Law Commons^™

Viewpoint: Time To Abolish The 'Inquisitorial' Grand Jury System, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

The U.S. criminal justice system is long overdue for reform and the best place to start is the institution of the criminal grand jury. This archaic aspect of our system was originally intended to protect individuals suspected of a crime by including people from the community as a check on those with the power of the state to enforce the law. The grand jury no longer serves this purpose and should be abolished.

Race And Punishment: Demographic Disparities And Patterns In The Blue Earth County Court System, Aaron Guerdet, Alyssa Haugly, Kelsey Mischke

Public Sociology Publications and Projects

This study examines potential race and gender disparities in sentencing decisions in Blue Earth County, MN courts. Using qualitative field observations and a grounded theory approach, authors observed and analyzed court proceedings. In total, three researchers conducted seven weeks of observations; the final sample consisted of 95 observed court sessions, 50 of them being closed court cases. Results show little discrepancy in gender and charges and sentencing rates. Though there are racial discrepancies in charges that suggest discriminatory policing decisions, the data shows that minority members are being sentenced at a similar rate compared to white defendants. In all cases …

The Highly Political Supreme Court, Riley Lane Munks

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This paper investigates whether Republicans or Democrats support a strong Supreme Court and why. Furthermore, by analyzing data from the 2012 American National Election Survey, I will study support of the court based on gender, age, and race. Since the early 1980’s the court has taken a strong conservative direction, to the dismay of many liberals. Republicans feel comfortable sending a congressional dispute to the courts while Democrats may feel disenfranchised with the judicial process. I also believe that younger people believe the court is an outdated method of making laws and interpreting the constitution. Originally the Supreme Court was …

Newsroom: Yelnosky On State Pension Dispute, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Market Power Without Market Definition, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

Antitrust law has traditionally required proof of market power in most cases and has analyzed market power through a market definition/market share lens. In recent years, this indirect or structural approach to proving market power has come under attack as misguided in practice and intellectually incoherent. If market definition collapses in the courts and antitrust agencies, as it seems poised to do, this will rupture antitrust analysis and create urgent pressures for an alternative approach to proving market power through direct evidence. None of the leading theoretic approaches—such as the Lerner Index or a search for supracompetitive profits—provides a robust …

Is Military Justice Sentencing On The March? Should It Be? And If So, Where Should It Head? Court-Martial Sentencing Process, Practice, And Issues, James E. Baker

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article starts with a sketch of the military justice system to orient readers. Understanding that structure, the article then describes the sentencing process for special and general courts-martial. The article follows by identifying two core military sentencing questions: First, should commanders have authority to grant clemency? Second, should the military justice system adopt sentencing guidelines? With respect to each topic presented, the article does not attempt to answer the questions nor offer prescriptions. Rather, it seeks to identify the principal fault lines around which debate should, or will likely, fall. The article next presents ‘‘nutshell’’ introductions to additional sentencing …

Archcity Defenders: Municipal Courts White Paper, Thomas Harvey, John Mcannar, Michael-John Voss, Megan Conn, Sean Janda, Sophia Keskey

All Faculty Scholarship

ArchCity Defenders represents St. Louis' indigent on a pro bono basis in criminal and civil legal matters while working closely with social service providers to connect clients with services. Our primary goal is to remove the legal barriers preventing our clients from accessing the housing, job training, and treatment they need to get on with their lives.

In the five years we have been doing this work, we have primarily focused on representation in the municipal courts that have jurisdiction over infractions for mostly traffic-related offenses. Our direct representation of clients in these courts and the stories they shared of …

Federal Civil Rights Litigation Pursuant To 42 U.S.C. §1983 As A Correlate Of Police Misconduct, Philip M. Stinson, Steven L. Brewer Jr, Theresa M. Lanese, Mallorie A. Wilson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Police officers acting in their official capacity are subject to being sued in federal court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983 for violating constitutional rights under the color of law. Using data obtained in a larger study on police crime in the United States, names of more than 5,500 nonfederal sworn law enforcement officers who were arrested during the years 2005-2011 were checked against the civil case party master name index of the federal courts’ Public Access to Courts Electronic Records (PACER) system. Findings indicate that more than 20% of the police officers who were arrested for committing one or more …

Yates V. United States: A Case Study In Overcriminalization, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

In Yates v. United States, the Supreme Court will decide whether tossing undersized fish overboard can be prosecuted under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, a law aimed at preventing massive frauds of the sort that led to the collapse of Enron and sent shock waves throughout the economy. Although the legal issue is narrow, the case has far-reaching significance. The Yates prosecution is a case study in the dangers posed by “overcriminalization”: the existence of multitudinous, often overlapping criminal laws that are so poorly defined that they sweep within their ambit conduct far afield from their intended target.

The …

The Trouble With Amicus Facts, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

The number of amicus curiae briefs filed at the Supreme Court is at an all-time high. Most observers, and even some of the Justices, believe that the best of these briefs are filed to supplement the Court’s understanding of facts. Supreme Court decisions quite often turn on generalized facts about the way the world works (Do violent video games harm children? Is a partial birth abortion ever medically necessary?). To answer these questions, the Justices are hungry for more information than the parties and the record can provide. The consensus is that amicus briefs helpfully add factual expertise to the …

The Scope Of Precedent, Randy J. Kozel

Journal Articles

The scope of Supreme Court precedent is capacious. Justices of the Court commonly defer to sweeping rationales and elaborate doctrinal frameworks articulated by their predecessors. This practice infuses judicial precedent with the prescriptive power of enacted constitutional and statutory text. The lower federal courts follow suit, regularly abiding by the Supreme Court's broad pronouncements. These phenomena cannot be explained by—and, indeed, oftentimes subvert—the classic distinction between binding holdings and dispensable dicta.

This Article connects the scope of precedent with recurring and foundational debates about the proper ends of judicial interpretation. A precedent's forward-looking effect should not depend on the superficial …

The Supreme Court Of Canada: Policy-Maker Of The Year, Benjamin Perrin

All Faculty Publications

Each year, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy recognizes a “Policy-Maker of the Year”. Past recipients have included former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney and Foreign Minister John Baird, who have had a tremendous impact on our country’s economic stability and international stature, respectively. One could argue that, while people in such positions are undoubtedly influential, there is another entity that is rarely acknowledged for its influence on policy, but in the last year has changed Canadian public policy in wide-reaching and long-lasting ways – the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). This paper examines the Court’s 10 most significant …

Proposed Amendments To The Federal Judicial Misconduct Rules: Comments And Suggestions, Arthur D. Hellman

Testimony

In 2008, the Judicial Conference of the United States – the administrative policy-making body of the federal judiciary – approved a revised set of rules for handling complaints of misconduct or disability on the part of federal judges. Moving away from the decentralizing approach of the pre-2008 Illustrative Rules, the new rules were made binding on all of the federal judicial circuits.

On September 2, 2014, the Conference’s Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability (Conduct Committee) issued a set of draft amendments to the Rules. The announcement invited comments on the proposed amendments. This statement was submitted in response to …

A First Look At The Plea Deal Experiences Of Juveniles Tried In Adult Court, Tarika Daftary-Kapur, Tina Zottoli

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

While there is a large body of research on the legal capacities of adolescents, this research largely has neglected the plea-deal context. To learn about adolescents’ understanding of the plea process and their appreciation of the short- and long-term consequences of accepting a plea deal, we conducted interviews with 40 juveniles who were offered plea deals in adult criminal court. Participants displayed a limited understanding of the plea process were not fully aware of their legal options and appeared to be overly influenced by the short-term benefits associated with accepting their plea deals. Limited contact with attorneys may have contributed …

Top 10 U.S. Supreme Court Cases From The Last Term, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"This list is ranked based on my perceptions of importance, newsworthiness, and the interests of this audience. Every Supreme Court case is significant. I just think these will be the most significant for a reading of in all things to know."

Posting about significant U.S. Supreme Court cases from the last term from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/top-10-u-s-supreme-court-cases-you-should-know-about/

5 U.S. Supreme Court Cases Every Christian Should Be Aware Of, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"What United Stated Supreme Court cases should Christians be aware of?"

Posting about the five United States Supreme Court cases of which all Christians should be aware from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/supreme-court-cases-christians-should-know-about/

Commentaries On The Iaals' Honoring Families Initiative White Paper, Barbara A. Babb

All Faculty Scholarship

Family courts are not likely to disappear, as they currently constitute the largest proportion of trial court filings in most states. It appears as though family courts have become an emergency room for family problems. Thus, we need to enhance our efforts to improve the family justice system. In order to revamp family courts most effectively, there must be a focus on the creation of unified family courts that are grounded in therapeutic jurisprudence and the ecology of human development. This framework allows for a more responsive and holistic approach to families' legal and underlying nonlegal needs. The goal of …

Substantive Habeas, Kimberly A. Thomas

Articles

Substantive Habeas identifies the US. Supreme Court's recent shift in its habeas jurisprudence from procedure to the substance of habeas review and explores the implications of this change. For decades, the US. Supreme Court has attempted to control the flood of habeas corpus petitions by imposing procedural requirements on prisoners seeking to challenge constitutional error in their cases. These restrictive procedural rules have remained at the center of habeas decision making until recently. Over the past few years, instead of further constraining the procedural gateway for habeas cases, the Supreme Court has shifted its focus to the substance of habeas. …

On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Eighth Circuit, Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent, Gregory P. Warger, V. Randy D. Shauers, Susan Crump, Bennett Gershman, Victor Gold, Paul F. Rothstein, Ben Trachtenberg

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

Petitioner asks this Court to interpret Fed. R. Evid. 606(b) as permitting statements made by jurors during deliberations to be admitted to support a motion for a new trial. The practical consequences of petitioner’s rule would be significant and problematic, not only fundamentally altering the purpose and practice of voir dire, but also providing a new, fact driven, basis for post-trial motions. These expanded proceedings would place substantial additional burdens of courts, lawyers and jurors alike. In light of existing mechanisms to ensure juror honesty and impartiality, petitioner’s rule would disrupt a well-functioning system for little to no benefit.

Mediated Postnuptial Agreements And Ancillary Matters: Surindar Singh S/O Jaswant Singh V Sita Jaswant Kaur [2014] Sgca 37, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

When the parties in a divorce have, with the benefit of legal counsel, gone through mediation and negotiated an agreement to settle the ancillary issues of maintenance and the division of matrimonial assets, is there any reason for the court to exercise its statutorily conferred discretion to ignore such an agreement or should it seek to uphold it despite objections from one of the parties? Whereas the High Court in this case declined to follow all of the terms in the agreement on the ground that some of them were not just and equitable, the Court of Appeal held that …

Trial And Settlement: A Study Of High-Low Agreements, J. J. Prescott, Kathryn E. Spier, Albert Yoon

Articles

This article presents the first systematic theoretical and empirical study of highlow agreements in civil litigation. A high-low agreement is a private contract that, if signed by litigants before trial, constrains any plaintiff’s recovery to a specified range. In our theoretical model, trial is both costly and risky. When litigants have divergent subjective beliefs and are mutually optimistic about their trial prospects, cases may fail to settle. In these cases, high-low agreements can be in litigants’ mutual interest because they limit the risk of outlier awards while still allowing mutually beneficial speculation. Using claims data from a national insurance company, …

Allison Orr Larsen On Intensely Empirical Amicus Briefs And Amicus Opportunism At The Supreme Court, Allison Orr Larsen

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Appellees’ Reply Brief, Attorneys For Defendants

Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality

Fighting Arizona's Attack on Ethnic Studies - Maya Arce, et al. v. John Huppenthal, et. al

Judgment Day For Fraud-On-The-Market: Reflections On Amgen And The Second Coming Of Halliburton, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the "fraud on the market" presumption of reliance, facilitating large scale class actions for this kind of securities fraud. This essay traces the road from its decision last year in Amgen to this year's reaffirmation in Halliburton II, and considers some of the issues that will emerge as lower courts struggle with Halliburton II's secondary holding--that the issue of "price impact" is crucial to class certification, even if the burden of proof is on the defendants.

Following Lower-Court Precedent, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the role of lower-court precedent in the US Supreme Court’s decisions. The Supreme Court is rarely the first court to consider a legal question, and therefore the Court has the opportunity to be informed by and perhaps even persuaded by the views of the various lower courts that have previously addressed the issue. This Article considers whether the Court should give weight to lower-court precedent as a matter of normative theory and whether the Court in fact does so as a matter of practice. To answer the normative question, this Article analyzes a variety of potential reasons …

Gideon V. Wainwright--From A 1963 Perspective, Jerold H. Israel

Articles

Gideon v. Wainwright is more than a “landmark” Supreme Court ruling in the field of constitutional criminal procedure. As evidenced by the range of celebrators of Gideon’s Fiftieth Anniversary (extending far beyond the legal academy) and Gideon’s inclusion in the basic coverage of high school government courses, Gideon today is an icon of the American justice system. I have no quarrel with that iconic status, but I certainly did not see any such potential in Gideon when I analyzed the Court’s ruling shortly after it was announced in March of 1963. I had previously agreed to write an article for …

Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson

Articles

United States Negotiates Prisoner Exchange to Secure Release of U.S. Soldier Held in Afghanistan • United States Refuses to Grant Visa to Iranian UN Envoy • Multilateral Naval Code of Conduct Aims to Prevent Unintended Conflict in Contested Areas of East and South China Seas • Senate Approves Treaties to Regulate Fishing • United States Indicts Chinese Military Officials for Economic Espionage • U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Terminate Long-Running Efforts to Force Argentina to Pay Defaulted Sovereign Debt • United States Condemns Uganda’s Antigay Law as Violating Human Rights • President Barack Obama Certifies That U.S. Peacekeepers in Mali …

Enhancing Sentences In The Absence Of A Prosecution Appeal, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Sometimes, following aconviction, an appeal is brought by the convicted person without anycross-appeal by the Prosecution on the sentence. Can the appellate courtnevertheless increase the sentence imposed below? This study of the relevant casesand statutory provisions in Singapore suggests that both the High Court and the Court ofAppeal are vested with the power to increase the sentence even where theonly appeal is brought by the convicted person.

Federalism, Diversity, Equality, And Article Iii Judges: Geography, Identity, And Bias, Sharon E. Rush

UF Law Faculty Publications

Each individual has a background, and that background shapes the individual’s views about life, creating an inevitable form of bias referred to as “experiential bias.” Experiential bias is shaped by many identity traits, including, among others, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion and even geography. The geographic identity of state judges and their potential unfair experiential bias is the common justification for federal court diversity jurisdiction. But experiential bias is inescapable, affecting everyone who's ever had an experience, and is generally not unfair, as demonstrated by most studies regarding the "fairness" justification for diversity jurisdiction. More recently, Justice O’Connor connected racial …

Families Matter: Recommendations To Improve Outcomes For Children And Families In Court, Barbara A. Babb, Gloria Danziger

All Faculty Scholarship

The Families Matter initiative was designed as a major, multi-year undertaking to develop legal practice methods and approaches to reduce the destructive consequences of the family legal process. The initiative was intended to respond to the need for deep and meaningful reform of the family law process.

Convened in June 2010 by the University of Baltimore School of Law Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC), the Families Matter Symposium brought together an interdisciplinary group of family law experts for two days at the University of Baltimore to identify problems regarding the practice of family …