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Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Revisiting The Precedential Status Of Crown Court Decisions, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The binding authority of substantive decisions made by the Crown Court in the exercise of its criminal jurisdiction is often assumed to be negligible. In 2013, the Court of Appeal appeared to confirm the correctness of that assumption. Yet there was little in the way of explanation or case law that was cited in support by the court. This article suggests that a re-evaluation of the place and treatment of such decisions within the doctrine of precedent is overdue, and considers that they should be recognised to have some binding effect if there is able to be established a reasonably …

Must A Friend Indeed Reveal A Friend’S Misdeed? Exploring The Merits Of A Friendship Privilege, Michael D. Moberly

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Restoring The Presumption Of Innocence: Protecting A Defendant’S Right To A Fair Trial By Closing The Door On 404(B) Evidence, Aaron Diaz

St. Mary's Law Journal

Congress enacted the Federal Rules of Evidence to govern evidentiary procedures and “eliminate unjustifiable expense and delay.” In criminal cases, for example, Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) seeks to prevent prosecutors from improperly introducing a defendant’s past misdeeds. Nevertheless, prosecutors often attempt to introduce a defendant’s past misconduct to suggest that a defendant has a propensity to commit crimes, which is improper character evidence. Unsurprisingly, 404(b) is one of the most litigated evidence rules and has generated more published opinions than any other subsections of the Rules. And despite efforts to amend Rule 404(b), the rule has remained virtually untouched. …

Covid‐19 Crisis And Its Impact On Trustees And Beneficiaries, Man Yip

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The COVID-19 pandemic has been described by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as the “crisis of our generation”. We have to swiftly adjust to a new “normal” characterised by safety measures, travel restrictions, economic downturn and uncertainties in the days ahead. What is the new “normal” for trustees and beneficiaries? How should they respond to the legal and practical uncertainties in these challenging times? This commentary discusses two categories of uncertainties for trustees and beneficiaries: (1) uncertainty relating to trust investments; and (2) uncertainty relating to day-to-day administration.

Covid‐19 As A Frustrating Event Under Singapore Contract Law, Yihan Goh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on commercial arrangements around the world. This would appear to fit the textbook definition of a frustrating event under Singapore contract law. Alternatively, one might expect COVID-19 to be covered by the doctrine of force majeure. This commentary will provide a brief overview of the contractual issues arising from COVID-19.

Why An Independent, Holistic Review Of The Parti Liyani Case Is Necessary, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan discussed the case of Parti Liyani versus Public Prosecutor, and explained why an independent, holistic review of the case is necessary.

Hearing Essential And Urgent Court Matters During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kwan Ho Lau, Daryl Xu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This chapter discusses the hearing of essential and urgent court matters in the Singapore courts during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 27 march 2020, the Singapore judiciary notified courst users that remote hearings were to be implemented for certain types of hearings by means of video and telephone conferencing facilities. Court users were also provided with indicative lists of matters which might be considered essential and urgent.

Exorcising The Ghost In The Wills Act, Hang Wu Tang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Ingenious lawyers all over the Commonwealth are dreaming up rigmaroles for the signing of wills amid the pandemic. An English law firm has suggested that the will should be signed at a park bench, with witnesses lurking nearby, ready to rotate around the document. Another option allows for the will to be signed at the person’s doorway while the witnesses stand outside, using the services of a well-trained pet to deliver the signed will to the witnesses. Singapore has passed many sensible temporary measures in response to COVID-19 disruption, including marrying couples remotely so that the newly-weds, witnesses and solemniser …

Private Liability For Public Health, Jerrold Soh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As at this writing, COVID-19 continues to spread around the world. Most disease transmissions, one hopes, are unintentional. But could one nonetheless be liable for unintentionally, yet carelessly, transmitting the disease? If so, when would liability arise, and how wide may its scope be? If X transmits the disease to Y who in turn transmits it to Z, can Z claim against X? If not, why should liability escape one who carelessly spreads a deadly and highly contagious virus when courts have historically found liability for more innocuous harms?154 This short essay discusses how private liability might complement public regulation …

Opening The Door To Fickle-Minded Guilty Pleas? Public Prosecutor V Dinesh S/O Rajantheran, Teng Jun Gerome Goh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Unlike applications to retract guilty pleas, accused persons are not required to provide valid and sufficient reasons when qualifying their guilty pleas in mitigation. In Criminal Reference No. 5 of 2018, the Court of Appeal held that section 228(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code allows accused persons to qualify their guilty pleas in mitigation to the extent that it amounts to a retraction of their guilty pleas unless there is an abuse of the court’s process. This comment considers the desirability of the current law and suggests that the law applying to such withdrawals of guilty pleas should be …

It’S Whose Party? Accurately Defining Political Parties In First Amendment Cases, Makade Claypool

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mapping The Iceberg: The Impact Of Data Sources On The Study Of District Courts, Christina L. Boyd, Pauline T. Kim, Margo Schlanger

Articles

Three decades ago, Siegelman and Donohue aptly characterized research about courts and litigation that relied only on published opinions as “studying the iceberg from its tip.” They implored researchers to view published district court opinions “with greater sensitivity to the ways in which such cases are unrepresentative of all cases”. The dynamic, multistage nature of trial court litigation makes a focus solely on published opinions particularly ill-suited to the study of federal district courts. Expanded electronic access to court documents now allows more pre-cise analysis of the ways in which published cases are unrepresentative and what differences that makes for …

Health Implications Of Incarceration And Reentry On Returning Citizens: A Qualitative Examination Of Black Men’S Experiences In A Northeastern City, Jason Williams, Sean K. Wilson, Carrie Bergeson

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

While a great deal of research captures the lived experiences of Black men as they navigate through the criminal legal system and onto reentry, very little research is grounded in how those processes are directly connected to their health. Although some research argues that mass incarceration is a determinant of poor health, there is a lack of qualitative analyses from the perspective of Black men. Black men face distinct pathways that lead them into the criminal legal system, and these same pathways await them upon reentry. This study aims to examine the health implications associated with incarceration and reentry of …

The "Directive" Prong: Adding To The Allied-Signal Framework For Remand Without Vacatur, T. Alex B. Folkerth

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

“Remand without vacatur” is an administrative law remedy that allows courts reviewing agency actions with minor legal defects to leave the action in place while the agency fixes the defect. Courts use a two-prong test from the 1993 D.C. Circuit case Allied-Signal, Inc. v. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to determine whether or not to vacate the action pending remand. Allied-Signal’s “deficiency” prong directs the court to consider how bad the defect is. The “disruption” prong directs the court to consider how much havoc will be wreaked by the vacation of the action while the agency is fixing the defect. …

Increasing Case Traffic: Expanding The International Criminal Court's Focus On Human Trafficking Cases, Nadia Alhadi

Michigan Journal of International Law

Human trafficking falls within the jurisdictional competence of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) as one of the article 7 crimes against humanity, whether committed in an atmosphere of conflict or in times of relative peace. Despite the ICC’s jurisdiction, as well as the globally pervasive nature of peacetime trafficking in particular, the ICC has not yet heard a human trafficking case.

Accountability at the international level, however, is crucial, and the ICC’s oversight has the potential to fill gaps in the current anti-trafficking regime. This note explores this potential, and then examines whether the text of the Rome Statute or …

Regulating Jurisdiction Collisions In International Law: The Case Of The European Court Of Justice's Exclusive Jurisdiction In Law Of The Sea Disputes, Darío Maestro

Michigan Journal of International Law

To maximize their chances of receiving a favorable disposition, claimants often aspire to bring complex disputes to more than one international court. However, doing so may bring their claims under the jurisdiction of more than one branch of international law simultaneously, creating what this note calls a jurisdiction collision. This practice poses a challenge to the cohesion of international adjudication as competing international tribunals, relying on differing precedents, may give differing interpretations to the same rule.

Concentrating on the classical roots of international law and its changing significance over time and within different contexts, this note considers the benefits …

Criminal Law In Crisis, Benjamin Levin

University of Colorado Law Review Forum

In this Essay, I offer a brief account of how the COVID-19 pandemic lays bare the realities and structural flaws of the carceral state. I provide two primary examples or illustrations, but they are not meant to serve as an exhaustive list. Rather, by highlighting these issues, problems, or (perhaps) features, I mean to suggest that this moment of crisis should serve not just as an opportunity to marshal resources to address the pandemic, but also as a chance to address the harsh realities of the U.S. criminal system. Further, my claim isn’t that criminal law is in some way …

When Freedom Of Speech Comes At A Cost: A Case Study Of E.S. V. Austria, Rachael Taylor

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In the fall of 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a decision upholding the criminal conviction of an Austrian national (E.S.) in violation of Austria's Criminal Code against the disparagement of religious doctrines. Her initial conviction in the Austrian court was based on statements she made about the Prophet Muhammad while teaching a series of seminars entitled "Basic Information on Islam." In upholding her conviction, the ECtHR found that there had been no violation of the Austrian's right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (Convention), and …

Democracy, Deference, And Compromise: Understanding And Reforming Campaign Finance Jurisprudence, Scott P. Bloomberg

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court interpreted the government’s interest in preventing corruption as being limited to preventing quid pro quo— cash-for-votes—corruption. This narrow interpretation drastically circumscribed legislatures’ abilities to regulate the financing of elections, in turn prompting scholars to propose a number of reforms for broadening the government interest in campaign finance cases. These reforms include urging the Court to recognize a new government interest such as political equality, to adopt a broader understanding of corruption, and to be more deferential to legislatures in defining corruption.

Building upon that body of scholarship, this Article begins with a descriptive …

The Need For A Historical Exception To Grand Jury Secrecy In The Federal Rules Of Criminal Procedure, Daniel Aronsohn

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Covid, Crisis And Courts, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark, Jessica Steinberg

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Our country is in crisis. The inequality and oppression that lies deep in the roots and is woven in the branches of our lives has been laid bare by a virus. Relentless state violence against Black people has pushed protestors to the streets. We hope that the legislative and executive branches will respond with policy change for those who struggle the most among us: rental assistance, affordable housing, quality public education, comprehensive health and mental health care. We fear that the crisis will fade, and we will return to more of the same. Whatever lies on the other side of …

Dissent, Disagreement And Doctrinal Disarray: Free Expression And The Roberts Court In 2020, Clay Calvert

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Using the United States Supreme Court’s 2019 rulings in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, Nieves v. Bartlett, and Iancu v. Brunetti as analytical springboards, this Article explores multiple fractures among the Justices affecting the First Amendment freedoms of speech and press. All three cases involved dissents, with two cases each spawning five opinions. The clefts compound problems witnessed in 2018 with a pair of five-to-four decisions in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra and Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Partisan divides, the Article argues, are only one problem with First Amendment …

Court Expansion And The Restoration Of Democracy: The Case For Constitutional Hardball, Aaron Belkin

Pepperdine Law Review

Neither electoral politics, norms preservation, nor modest good government reform can restore the political system because they cannot mitigate the primary threat to the American democracy, Republican radicalism. Those who believe otherwise fail to appreciate how and why radicalism will continue to impede democratic restoration regardless of what happens at the ballot box, misdiagnose the underlying factors that produce and sustain GOP radicalism, and under-estimate the degree of democratic deterioration that has already taken place. Republicans do not need to prevail in every election to forestall the restoration of democracy or to prevent Democrats from governing. The only viable path …

A Call For America's Law Professors To Oppose Court-Packing, Bruce Ledewitz

Pepperdine Law Review

A Court-packing proposal is imminent. Mainstream Democratic Party Presidential Candidates are already supporting it. The number of Justices on the Supreme Court has been set at nine since 1869, but this is merely a statutory requirement. As soon as Democrats regain control of the Presidency and the Congress, Court-packing will be on the agenda, either expressly or under the guise of Court-reform. Now is the time for the American legal academy to join together to oppose this threat. Court-packing would threaten democracy, destroy the rule of law and undermine judicial independence. It is a pointless and unnecessary reaction born of …

United States V. Lozoya: The Turbulence Of Establishing Venue For In-Flight Offenses, Daeja Pemberton

Texas A&M Law Review

The U.S. Constitution protects one’s right to a fair trial in a proper venue. Typically, venue is proper in whatever territorial jurisdiction a defendant commits an offense. But this rule is not as clear-cut when the offense takes place in a special jurisdiction, such as American airspace. A court must then determine whether the offense continued into the venue of arrival, making it proper under the Constitution. This issue was reexamined when Monique Lozoya assaulted another passenger on an airplane during a domestic flight. In United States v. Lozoya, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals failed to correctly identify …

A Better Madden Fix: Holistic Reform, Not Band-Aids, To Modernize Banking Law, Matthew J. Razzano

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Historically, state usury laws prohibited lending above certain interest rates, but in 1978 the Supreme Court interpreted the National Bank Act (NBA) to allow chartered banks to issue loans at rates based on where they were headquartered rather than where the loan originated. States like South Dakota virtually eliminated interest rate ceilings to attract business, incentivizing national banks to base credit operations there and avoid local usury laws. In 2015, however, the Second Circuit decided Madden v. Midland Funding, LLC and reversed long-standing banking practices, ruling that non-chartered financial institutions were not covered by the NBA and were therefore subject …

Boldly Marching Through Closed Doors: The Experiences Of The Earliest Female Attorneys In Their Own Words, Nicole P. Dyszlewski

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Pieces Of Housing Integration, Kristen Barnes

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Notwithstanding the enactment of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, accomplishing racially-integrated housing across the United States remains an unattained goal. The costs associated with this failure are innumerable. Black Americans have endured harms in many areas, including health, education, wealth, and employment. More broadly, the nation has incurred considerable socioeconomic and political costs. In the interdisciplinary book, Moving Toward Integration, authors Richard Sander, Yana Kucheva, and Jonathan Zasloff analyze why the promise of racially-integrated housing remains unfulfilled and identify noteworthy strategies for changing course. Engaging with their arguments, this article highlights several structural impediments to altering racial housing …

The Kavanaugh Court And The Schechter-To-Chevron Spectrum: How The New Supreme Court Will Make The Administrative State More Democratically Accountable, Justin Walker

Indiana Law Journal

In a typical year, Congress passes roughly 800 pages of law—that’s about a seveninch

stack of paper. But in the same year, federal administrative agencies promulgate

80,000 pages of regulations—which makes an eleven-foot paper pillar. This move

toward electorally unaccountable administrators deciding federal policy began in

1935, accelerated in the 1940s, and has peaked in the recent decades. Rather than

elected representatives, unelected bureaucrats increasingly make the vast majority

of the nation’s laws—a trend facilitated by the Supreme Court’s decisions in three

areas: delegation, deference, and independence.

This trend is about to be reversed. In the coming years, Congress will …