Law Commons^™

Judging "Under Fire" And The Retreat To Facts, Allison Orr Larsen

William & Mary Law Review

Americans tend to worry about how our current polarized political climate will affect the legitimacy of our courts. Often overlooked in this important conversation is a discussion about what a toxic political dialogue can do—and in fact is doing—to the construction of the law itself. This Article will begin to make the case that judicial decisions themselves change as a result of high-intensity politics. Specifically, I will argue that when judges are “under fire” (to borrow a phrase from Planned Parenthood v. Casey), they tend to cloak their decisions in factual observations about the world that seem neutral and objective, …

Can Judges Be Uncivilly Obedient?, Brannon P. Denning

William & Mary Law Review

In a recent article, Jessica Bulman-Pozen and David Pozen identified “uncivil obedience” as a tactic for protesting laws or regulations, not by violating the law, as with civil disobedience, but rather by scrupulous attendance to it. They noted that it is a tactic available to private and public actors alike, but were doubtful that a judicial variety existed. They were skeptical because, in their opinion, even hyper-formalist legal opinions would be unlikely to be perceived as provocative as scrupulous adherence to the letter of the law might be when practiced by non-judicial actors. In this Article, I argue that judicial …

Justice Scalia's Other Standing Legacy, Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Measuring Circuit Splits: A Cautionary Note, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

A number of researchers have recently published new measures of the Supreme Court’s behavior in resolving conflicts in the lower courts. These new measures represent an improvement over prior, cruder approaches, but it turns out that measuring the Court’s resolutions of conflicts is surprisingly difficult. The aim of this methodological comment is to describe those difficulties and to establish several conclusions that follow from them. First, the new measures of the Court’s behavior are certainly imprecise and may reflect biased samples. Second, using the Supreme Court Database, which some studies rely on to assemble a dataset of cases resolving conflicts, …

Hierarchy And Heterogeneity: How To Read A Statute In A Lower Court, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

Is statutory interpretation an activity that all courts should perform the same way? Courts and commentators implicitly so conclude. I believe that conclusion is wrong. Statutory interpretation is a court-specific activity that should differ according to the institutional circumstances of the interpreting court. The U.S. Supreme Court is not the model all other courts should emulate.

I identify three kinds of institutional differences between courts that bear on which interpretive methods are appropriate: (1) the court’s place in the hierarchical structure of appellate review, (2) the court’s technical capacity and resources, and (3) the court’s democratic pedigree, particularly as reflected …

The Supreme Court’S Controversial Gvrs – And An Alternative, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

This Article addresses a relatively neglected portion of the Supreme Court's docket: the "GVR"-that is, the Court's procedure for summarily granting certiorari, vacating the decision below without finding error, and remanding the case for further consideration by the lower court. The purpose of the GVR device is to give the lower court the initial opportunity to consider the possible impact of a new development (such as a recently issued Supreme Court decision) and, if necessary, to revise its ruling in light of the changed circumstances. The Court may issue scores or even hundreds of these orders every year

This Article …