Law Commons^™

Twitter And The #So-Calledjudge, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

SMU Law Review

Two-hundred-eighty characters may be insufficient to deliver a treatise on the judiciary, but it is more than enough to deliver criticism of the third branch of government. Today, these tweeted critiques sometimes come not from the general public but from the President himself. Attacks such as these come at a challenging time for court systems. We live in a highly politicized, polarized society. This polarization is reflected in attitudes toward the courts, particularly the federal courts. Unfortunately, public doubts about the court system come at a time when public understanding of the structure of government, and especially the court system, …

The Curious Origin Of Texas Pleading, Justice Jason Boatright

SMU Law Review

For 150 years, judges and legal scholars said that the Texas pleading system came from Spain. They explained that Mexico used a simple Spanish pleading system that English-speaking immigrants to Mexican Texas liked more than the complicated procedure they had known in the United States. After separating from Mexico, the story goes, Texas retained the Spanish system.

But that story is probably wrong. The Republic of Texas enacted its first pleading law in 1836. It does not look like Spanish pleading laws; it looks like an 1824 law written by Stephen F. Austin for his colony’s alcalde courts. Austin’s law …