Law Commons^™

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

Revisiting The Visitor: Maine's New Uniform Probate Code & The Evolving Role Of The Court-Appointed Visitor In Adult Guardianship Reform, Lisa Kay Rosenthal

Maine Law Review

A judge may appoint a guardian for an adult who does not have the capacity to make decisions affecting their own health or welfare. However, the power of the guardian—while intended to serve a protective function—potentially invites financial, physical, and emotional abuse of the most vulnerable members of society. To help a probate judge understand the circumstances of a guardianship and the need for protection, probate courts in Maine appoint a “visitor” to interview both the person allegedly in need of a guardianship and the proposed guardian. The visitor submits a report to the court which contains the visitor’s observations, …

Answering The Call: A History Of The Emergency Power Doctrine In Texas And The United States, P. Elise Mclaren

St. Mary's Law Journal

During times of emergency, national and local government may be allowed to take otherwise impermissible action in the interest of health, safety, or national security. The prerequisites and limits to this power, however, are altogether unknown. Like the crises they aim to deflect, courts’ modern emergency power doctrines range from outright denial of any power of constitutional circumvention to their flagrant use. Concededly, courts’ approval of emergency powers has provided national and local government opportunities to quickly respond to emergency without pause for constituency approval, but how can one be sure the availability of autocratic power will not be abused? …

How Covid-19 Put The Spotlight On The Emtala, Ikra Kafayat

Touro Law Review

There was a time when those that were unable to afford medical care risked being denied treatment in emergency situations. Before Congress passed Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA), patients were being transferred to different hospitals, without being screened, because they did not have insurance and could not afford the treatment. Hospitals are no longer allowed to transport patients without properly screening and stabilizing them. Patients can bring a suit against a hospital if they believe the hospital violated EMTALA, however, in certain circuits the patient will need to prove that hospital had an “improper motive” for failing to …

Undue Deference To States In The 2020 Election Litigation, Joshua A. Douglas

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on so much of our lives, including how to run our elections. Yet the federal courts have refused to respond appropriately to the dilemma that many voters faced when trying to participate in the 2020 election. Instead, the courts—particularly the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts—invoked a narrow test that unduly defers to state election administration and fails to protect adequately the fundamental right to vote.

In constitutional litigation, a law usually must satisfy a two-part test: (1) does the state have an appropriate reason for the law and (2) is the law properly …

Blurred Lines: Disparate Impact And Disparate Treatment Challenges To Subjective Decisions-- The Case Of Reductions In Force, Allan King, Alexandra Hemenway

William & Mary Business Law Review

Subjective employment decisions may be challenged under disparate treatment (intentional discrimination) and/or disparate impact (the discriminatory consequences of a neutral policy) theories of discrimination. However, these theories and supporting evidence often are conflated when the criteria for selecting employees are ill-defined or unrecorded. In those instances, the process by which employees are selected merges with the selections themselves, these legal theories converge as well. This Article critically discusses how courts have struggled to distinguish these theories in cases alleging a discriminatory reduction in force. It suggests how these cases should be submitted to juries, to preserve the liability and remedies …

Fee-Shifting Statutes And Compensation For Risk, Maureen Carroll

Indiana Law Journal

A law firm that enters into a contingency arrangement provides the client with more than just its attorneys’ labor. It also provides a form of financing, because the firm will be paid (if at all) only after the litigation ends; and insurance, because if the litigation results in a low recovery (or no recovery at all), the firm will absorb the direct and indirect costs of the litigation. Courts and markets routinely pay for these types of risk-bearing services through a range of mechanisms, including state feeshifting statutes, contingent percentage fees, common-fund awards, alternative fee arrangements, and third-party litigation funding. …

Due Process Pringle V. Wolfe (Decided 28, 1996)

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Application Of Title Ii Of The Americans With Disabilities Act To Employment Discrimination: Why The Circuits Have Gotten It Wrong, William Brooks

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Juvenile Status Offenses: The Prejudicial Underpinnings Of The Juvenile Justice System, Zachary Auspitz

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lincoln, The Constitution Of Necessity, And The Necessity Of Constitutions: A Reply To Professor Paulsen, Michael Kent Curtis

Maine Law Review

The George W. Bush administration responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11th with far-reaching assertions of a vast commander-in-chief power that it has often insisted is substantially free of effective judicial or legislative checks. As Scott Shane wrote in the December 17, 2005 edition of the New York Times, "[f]rom the Government's detention of [American citizens with no or severely limited access to courts, and none to attorneys, families, or friends] as [alleged] 'enemy combatants' to the just disclosed eavesdropping in the United States without court warrants, the administration has relied on an unusually expansive interpretation of the president's …

Injustice Under Law: Perpetuating And Criminalizing Poverty Through The Courts, Judge Lisa Foster

Georgia State University Law Review

Money matters in the justice system. If you can afford to purchase your freedom pretrial, if you can afford to immediately pay fines and fees for minor traffic offenses and municipal code violations, if you can afford to hire an attorney, your experience of the justice system both procedurally and substantively will be qualitatively different than the experience of someone who is poor. More disturbingly, through a variety of policies and practices—some of them blatantly unconstitutional—our courts are perpetuating and criminalizing poverty. And when we talk about poverty in the United States, we are still talking about race, ethnicity, and …

Legal Barriers To Age Discrimination In Hiring Complaints, Pnina Alon-Shenker

Dalhousie Law Journal

Studies have shown that senior workers endure longer spells of unemployment than their younger counterparts. Age discrimination has been identified as one of the main obstacles to reemployment. This article critically examines how Canadian anti-age discrimination law has responded to the contemporary challenges experienced by senior job seekers. It articulates several difficulties in our existing age discrimination legal framework by analyzing and contrasting social science literature on the present labour market experience of senior job applicants with human rights tribunal and court decisions in hiring complaints. It concludes by sketching a preliminary set of workable proposals for change that derives …

You Haven't Come A Long Way, Baby: The Courts' Inability To Eliminate The Gender Gap Fifty-Two Years After The Passage Of The Equal Pay Act, Morgan A. Tufarolo

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of "Chartervalues" And Campbell V. Jones: Is It Now Easier To Establish Qualified Privilege Against Defamation?, Geoffrey Duckworth

Dalhousie Law Journal

The purpose of this case comment is to impel a discourse on whether Campbell v. Jones' has "loosened the test" on qualified privilege. In the aftermath of the Court ofAppeal decision, it might be tempting to suggest that Campbell v. Jones means that the defence of qualified privilege is being re-fabricated in light of the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in order to take an expanded account of "Charter values" such as freedom of expression. This case comment adopts the contrary view, and asserts that what Campbell has really done is clarify exactly which type of extraordinary …

No Dichotomies: Reflections On Equality Forafrican Canadians In R. V. R.D.S., April Burey

Dalhousie Law Journal

The contrasts, in form and substance, were stark. In form, I was a black woman in a wheelchair, pleading before an all-white, able-bodied and almost all-male Supreme Court of Canada. The usually empty public galleries in the Ottawa courtroom were filled with people of colour, who had come from across the country to witness the hearing of this landmark case. On their entrance, the nine white judges, dressed in their staid, black robes made an almost audible gasp as they were met with this colourfully clad, intently silent band of people of colour.

There Goes The Neighborhood: The Evolution Of "Family" In Local Zoning Ordinances, William Graham

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Discrimination In The Legal Profession, Codes Of Professional Conduct And The Duty Of Non-Discrimination, Christ Tennant

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper is about discrimination in the legal profession, and about the kinds of responses to discrimination that the legal profession should be considering. I begin with a review of the various forms of discrimination which exist in the legal profession. Discrimination in the legal profession ranges from the exclusion of the members of certain groups from parts of the profession, to sexual harassment, to discrimination in our courts, to the exclusion and deprecation of the perspectives and experiences of those who have not traditionally beenin positions of power. Discrimination in the legal profession occurs against women, against aboriginal people, …

Public Housing And Equality Rights - Dartmouth/Halifax County Regional Housing Authority V. Irma Sparks, Stephen G. Coughlan

Dalhousie Law Journal

In Dartmouth/HalifaxCounty Regional Housing Authority v. Sparks, courts in Nova Scotia are once again called upon to consider whether tenants in public housing are entitled to the same protection as private tenants. The Supreme Court Appeal Division decided in Bernard v. Dartmouth Housing Authority that shorter notice periods for public housing tenants were not objectionable, under either s. 7 or s. 15 of the Charter. The issue will now return to the Court of Appeal, but in the meantime the County Court has held that Bernard still sets the standard in Nova Scotia.

Aboriginal Peoples And Criminal Justice: A Special Report Of The Law Reform Commission Of Canada, Bruce P. Archibald

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canada's criminal justice system has been shaken out of its stolid complacency in recent years by demonstrated instances of unfair treatment of religious, ethnic and racial minorities, and in particular our Aboriginal peoples.' Faced with a hue and cry directed at the justice system, the federal Minister of Justice asked the Law Reform Commission of Canada to study "as a matter of special priority, the Criminal Code and related statutes and to examine the extent to which those laws ensure that Aboriginal persons and persons who are members of cultural or religious minorities have equal access to justice and are …

Equality And Access To Justice In The Work Of Bertha Wilson, Hester Lessard

Dalhousie Law Journal

Increasingly, Canadians have sought to understand themselves as a community through the language of equality rights. There are several practical and theoretical consequences to this choice of language. One of the practical consequences is that a formal commitment to equality raises public consciousness with regard to material and social disparities and to some extent gives those who are excluded or marginalized at least a rhetorical claim to participation and a share in resources. However, another consequence is that while promoting a rhetoric of respect and individual dignity, equality discourse also places a disproportionate amount of power in the hands of …

A Comparison Of A Mentally Ill Individual's Right To Refuse Medication Under The United States And The New York State Constitutions, William M. Brooks

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Affordable Housing Forum, Richard F. Bellman, John M. Armentano, Alan Mallach

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights In Transition: Sections 1981 And 1982 Cover Discrimination On The Basis Of Ancestry And Ethnicity, Eileen Kaufman, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can Mental Health Professionals Predict Judicial Decisionmaking? Constitutional And Tort Liability Aspects Of The Right Of The Institutionalized Mentally Disabled To Refuse Treatment: On The Cutting Edge, Michael L. Perlin

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Attorneys' Fees, Various Editors

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recent Developments, Various Editors

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Injunctions - Section One Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1871 Is An Expressly Authorized Exception To The Federal Anti-Injunction Statute, Kenneth I. Levin

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recent Developments, Various Editors

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights, The Constitution And The Courts, By Archibald Cox, Mark Dewolfe Howe, And J.R. Wiggins, Winton D. Woods

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.