Law Commons^™

The Role Of Courts In Improving The Legislative Process, Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

Dr. Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

ג'ון הארט גרוניס?: פסיקתו של הנשיא גרוניס לאור התיאוריה החוקתית של אילי (John Hart Grunis?: The Jurisprudence Of Chief Justice Grunis In Light Of Ely's Constitutional Theory), Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

Dr. Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

Praise Defenders, Not Just Prosecutors, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

Colloquy, Transactional Economics: Victor Goldberg’S Framing Contract Law, Keith A. Rowley, Mark P. Gergen, Victor Goldberg, Stewart Mcaulay

Mark P. Gergen

Panel discussion among law faculty who teach contracts of 2007 book authored by Victor Goldberg, which suggests that an economic approach to contract interpretation is appropriate.

Hollow Hopes, Flypaper, And Metaphors, Malcolm M. Feeley

Malcolm Feeley

No abstract provided.

Two Models Of The Criminal Justice System: An Organizational Perspective, Malcolm M. Feeley

Malcolm Feeley

Systematic studies of the administration of justice in the United States have stressed either the rational-goal model or the functional-systems model. The former model emphasizes problems with the justice system's formal rules of operation and appears to be the dominant view of appellate judges, lawyers, and law students, while the latter model is concerned with the identification and adaptation of action to the environment and the interests of action within the system.

The History Of Children's Hearsay: From Old Bailey To Post-Davis, Thomas D. Lyon, Raymond Lamagna

Thomas D. Lyon

The papers in this symposium were originally prepared for the Section on Evidence of the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools.

The Complexity Of International Criminal Trials Is Necessary, 48 Geo. Wash. Int'l L. Rev. 151 (2015), Stuart Ford

Stuart Ford

There is a widespread belief among both academics and policymakers that international criminal trials are too complex. As a result, tribunals have come under enormous pressure to reduce the complexity of their trials. However, changes to trial procedure have not meaningfully affected trial complexity. This Article explains why these changes have failed and argues that the complexity of international criminal trials is necessary for them to achieve their purposes. Using a multiple regression model of the factors driving trial complexity at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), this Article shows that the largest drivers of complexity are …

Dealing With Dirty Deeds: Matching Nemo Dat Preferences With Property Law Pragmatism, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Access To Justice For A New Century: The Way Forward, Julia H. Bass, W. A. Bogart, Frederick H. Zemans

Frederick H. Zemans

This book is a timely addition to the literature on access to justice. The book's essays address all aspects of the topic, including differing views on the meaning of access to justice; ways to improve access to legal services; litigation and its role in achieving social justice; and the roles of lawyers, citizens, and legal insitutions.

Access to Justice for a New Century is based on papers given at an international symposium presented by the Law Society of Upper Canada, sponsored by the Law Foundation of Ontario.

Precedent And Legal Authority: A Critical History, Charles W. Collier

Charles W. Collier

In this Article, Professor Charles Collier traces out a general theory of precedential authority through historical sources. The Article focuses on three particularly influential views of precedent: Wambaugh's concept of dictum, Oliphant's concept of stare decisis, and Goodhart's concept of ratio decidendi. These views illustrate an underlying tension between two distinct doctrines of precedential authority. The first doctrine, derived from humanistic thought, restricts-legal authority as narrowly as possible to the express terms of an original text. The second doctrine draws on the broad, generalizing tendencies of the empirical sciences and their corresponding conceptions of scientific authority. The two doctrines coexist …

Legislatively Directed Judicial Activism: Some Reflections On The Meaning Of The Civil Justice Reform Act, 28 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 305 (1995), Matthew R. Kipp, Paul B. Lewis

Paul Lewis

With the Civil Justice Reform Act (CJRA), Congress attempted to further a trend that the federal judiciary had undertaken largely on its own initiative. Sensing a critical need to address the mounting expense and delay of federal civil litigation, Congress, like the judiciary, sought to increase the degree of early and active involvement of judges in the adjudicatory process. The result of this mandate has been a further emphasis on the role of the judge as a case manager. As a necessary corollary, the liberty and self-determination of individual litigants-ideals that have historically been seen as philosophical cornerstones of the …

Systemic Due Process: Procedural Concepts And The Problem Of Recusal, 38 U. Kan. L. Rev. 381 (1990), Paul B. Lewis

Paul Lewis

No abstract provided.

Currency Of Love: Customary International Law And The Battle For Same-Sex Marriage In The United States, 14 U. Pa. J.L. & Soc. Change 53 (2011), Sonia Bychkov Green

Sonia Bychkov Green

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Leaks And Recusals: A Response To Professor Steven Lubet’S Scotus Ethics In The Wake Of Nfib V. Sebelius, 47 Val. U. L. Rev. 925 (2013), Kevin Hopkins

Kevin L. Hopkins

As Professor Steven Lubet notes in his article, Stonewalling, Leaks, and Counter-Leaks: SCOTUS Ethics in the Wake of NFIB v. Sebelius, the ethical conduct of Supreme Court Justices has once again gained national attention. This time, however, the context for public outcry is due to actions of an in-house source who released confidential information to a member of the press concerning the voting behavior and the overall sentiments of members of the Court's minority in one of the most significant and controversial rulings of the year: NFIB v. Sebelius (the "Affordable Care Act"). Professor Lubet uses this leaking of significant …

The Law And Science Of Video Game Violence: What Was Lost In Translation?, 31 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. 297 (2013), William K. Ford

William K. Ford

"[A]s a general rule," writes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes, "courts don't do science very well."' Susan Haack, a professor of law and philosophy, elaborates on why this may be true, offering several reasons for "deep tensions" between science and law. The reasons offered by Haack may be less of a concern where the dispute involves litigation against the government on significant questions of public policy. Recent decisions assessing the constitutionality of laws restricting minors' access to violent video games therefore offer an opportunity to examine how well the courts handled scientific evidence in a situation lacking some of the …

Judging Expertise In Copyright Law, 14 J. Intell. Prop. L. 1 (2006), William K. Ford

William K. Ford

No abstract provided.

The Phantom Philosophy? An Empirical Investigation Of Legal Interpretation, 65 Md. L. Rev. 841 (2006), Jason J. Czarnezki, William K. Ford

William K. Ford

This Article tests a model of judicial decision making that incorporates elements of both the attitudinal model and the legal model, along with measures of institutional and judicial background characteristics such as collegiality and trial court experience. We develop a measure of interpretive philosophy relying primarily on judicial opinions, which we code for certain indicators of traditional interpretive approaches (i.e., the use of interpretive tools). The critical question is whether judges with similar interpretive philosophies are more likely to agree with one another when deciding cases. Our general finding is that ideology and interpretive philosophy are not significant predictors of …

Rid Of Habeas Corpus - How Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel Has Endangered Access To The Writ Of Habeas Corpus And What The Supreme Court Can Do In Maples And Martinez To Restore It, 45 Creighton L. Rev. 185 (2011), Hugh Mundy

Hugh Mundy

No abstract provided.

Legal Arguments In The Opinions Of Montana Territorial Chief Justice Decius S. Wade, Andrew P. Morriss

Andrew P. Morriss

No abstract provided.

Legal Arguments In The Opinions Of Montana Territorial Chief Justice Decius S. Wade, Andrew P. Morriss

Andrew P. Morriss

No abstract provided.

E-Obviousness, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Glynn Lunney

As patents expand into e-commerce and methods of doing business more generally, both the uncertainty and the risk of unjustified market power that the present approach generates suggest a need to rethink our approach to nonobviousness. If courts fail to enforce the nonobviousness requirement and allow an individual to obtain a patent for simply implementing existing methods of doing business through a computer, even where only trivial technical difficulties are presented, entire e-markets might be handed over to patent holders with no concomitant public benefit. If courts attempt to enforce the nonobviousness requirement, but leave undefined the extent of the …

Anarquismo Judicial E Segurança Jurídica, Ivo T. Gico Jr.

Ivo Teixeira Gico Jr.

A partir de uma interpretação da segurança jurídica como uma forma de capital, o capital jurídico, explora-se as consequências sociais da ausência de mecanismos de coordenação entre magistrados para a formação e manutenção de jurisprudência, em especial, o anarquismo judicial. Utilizando-se um modelo agente-principal, demonstra-se que os magistrados brasileiros não possuem incentivos e mecanismos suficientes para investir em capital jurídico e uniformizar regras jurídicas. A insegurança jurídica resultante gera incentivos para a sobreutilização dos tribunais, resultando no problema endêmico de congestionamento.

A New International Human Rights Court For West Africa: The Ecowas Community Court Of Justice, Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer, Jacqueline R. Mcallister

Jacqueline McAllister

The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (ECCJ) is an increasingly active and bold international adjudicator of human rights violations in West Africa. Since acquiring jurisdiction over human rights issues in 2005, the ECCJ has issued several path-breaking judgments, including against the Gambia for the torture of journalists, against Niger for condoning modern forms of slavery, and against Nigeria for failing to regulate the multinational oil companies that polluted the Niger Delta. This article explains why ECOWAS member states authorized the ECCJ to review human rights suits by individuals but did not allow private actors to complain about violations of regional …

Perceptions Of Civil Justice: The Litigation Crisis Attitudes Of Civil Jurors, Valerie P. Hans, William S. Lofquist

Valerie P. Hans

Public perceptions that the civil justice system is in crisis are apparently widespread, but little is known about the causes or correlates of such views. This article analyzes the litigation crisis attitudes of a sample of civil jurors. Like the public, jurors endorsed a number of statements suggesting that there is a litigation crisis. Factor analysis identified two independent components: general concern over excessive litigation, and criticism of the civil jury. Litigation crisis views were found in all demographic and attitudinal subgroups. However, attitudes about the civil justice system were related to the respondent's political efficacy, claims consciousness, belief in …

Deliberation And Dissent: 12 Angry Men Versus The Empirical Reality Of Juries, Valerie P. Hans

Valerie P. Hans

This article contrasts the cinematic portrayal of jury deliberation in 12 Angry Men with an empirical portrait of real world juries derived from fifty years of jury research. The messages of this iconic movie converge with the findings of research studies in some surprising ways. During the course of the movie's deliberation, the different perspectives of the movie's jurors emerge as important contributors to the jury's fact finding, reinforcing the empirical finding that diversity among jurors produces robust deliberation and superior decision making. 12 Angry Men also illustrates both the importance of majority opinions and the power of dissenters under …

Cameras In The Courts: Can We Trust The Research?, Dan Slater, Valerie P. Hans

Valerie P. Hans

In several recent court cases, television viewers throughout the nation were able to see excerpts of actual trial testimony on network newscasts. These opportunities for camera coverage have come about as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1981 decision in Chandler v. Florida. In that case the Court ruled that each state was free to determine whether to permit "extended media coverage," including camera coverage, in its courts, and to set appropriate guidelines for such coverage. Before adopting permanent rules for camera coverage, most states have conducted one year tests — which they have called "experiments" — during which …

Section 12 Of The Canada Evidence Act And The Deliberations Of Simulated Juries, Valerie P. Hans, Anthony N. Doob

Valerie P. Hans

In the past, there have been three major approaches to the experimental investigation of the jury. First, juror selection research involves the study of the relation between verdicts or leniency toward certain classes of defendants and the characteristics of potential jurors. The second class of research is group study, in which the amount and style of individual participation is observed within the context of simulated jury deliberations (e.g., Strodtbeck, James and Hawkins, 1957). Finally, experimental psychology has made another contribution to the study of the jury; numerous researchers have conducted experimental studies employing legal stimulus materials. Typically, in such a …

The Arizona Jury Reform Permitting Civil Jury Trial Discussions: The View Of Trial Participants, Judges, And Jurors, Valerie P. Hans, Paula Hannaford-Agor, G. Thomas Munsterman

Valerie P. Hans

In 1995, the Arizona Supreme Court reformed the jury trial process by allowing civil jurors to discuss the evidence presented during trial prior to their formal deliberations. This Article examines the theoretical, legal, and policy issues raised by this reform and presents the early results of a field experiment that tested the impact of trial discussions. Jurors, judges, attorneys, and litigants in civil jury trials in Arizona were questioned regarding their observations, experiences, and reactions during trial as well as what they perceived to be the benefits and drawback of juror discussions. The data revealed that the majority of judges …

To Dollars From Sense: Qualitative To Quantitative Translation In Jury Damage Awards, Valerie P. Hans, Valerie F. Reyna

Valerie P. Hans

This article offers a new multistage account of jury damage award decision making. Drawing on psychological and economic research on judgment, decision making, and numeracy, the model posits that jurors first make a categorical gist judgment that money damages are warranted, and then make an ordinal gist judgment ranking the damages deserved as low, medium, or high. They then construct numbers that fit the gist of the appropriate magnitude. The article employs data from jury decision-making research to explore the plausibility of the model.