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Judicial Activism: An (Un)Expected Result Of Legal Interpretation In Complex Societies?, Fabio P L Almeida Mr, Alexandre A. Costa Dr

Fabio P L Almeida

Judicial activism has been accused of being an undue activity of judges, who should restrict themselves to the interpretation of the law. In this article, we argue that this conception is wrong: judicial activism does not imply a distortion in political and judicial structures, but it should be understood as an expected feature of legal interpretation in complex political systems. In contemporary liberal democracies, legislation cannot regulate all situations, and thus the only way to affirm its universality is through flexible interpretation, which grants to society the ability to adapt its legal system to new circumstances without the need to …

Knives And The Second Amendment, David B. Kopel, Claytom E. Cramer, Joseph P. Olson

David B Kopel

This Article is the first scholarly analysis of knives and the Second Amendment. Under the Supreme Court’s standard in District of Columbia v. Heller, knives are Second Amendment “arms” because they are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” including self-defense.

There is no knife that is more dangerous than a modern handgun; to the contrary, knives are much less dangerous. Therefore, restrictions on carrying handguns set the upper limit for restrictions on carrying knives.

Prohibitions on carrying knives in general, or of particular knives, are unconstitutional. For example, bans of knives that open in a convenient way (e.g., …

Paul Clement And The State Of Conservative Legal Thought, Sam Singer

Sam Singer

If 2011 is remembered as the year the states stood up to the Obama Administration and its bold vision of federal power, Paul Clement will be remembered as the lawyer they chose to make their case to the Supreme Court. In addition to the healthcare challenge, Clement appeared on behalf of Arizona in defense of the State’s sweeping new immigration law and helped Texas defend its new electoral map against interference from the federal courts. Along the way, he became the go-to lawyer for the states’ rights cause--a “shadow Solicitor General” leading the states in their push to reclaim power …

Stewardship And Dominium: How Disparate Conceptions Of Ownership Influence Possession Doctrines, Martin Hirschprung

martin hirschprung

The law is ambiguous regarding the level and extent of possession necessary to effect ownership. It can be argued that one’s conception of the nature of ownership influences this standard of possession. I further argue that the application of the concept of stewardship to questions of possession will aid in resolving the disputes between museums and indigenous groups regarding cultural artifacts. In order to demonstrate the relationship between one’s conception of ownership and its attendant standard of possession, it is useful to contrast different legal definitions of ownership, particularly the Roman concept of dominium, with a religious model of stewardship …

Constitutional Discourse In The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill Debate, Alexander F. A. Rabanal

Alexander F. A. Rabanal

No abstract provided.

Unjustifiable Expectations: Laying To Rest The Ghosts Of Allotment-Era Settlers, Ann E. Tweedy

Ann E. Tweedy

When the Supreme Court decides whether a tribe has jurisdiction over non-members on its reservation or addresses the related issue of reservation diminishment, it often refers implicitly or explicitly to the non-Indians’ justifiable expectations. The non-Indians’ assumed expectations arise from the fact that, when Congress opened up reservations to non-Indians during the allotment era, its assumption, and presumably that of non-Indians who purchased lands on reservations during that period, was that the reservations would disappear due to the federal government’s assimilationist policies, along with the tribes who governed them. To refute the idea that such non-Indian expectations were justifiable, I …

Marshall And O'Connor: Categorical First Justices And Their Impact On Federal Indian Law, Richard L. Barnes

richard l barnes

Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman appointed. As firsts in their category their historical role is assured, but their legacy is broader. This Article examines one piece of their legacies: Is it plausible to find some of their character as ‘Firsts’ in their opinions for the Court in Indian cases? Specifically can we find a legacy of categorical pioneering in the Justices’ treatment of American Indians as another category of people underrepresented on the Court?

My working hypothesis was that the sympathy some might expect from …

Strengthening The Rule Of Virtue And Finding Chinese Law In "Other" Places: Gods, Kin, Guilds And Gifts, Mary Szto

Mary Szto

Discussions about the rule of law in China today often do not consider the role of virtue or ritual. At the same time, many bemoan slow or no legal reform. Before the tumultuous events of the 20th century, traditional Chinese law (TCL) was remarkably continuous and stable for centuries. It was a blend of ritual and law focused on flourishing and virtue formation. Ritual was communion with, and law accountability to, the invisible spirit world. This inseparable blend spanned multiple jurisdictions, from state codes and courts to divine petitions and courts, to ancestral rites and family codes, to merchant codes …

Marshall And O'Connor: Categorical First Justices And Their Impact On Federal Indian Law, Richard L. Barnes

richard l barnes

Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman appointed. As firsts in their category their historical role is assured, but their legacy is broader. This Article examines one piece of their legacies: Is it plausible to find some of their character as ‘Firsts’ in their opinions for the Court in Indian cases? Specifically can we find a legacy of categorical pioneering in the Justices’ treatment of American Indians as another category of people underrepresented on the Court?

My working hypothesis was that the sympathy some might expect from …

Employment At-Will: Sacred Writ Or Big Lie?, John Judge

John Judge

Texas was the fourth state to adopt the at-will rule of employment termination, an inferential rebuttal defense to an employee’s action for breach of a contract of employment of indefinite duration. The 1888 decision in East Line & R. R. R. Co. v. Scott, 10 S.W. 99 (Tex., 1888), looks to Horace Woods’ 1877 treatise MASTER & SERVANT, and has been slavishly followed in Texas despite dubious intellectual provenance and a complete lack of relevance to actual reality in the contemporary employment market.

The Bahd Of New England: Citing Shakespeare In The First Circuit, Eugene L. Morgulis

Eugene L. Morgulis

This paper explores the ways in which judges in federal and state courts within the geographical region of the First Circuit have used the works and words of William Shakespeare to enhance their opinions. It not only exhaustively catalogs the plays and quotations that judges have cited since the 19th century, but it also analyzes the ways in they are used, discusses how they add or detract from opinions, and compares the use of Shakespeare to other authors commonly cited.

The Bush Theory Of The War Power: Authoritarianism, Torture And The So-Called “War On Terror”- A Critique, Christopher L. Blakesley, Judy Meyerson

Christopher L. Blakesley

The Bush Theory of the War Power:

Authoritarianism, Torture and the

So-Called “War on Terror”- A Critique

Christopher L. Blakesley & Thomas B. McAffee

Abstract

Our article addresses the Bush administration’s arrogation of power to the President and its manifestation in the disappearance, imprisonment, and torture of detainees in prisons, including Guantánamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and so-called “black sites,” or prisons in countries that engage in torture. These shameful practices were authorized in the infamous September 25, 2001 Torture Memo and other controversial legal memoranda by John Yoo and other Bush administration attorneys. The memos, which claimed authoritarian executive power …

Ultra Vires Statutes: Alive, Kicking, And A Means Of Circumventing The Scalia Standing Gauntlet In Environmental Litigation, Adam J. Sulkowski

Adam J. Sulkowski

This article makes a critical contribution to the fields of environmental and corporate law. It explains a problem in the citizen enforcement of environmental statutes: the issue of how to establish and secure standing to sue. The article then recommends a novel solution based in corporate law: the application of ultra vires statutes. The article significantly contributes to the scholarly literature on ultra vires statutes by: (1) examining thoroughly the history of the ultra vires doctrine, especially in early American history, (2) clarifying that scholars and practitioners should now cite ultra vires statutes rather than the doctrine, (3) reviewing recent …

United States V. Hatahley: A Legal Archaeology Case Study In Law And Racial Conflict, Debora L. Threedy

Debora L. Threedy

This paper is a case study of United States v. Hatahley, a leading case in the Remedies canon, using the methodology of “legal archaeology” to reconstruct the historical, social and economic context of the litigation. In 1953, a group of individual Navajos brought suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the destruction of over a hundred horses and burros. The first section of the paper presents two contrasting narratives for the case. The first relates what we know about the case from the reported opinions, while the second locates the litigated case within the larger social context by examining …

United States V. Hatahley: A Legal Archaeology Case Study Of Law And Racial Conflict, Debora L. Threedy

Debora L. Threedy

This paper is a case study of United States v. Hatahley, a leading case in the Remedies canon, using the methodology of “legal archaeology” to reconstruct the historical, social and economic context of the litigation. In 1953, a group of individual Navajos brought suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the destruction of over a hundred horses and burros. The first section of the paper presents two contrasting narratives for the case. The first relates what we know about the case from the reported opinions, while the second locates the litigated case within the larger social context by examining …

Extralegal Crimes, Extralegal Punishments: Justice On The Antebellum Plantation, Gerald J. Pierson

Gerald J Pierson

Most plantation slaves in the American South prior to the Civil War never encountered the ordinary, legally established criminal justice system in their communities. Instead, an ad hoc justice system, unique to each plantation and controlled by the slaves’ master and enforced by the master, overseer, and driver, constituted the mechanism of control. Each plantation was, in effect, a common law jurisdiction within the larger “federal” system composed of the ordinary Southern state legal systems. This justice system, extralegal and profoundly authoritarian, possessed the accouterments of any criminal justice system: rule-making authority, the establishment and “publishing” of statutory crimes, gradation …

Book Review -- Making Indian Law: The Hualapai Land Case And The Birth Of Ethnohistory, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of The Roosevelt Court, Wilson R. Huhn

Wilson R. Huhn

The overriding purpose of the New Deal was to create opportunities for the common person to acquire a stake in society. The Roosevelt appointees to the Supreme Court were unwilling to allow either entrenched wealth or arbitrary governmental action to interfere with that objective. They remade the Constitution, but in so doing they returned the Constitution to its original purpose – the protection of personal liberty. The Roosevelt Court laid the foundation for a jurisprudence of human rights upon which the Warren Court and subsequent Supreme Courts have continued to build.

Two justices presently serving on the Supreme Court – …

A Consumer-Use Approach To Products Liability, Alan Calnan

Alan Calnan

In dicta, courts have had no trouble identifying unreasonable product uses. Indeed, over the years, they have compiled an extensive list of examples. That list includes the following pearls of wisdom. An automobile should not be used as a bulldozer. A shovel should not be used as a doorstop. A hunting and fishing knife should not be used to shave. A knife should not be used as a toothpick. An electric drill should not be used to clean teeth. A power saw should not be used to clip fingernails. A motorized hedge clipper should not be used to trim beards. …

Self-Defense: The Equalizer, David B. Kopel, Linda Gorman

David B Kopel

Experiments in tightening gun-control laws have eroded the right of self defense and failed to stop serious crime. Studies Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.