化生產場域的概貌。其次，文化明星的產生和生產是對九十年代以來知識分子危機的一種回應，是知識分子問題的變奏。理解了文化明星的製造機制，有助於尋找在當下的文化生產場中知識分子作為的新可能。

本文選取余秋雨、易中天、于丹和韓寒四個個案進行深入分析。余秋雨是公認的第一個最成功的文化明星，對其案例進行研究揭示了文化明星產生的歷史轉變。易中天和于丹的案例則代表著著一種可以複製的成熟的文化明星製造模式的出現。韓寒的形象及製造是一種有別于以上主流文化明星的另類模式。

本文綜合運用多種研究方法，包括對十幾名相關的文化生產者進行訪問，組織了一個針對粉絲的焦點小組（focus group），並且到電視節目錄製現場、出版 社和大型書店進行參與式觀察。此外亦有歷史檔案梳理和文本、話語分析。 最終，本文繪製出了不同的文化明星在當代中國文化生產場中的位置，反思了現有文化明星生產模式的後果，並對知識分子/文化生產者參與文化生產提出有針對性的建議。

中國當代故事新編小說研究 (神話傳說類), Wenjun Jiang

Lingnan Theses

魯迅《故事新編》開創了現當代故事新編小說的先河，亦為後世有關此文類的創作奠下了穩固的基礎，在文學史上形成了重要的流派，其重要性與獨立創作一樣應得到重視。 本論文以神話與文學的研究方式為基礎，研究神話傳說類故事新編小說在 當代作家的創作下如何表現出創新意義。本論文共分為六章，第一章主要探討神話傳說類故事新編小說的特質，以釐定本文的研究範圍；第二章是對神話傳 說類故事新編小說在現當代的發展作概觀式介紹，以及顯示個別作家在故事新編創作上的貢獻；第三章是神話類故事新編小說研究，本文選取五個有關神話人物的改編文本(馬彬〈神農〉、劉以鬯〈盤古與黑〉、董啟章《少年神農》、李 碧華〈嫦娥〉和葉兆言《后羿》)，探討作家如何改變神話人物的形象，以達到新編的效果；第四章是白蛇傳故事的故事新編研究，本文以人妖戀的角度，研究不同文本(劉以鬯〈蛇〉、孔慧怡〈雷峰塔〉、李碧華《青蛇》、和李銳及蔣韻 《人間》)對傳說的新編方式，如何表現出故事新編獨特的一面；第五章是梁山伯與祝英台的故事新編研究，本文疏理出傳說忠貞愛情形象，並以此為基礎， 比較不同文本(張恨水《梁山伯與祝英台》、李碧華〈梁山伯自白書〉及〈祝英 台自白書〉、孔慧怡〈梁祝無恨〉和李馮〈梁〉及〈祝〉)對愛情主題的重新演繹；第六章則以文體討論的形式為基礎肯定故事新編小說的價值作結。

The Greater Dublin Area: Ireland's Potential City-State Of The Early 21st. Century, Brian Hughes

Doctoral

Dublin’s superior population and employment growth, its scale size and unique urban agglomerative momentum will result in it emerging as Ireland’s ‘city state’ by mid-tolate 21st century. The hypothesis states that by then, the GDA is expected to be approaching half of the State’s population. The pivotal research question addressed is: can the GDA long-term differential population growth to that of the RoS area result in a 50% convergence of their respective populations and if so, when might this occur? The thesis develops the Hughes Years Matrix of Convergence ‘HYMOC’1 mathematical model, which represents this author’s spreadsheet matrix time indicator …

Principals' Perceptions Of Cyberbullying Policies In Selected Florida Middle Schools, Margaret Gardner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the issue of student cyberbullying in Florida's public middle schools. First, a content analysis of six Florida school district anti-bullying policies was conducted to determine the alignment between the state model policy and district policies. Next, 68 middle school principals from the same six Florida school districts completed the Cyberbullying Policies and Response Principal Survey online. Survey respondents were either members or non-members of the state mentoring team against bullying and harassment. Findings showed that all six school districts' anti-bullying policies were comprehensive in addressing the definitions of bullying behaviors, to include cyberbullying, as well as for …

The Influence Of High School Dramatic Arts Classes On Remedial Readers On The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, Michelle Backel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is the age of accountability in public schools. The public wants to know that the schools are producing high achieving students who are ready for the future. With this push for accountability the rise in standardized testing should not be surprising. However, it is difficult to test an abstract course such as the arts. With the increase of standardized testing and the recent tough economic times, it is no wonder that performing arts classes in our public schools are often the first to be pared down or dissolved (Mendels, 2008). It is the presiding feeling that these courses, while …

Students' Perceptions Of Collaboration Tools In A Higher Education Online Collaborative Learning Environment, Kirk Henry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Higher education funding and student behavior has been changing rapidly (Dervarics,2008). Because of this, there has been an increased focus on the use of alternative tools for course delivery. One of the emerging areas of focus has been an increased interest in the use of communication and information technologies (Curtis & Lawson, 2001). Currently, there are a wide variety of flexible delivery methods that have been used as well as their associated tools. Naturally, questions have been raised about the efficacy of these tools on the quality of student-student, student-teacher, and student-content interaction (Curtis & Lawson, 2001). Interaction and Collaboration …

The Efficacy Of Effort: Differences In Teachers' Sense Of Efficacy Based On Type Of Teacher Training And Number Of Years Of Experience, Julie Shane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current federal reforms require a highly-qualified teacher in every classroom to promote higher levels of student performance. In an attempt to provide a sufficient and sustainable number of highly qualified teachers in the workforce, alternative certification training programs have come alongside traditional college of education training programs. Proponents of alternative certification programs contend the process of on-the-job training will potentially address the problem of teacher shortages. However, opponents see these programs as an inadequate training process with future ramification for both teachers and students. As more and more classroom teachers are choosing alternative certification routes, there is growing uncertainty as …

Roles And Interactions Of General And Special Education Teachers In Secondary Co-Taught Teams, Tanya Moorehead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on identifying the components that contribute to instructional delivery in co-taught secondary classrooms in hopes of enhancing the understanding in the field of co-teaching in various secondary content areas. Employing a non-experimental mixed method research design, the study integrated qualitative and quantitative methods to gain insight into general education teachers' roles in solo-taught and co-taught classrooms and special educators' roles in co-taught classrooms. Instrumentation included the use of the Teacher Roles Observation Schedule (TROS), the Colorado Assessment of Co-Teaching (CO-ACT), interview questions, and field notes. The quantitative portion of the study consisted of event recordings of teacher …

Addressing Anger Managment In A Middle School Setting: Initiating A Leadership Drive Anger Management Group, Isaac Burt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effect of a leadership driven anger management group on angry middle school students. Twenty-five participants from a local middle school were nominated by school faculty to be participants in the study. Twenty individuals participated and eighteen completed the study. The eighteen participants were assessed at pre and post test on measures of anger, anger control and personal relationships. Three research questions were tested: (1) Does a short term leadership focused anger management group reduce youths' overall anger? (2) Does such a group increase angry youths' ability to control anger urges? (3) Does this group reduce youths' …