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Apology Within A Moral Dialectic: A Reply To Professor Robbennolt, Lee Taft Jan 2005

Apology Within A Moral Dialectic: A Reply To Professor Robbennolt, Lee Taft

Michigan Law Review

Over the last several years, much has been written about the role of apology in facilitating the resolution of legal disputes. Within this body of work a debate has developed among legal scholars, practitioners, and legislators. Under traditional rules of evidence an apology which acknowledged fault would enter evidence as an admission against interest. Now there is a movement to legislatively "protect" apologies from the effects of the traditional rule in order to facilitate apology without evidentiary encumbrance. Scholars who have argued in favor of the relaxation of the traditional rule have largely relied on anecdotal evidence to support their …


Apologies And Legal Settlement: An Empirical Examination, Jennifer K. Robbennolt Dec 2003

Apologies And Legal Settlement: An Empirical Examination, Jennifer K. Robbennolt

Michigan Law Review

It is often said that U.S. legal culture discourages apologies. Defendants, defense counsel, and insurers worry that statements of apology will be admissible at trial and will be interpreted by jurors and judges as admissions of responsibility. In recent years, however, several legal commentators have suggested that disputants in civil lawsuits should be encouraged to apologize to opposing parties. They claim that apologies will avert lawsuits and promote settlement. Consistent with this view, legislatures in several states have enacted statutes that are intended to encourage and protect apologies by making them inadmissible. In addition, some commentators argue that defendants might …


The Legal Context And Contributions Of Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment, William Burnham May 2002

The Legal Context And Contributions Of Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment, William Burnham

Michigan Law Review

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is of more than average interest to lawyers. The title perhaps says it all in terms of content. The chief protagonist, the murderer Raskolnikov, is a law student on a break from his studies. And the pursuer of the murderer is a lawyer, an examining magistrate. But the more subtle and more important legal aspects of Crime and Punishment concern the time period in Russian legal history in which the novel was written and is set. The 1860s in Russia were a time of tremendous legal change. Among other things, an 1861 decree emancipated the serfs …


Conjunction And Aggregation, Saul Levmore Feb 2001

Conjunction And Aggregation, Saul Levmore

Michigan Law Review

This Article begins with the puzzle of why the law avoids the issue of conjunctive probability. Mathematically inclined observers might, for example, employ the "product rule," multiplying the probabilities associated with several events or requirements in order to assess a combined likelihood, but judges and lawyers seem otherwise inclined. Courts and statutes might be explicit about the manner in which multiple requirements should be combined, but they are not. Thus, it is often unclear whether a factfinder should assess if condition A was more likely than not to be present - and then go on to see whether condition B …


Establishing Inevitability Without Active Pursuit: Defining The Inevitable Discovery Exception To The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, Stephen E. Hessler Oct 2000

Establishing Inevitability Without Active Pursuit: Defining The Inevitable Discovery Exception To The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, Stephen E. Hessler

Michigan Law Review

Few doctrines of constitutional criminal procedure generate as much controversy as the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule. Beyond the basic mandate of the rule - that evidence obtained in violation of an individual's right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure is inadmissible in a criminal proceeding - little else is agreed upon. The precise date of the exclusionary rule's inception is uncertain, but it has been applied by the judiciary for over eight decades. While the Supreme Court has emphasized that the rule is a "judicially created remedy," and not a "personal constitutional right," this characterization provokes argument as …


The Perils Of Courtroom Stories, Stephan Landsman May 2000

The Perils Of Courtroom Stories, Stephan Landsman

Michigan Law Review

As Janet Malcolm1 tells it, Sheila McGough was a middle-aged single woman living at home with her parents and working as an editor and administrator in the publications department of the Carnegie Institute when she decided to switch careers and go to law school. She applied and was admitted to the then recently accredited law school at George Mason University. After graduation, she began a solo practice in northern Virginia that involved a significant amount of stateappointed criminal defense work. In 1986, approximately four years after her graduation from law school, McGough received a call requesting assistance from an incarcerated …


Reconceiving The Right To Present Witnesses, Richard A. Nagareda Mar 1999

Reconceiving The Right To Present Witnesses, Richard A. Nagareda

Michigan Law Review

Modem American law is, in a sense, a system of compartments. For understandable curricular reasons, legal education sharply distinguishes the law of evidence from both constitutional law and criminal procedure. In fact, the lines of demarcation between these three subjects extend well beyond law school to the organization of the leading treatises and case headnotes to which practicing lawyers routinely refer in their trade. Many of the most interesting questions in the law, however, do not rest squarely within a single compartment; instead, they concern the content and legitimacy of the lines of demarcation themselves. This article explores a significant, …


An Outsider's View Of Common Law Evidence, Roger C. Park May 1998

An Outsider's View Of Common Law Evidence, Roger C. Park

Michigan Law Review

same line by a Newton. There have been improvements since Bentham's jeremiad. But Anglo-American evidence law is still puzzling. It rejects the common-sense principle of free proof in favor of a grotesque jumble of technicalities. It has the breathtaking aspiration of regulating inference by rule, causing it to exalt the foresight of remote rulemakers over the wisdom of on-the-spot adjudicators. It departs from tried-and-true practices of rational inquiry, as when it prohibits courts from using categories of evidence that are freely used both in everyday life and in the highest affairs of state. Sometimes it seems to fear dim light …


Third-Party Modification Of Protective Orders Under Rule 26©, Patrick S. Kim Dec 1995

Third-Party Modification Of Protective Orders Under Rule 26©, Patrick S. Kim

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that similarly situated litigants always should be given access to protected discovered materials, while nonlitigants should gain access to protected materials only in exceptional circumstances. This approach effectively balances the privacy and property interests of the original parties and the intervening parties with the interests of adjudicative efficiency. Part I establishes that there is no general public right of access to civil discovery and that courts should disregard such purported rights when considering whether to modify a protective order. Part II identifies three interests that courts should weigh when considering whether to modify a protective order: the …


Conditional Probative Value And The Reconstruction Of The Federal Rules Of Evidence, Dale A. Nance Nov 1995

Conditional Probative Value And The Reconstruction Of The Federal Rules Of Evidence, Dale A. Nance

Michigan Law Review

In a recent article, Richard Friedman articulates a modified and generalized version of the doctrine of conditional relevance, which he calls "conditional probative value." This version comes in response to a substantial body of academic criticism of the traditional doctrine. As one of the critics to whom Professor Friedman responds, I offer this reply with two purposes in mind: (1) to clarify the relationship between Friedman's analysis and my earlier reinterpretation of the conditional relevance doctrine; and (2) to address Friedman's specific proposals with regard to the Federal Rules of Evidence. I conclude that Friedman's articulation helps clarify the logic …


Response: Exaggerated And Misleading Reports Of The Death Of Conditional Relevance, Peter Tillers Dec 1994

Response: Exaggerated And Misleading Reports Of The Death Of Conditional Relevance, Peter Tillers

Michigan Law Review

In 1980 the late Professor Vaughn C. Ball of the University of Georgia published an article called The Myth of Conditional Relevancy. Ball's article is widely admired. One well-known evidence scholar, Ronald J. Allen, liked Ball's article so much that he borrowed its title word for word. Although the extent of Allen's enthusiasm for Ball's analysis may be unmatched, a good number of students of evidence - including this writer - have said that Ball's analysis of conditional relevance is both original and important. Richard Friedman, by contrast, cannot be counted as one of Ball's more ardent admirers. Although Friedman …


Taking Fact Analysis Seriously, Bernard Robertson, G. A. Vignaux May 1993

Taking Fact Analysis Seriously, Bernard Robertson, G. A. Vignaux

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Analysis of Evidence: How To Do Things with Facts Based on Wigmore's Science of Judicial Proof by Terence Anderson and William Twining


Intellectual History, Probability, And The Law Of Evidence, Peter Tillers May 1993

Intellectual History, Probability, And The Law Of Evidence, Peter Tillers

Michigan Law Review

A Review of "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" ad "Probable Cause": Historical Perspectives on the Anglo-American Law of Evidence by Barbara J. Shapiro


Toward A Liberal Application Of The "Close Of All The Evidence" Requirement Of Rule 50(B) Of The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure: Embracing Fairness Over Formalism, Rollin A. Ransom Mar 1993

Toward A Liberal Application Of The "Close Of All The Evidence" Requirement Of Rule 50(B) Of The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure: Embracing Fairness Over Formalism, Rollin A. Ransom

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines the language and purposes of rule 50 to determine if and when a relaxed application of its requirements is appropriate. Part I considers the terms and goal of the rule and concludes that its purpose is to put the party opposing the motion for judgment as a matter of law on notice of the movant's assertion that the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law, and to provide the opposing party an opportunity to "cure." Part II discusses courts' varying application of the requirement that a motion for judgment as a matter of law made at …


The Sexual Innocence Inference Theory As A Basis For The Admissibility Of A Child Molestation Victim's Prior Sexual Conduct, Christopher B. Reid Feb 1993

The Sexual Innocence Inference Theory As A Basis For The Admissibility Of A Child Molestation Victim's Prior Sexual Conduct, Christopher B. Reid

Michigan Law Review

The sexual innocence inference refers to the thought process a jury follows when it hears a young child testify about sexual acts and matters that reveal an understanding of such acts beyond the capacity likely at his or her age. A jury is likely to assume that because the child is so young, he or she must be innocent of sexual matters. Shocked by the child's display on the witness stand, the jury may then infer that the child could have acquired such knowledge only if the charged offense of child molestation is true. To rebut this inference, a defendant …


Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science In The Courtroom, John F. Baughman May 1992

Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science In The Courtroom, John F. Baughman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom by Peter W. Huber


Errors In Good Faith: The Leon Exception Six Years Later, David Clark Esseks Dec 1990

Errors In Good Faith: The Leon Exception Six Years Later, David Clark Esseks

Michigan Law Review

Given this vast literature on the good faith exception, little room appears to exist for additional commentary on the propriety of the decision, its theoretical weaknesses or strengths, or what further changes in constitutional criminal procedure it forebodes. This Note will not add to the many voices complaining of the Court's misconstrual of the grounding of the exclusionary rule, nor of its crabbed notion of deterrence. Instead, it accepts, arguendo, the propriety of the exception and its underlying purpose, and then examines the six-year experience with the revised rule. The proliferation of reported applications of the good faith exception …


Webs Of Things In The Mind: A New Science Of Evidence, Peter Tillers May 1989

Webs Of Things In The Mind: A New Science Of Evidence, Peter Tillers

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Evidence and Inference for the Intelligence Analyst by David Schum


Police-Obtained Evidence And The Constitution: Distinguishing Unconstitutionally Obtained Evidence From Unconstitutionally Used Evidence, Arnold H. Loewy Apr 1989

Police-Obtained Evidence And The Constitution: Distinguishing Unconstitutionally Obtained Evidence From Unconstitutionally Used Evidence, Arnold H. Loewy

Michigan Law Review

The article will consider four different types of police-obtained evidence: evidence obtained from an unconstitutional search and seizure, evidence obtained from a Miranda violation, confessions and lineup identifications obtained in violation of the sixth amendment right to counsel, and coerced confessions. My conclusions are that evidence obtained from an unconstitutional search and seizure is excluded because of the police misconduct by which it was obtained. On the other hand, evidence obtained from a Miranda violation is (or ought to be) excluded because use of that evidence compromises the defendant's procedural right not to be compelled to be a witness against …


Confusing The Fifth Amendment With The Sixth: Lower Court Misapplication Of The Innis Definition Of Interrogation, Jonathan L. Marks Apr 1989

Confusing The Fifth Amendment With The Sixth: Lower Court Misapplication Of The Innis Definition Of Interrogation, Jonathan L. Marks

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines how these courts have applied or misapplied Innis, and concludes that, while many of these decisions are consistent with Miranda and Innis, too many others are not. In order to evaluate these cases, it is first necessary to understand the meaning and significance of Innis. Part I thus considers Innis and its background. Part II then examines lower court decisions applying the Innis test, dividing these decisions into six groups based on the most common factual scenarios. Because the cases deal with factually specific police practices, this method constitutes the most useful way to …


Hot Air In The Redwoods, A Sequel To The Wind In The Willows, William Twining May 1988

Hot Air In The Redwoods, A Sequel To The Wind In The Willows, William Twining

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Hot Air in the Redwoods by Kenneth Graham, Jr.


Prejudice, Politics, And Proof, Peter Tillers Feb 1988

Prejudice, Politics, And Proof, Peter Tillers

Michigan Law Review

In the last fifteen years there has been a great resurgence of interest in fundamental theoretical analysis of the nature of factual proof in litigation. Many serious scholars, both in the law school world and outside it, have turned their energies in this direction. William L. Twining, Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, has been a major figure in this growing movement. He recently published a painstaking and scholarly study of Bentham's and Wigmore's theories of evidence, inference, and proof in adjudication. This book is part of Twining's broader, long-term effort to develop a general theoretical framework for …


A Subject Matter Approach To Hearsay Reform, Roger Park Oct 1987

A Subject Matter Approach To Hearsay Reform, Roger Park

Michigan Law Review

None of the three major reform proposals - the Model Code, the Uniform Rules, or the original Federal Rules - incorporated a systematic distinction between civil and criminal cases. The thesis of this article is that this distinction should be adopted. This article will explore the reasons for excluding hearsay, and conclude that they support different sets of rules in civil and criminal cases. In civil cases, rules excluding hearsay should be curtailed. Hearsay that fits under an established exception should be admitted, and other hearsay, without discretionary screening by the trial judge, should be admitted on proper notice. In …


The Ultimate Violation, Todd Maybrown May 1987

The Ultimate Violation, Todd Maybrown

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Ultimate Violation by Judith Rowland


"There'll Always Be An England": The Instrumental Ideology Of Evidence, Kenneth W. Graham Jr. May 1987

"There'll Always Be An England": The Instrumental Ideology Of Evidence, Kenneth W. Graham Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Theories of Evidence: Bentham and Wigmore by William Twining


Videotaping Children's Testimony: An Empirical View, Paula E. Hill, Samuel M. Hill Feb 1987

Videotaping Children's Testimony: An Empirical View, Paula E. Hill, Samuel M. Hill

Michigan Law Review

Increases in the number of reported incidents of child abuse and sexual molestation have resulted in more and younger children becoming courtroom participants. Some courts refuse to consider the special needs of the child in this adversarial environment. Relying on questionable precedent, these courts hold that the defendant's right to directly confront the child, as well as strict compliance with evidentiary rules, overrides that child's interest in freedom from embarrassment or psychological trauma. This Note focuses on pressures felt by the testifying child and the ways in which these pressures affect her testimony; it then proposes using videotaped testimony as …


The Perils Of Privilege: Waiver And The Litigator, Richard L. Marcus Aug 1986

The Perils Of Privilege: Waiver And The Litigator, Richard L. Marcus

Michigan Law Review

Waiver can be made less tricky, although it will never yield algebraic accuracy. Focusing on civil litigation, this article develops a framework for waiver decisions. It begins by stressing a factor that others have neglected - the costs generated by broad traditional waiver rules. These costs result largely from changes in lawyer behavior to reduce waiver risks. Thus, enormous energy can be expended to guarantee that privileged materials are not inadvertently revealed in discovery, and lawyers may adopt elaborate witness preparation strategies in order to prevent witnesses from seeing privileged materials. Judges also feel the burden; where waiver is at …


Interlocutory Appeal Of Preindictment Suppression Motions Under Rule 41 ( E ), Clifford A. Godiner Aug 1986

Interlocutory Appeal Of Preindictment Suppression Motions Under Rule 41 ( E ), Clifford A. Godiner

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that preindictment rulings denying 41(e) motions are not immediately appealable. Part I discusses decisions that mandate dismissal of such appeals for want of jurisdiction. Part II examines the policy rationales behind these precedents. Finally, Part III argues that an adequate remedy exists outside of rule 41(e), rendering immediate appellate review of rulings on 41(e) motions unnecessary.


18 U.S.C. § 3501 And The Admissibility Of Confessions Obtained During Unnecessary Prearraignment Delay, Matthew W. Frank Aug 1986

18 U.S.C. § 3501 And The Admissibility Of Confessions Obtained During Unnecessary Prearraignment Delay, Matthew W. Frank

Michigan Law Review

Part I thus argues that the admissibility of post-sixth-hour confessions is governed by Mallory, under which a voluntary confession is inadmissible if, but only if, it follows a period of unnecessary delay. Part II addresses a possible objection to this conclusion - namely, that, with limited exceptions, subsection 350l(c) renders all post-sixth hour confessions inadmissible without regard to the reasonableness of the prearraignment delay. This interpretation is derived by negative implication from the proviso in subsection 350l(c) and would require courts to suppress confessions even though there has been no unnecessary delay, and even though the confessions would be …


I Cannot Tell A Lie: The Standard For New Trial In False Testimony Cases, Daniel Wolf Aug 1985

I Cannot Tell A Lie: The Standard For New Trial In False Testimony Cases, Daniel Wolf

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines the question of what standard should be used for granting a new trial when a defendant's conviction is alleged to have been based, at least in part, on false testimony. Part I demonstrates the failure of the existing standards to strike a satisfactory balance between defendants' rights and the efficient administration of the criminal justice system. Part II argues that motions for retrial based upon false testimony should be governed by a standard drawn not only from newly discovered evidence cases generally, but also from cases involving prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, Part III suggests that the proper test …