Law Commons^™

Solicitors General Panel On The Legacy Of The Rehnquist Court, Seth P. Waxman, Walter E. Dellinger Iii, Maureen Mahoney, Theodore Olson, Drew S. Days Iii

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

All of us who are speaking probably share the same giddy feeling in front of a microphone with no red light. For years, my daughter told people that the greatest threat to Western civilization was her father at a podium without a red light. Before becoming Solicitor General, I spent my career as a trial lawyer, arguing only a few appeals. I found this red light tradition a little peculiar. More often than not, timers and lights in courts of appeals are viewed as advisory at best. I've had arguments where ten minutes were allocated per side, and yet argument …

Retaining Life Tenure: The Case For A Golden Parachute, Ryan W. Scott, David R. Stras

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The first vacancies on the Supreme Court in eleven years have sparked renewed debate about the continued viability of life tenure for federal judges. Scholars have decried life tenure as one of the Framers' worst blunders, pointing to issues such as strategic retirement, longer average tenure, and widespread mental infirmity of justices. In this Article, the authors argue that, notwithstanding the serious problem of mental and physical infirmity on the Court, life tenure should be retained. They also argue that recent statutory proposals to eliminate or undermine life tenure, for example through a mandatory retirement age or term limits, are …

Rescuing Judicial Accountability From The Realm Of Political Rhetoric, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The article examines the threat to judicial independence from political calls for more judicial accountability. The author begins by defining judicial accountability and discussing its purposes before breaking the concept down into three categories: institutional accountability, behavioral accountability, and decisional accountability. This process reveals that in the judicial accountability family, there is but one discrete sub-species, situated in the decisional accountability genus, that does not further accountability's proper purpose and is therefore conceptually problematic: direct political accountability for competent and honest judicial decision-making error that the politicians desire and a serious threat to judicial independence. The critical question becomes one …

The Housing Court Act (1972) And Computer Technology (2005): How The Ambitious Mission Of The Housing Court To Protect The Housing Stock Of New York City May Finally Be Achieved, Mary Zulack

Faculty Scholarship

1972 to concentrate housing-related cases in a single court and to involve judges in the process of seeing that the housing stock was repaired. When I agreed to contribute an essay on how the Housing Court is fulfilling its obligation to preserve the housing stock, for the October 29, 2004 conference held by The Justice Center of the New York County Lawyers' Association, I imagined I would review annual court-produced statistics. I expected this to include 30 years worth of information about repairs claimed to be needed, orders to repair issued, number of repairs actually made, the range of enforcement …

Reining In The Supreme Court: Are Term Limits The Answer?, Arthur D. Hellman

Book Chapters

Once again, life tenure for Supreme Court Justices is under attack. The most prominent proposal for reform is to adopt a system of staggered non-renewable terms of 18 years, designed so that each President would have the opportunity to fill two vacancies during a four-year term. This book chapter, based on a presentation at a conference at Duke Law School, addresses the criticisms of life tenure and analyzes the likely consequences of moving to a system of 18-year staggered terms for Supreme Court Justices.

One of the main arguments for term limits is, in essence, that the Supreme Court should …

Review Of John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life, Joseph Thai

Joseph T Thai

No abstract provided.

Driving Misjoinder: The Improper Party Problem In Removal Jurisdiction, Steven Gensler, Laura Hines

Steven S. Gensler

No abstract provided.

Appointed Visiting Associate Professor Of Law For Spring 2006 At Harvard Law School, Dean Hashimoto

Dean M. Hashimoto

No abstract provided.

The Meaninglessness Of Delayed Appointments And Discretionary Grants Of Capital Postconviction Counsel, Celestine Richards Mcconville

Celestine Richards McConville

This article addresses the right to postconviction counsel in capital cases - a right that is absolutely crucial to protecting innocent capital inmates from wrongful execution. It is no secret that indigent capital inmates who wish to pursue their state postconviction remedies have no constitutional right to counsel, and instead must rely on statutory grants of counsel. While numerous death penalty states have seen fit to provide a mandatory statutory right to postconviction counsel, a handful of death penalty states, including Alabama, provide only a discretionary right to such counsel. But in Alabama, which at the time of this writing …

Boyakasha, Fist To Fist: Respect And The Philosophical Link With Reciprocity In International Law And Human Rights, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Sovereignty And The American Courts At The Cocktail Party Of International Law: The Dangers Of Domestic Invocations Of Foreign And International Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

With increasing frequency and heightened debate, United States courts have been citing foreign and “international” law as authority for domestic decisions. This trend is inappropriate, undemocratic, and dangerous. The trend touches on fundamental concepts of sovereignty, democracy, the judicial role, and overall issues of effective governance. There are multiple problems with the judiciary’s reliance on extraterritorial and extra-constitutional foreign or international sources to guide their decisions. Perhaps the most fundamental flaw is its interference with rule of law values. To borrow from Judge Harold Levanthal, the use of international sources in judicial decision-making might be described as “the equivalent of …