Law Commons^™

Law School News: Rwu Law Professors Win Release For Two Immigrants At Risk For Covid-19 04-24-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Rwu Law Professors File Emergency Covid-19 Lawsuit 04-12-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

In Re Guardianship Of Hailu, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 89 (Nov. 16, 2015), Adrienne Brantley

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that under NRS § 451.007 (the Uniform Determination of Death Act) the District court failed to consider whether the American Association of Neurology (AAN) guidelines adequately measure all functions of the entire brain and whether the guidelines are considered accepted medical standards by states that have adopted the Act.

Review: Compassionate Care For The Living And The Dying, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This is a review of "The End of End-of Life Law" (92 N.C.L. Rev. 1693 (2014), by Lois L. Shepard. In light of medical advances and increasing health care costs, conversations about end-of-life care will continue to occur. A significant portion of the discussion will focus on ways to handle surrogate decision-making. The practical suggestions Professor Shepherd includes in her article could be a valuable part of that dialogue.

Death In Our Life, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

This is the text of the Annual Lecture of the Society for Applied Philosophy, delivered in Oxford on 22-5-12. I kept the talk style of the paper. It examines a central aspect of the relations between duration and quality of life by considering the moral right to voluntary euthanasia, and some aspects of the moral case for a legal right to euthanasia. Would widespread acceptance of a right to voluntary euthanasia lead to widespread changes in attitude to life and death? Many of its advocates deny that seeing it as a narrow right enabling people to avoid ending their life …

"The Birth Of Death": Stillborn Birth Certificates And The Problem For Law, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Stillbirth is a confounding event, a reproductive moment that at once combines birth and death. This Essay discusses the complications of this simultaneity as a social experience and as a matter of law. While traditionally, stillbirth didn't count for much on either score, this is no longer the case. Familiarity with fetal life through obstetric ultrasound has transformed stillborn children into participating members of their families long before birth, and this in turn has led to a novel demand on law.

Dissatisfied with the issuance of a stillborn death certificate, bereaved parents of stillborn babies have successfully lobbied state legislatures …

Eligibility For Organ Donation: A Medico-Legal Perspective On Defining And Determining Death, Jocelyn Downie, Matthew R. Kutcher, Chantelle Rajotte, Alison Shea

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Purpose: In the context of post-mortem organ donation, there is an obvious need for certainty regarding the legal definition and determination of death, as individuals must be legally pronounced dead before organs may be procured for donation. Surprisingly then, the legal situation in Canada with regard to the definition and determination of death is uncertain. The purpose of this review is to provide anesthesiologists and critical care specialists with a medico-legal perspective regarding the definition and determination of death (particularly as it relates to non-heart-beating donor protocols) and to contribute to ongoing improvement in policies, protocols, and practices in this …

Moral Progress, Mental Retardation, And The Death Penalty, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Two major aspects of the death penalty in the United States directly involve physicians: how the death penalty is carried out and who is subject to execution. As a matter of constitutional law, both are governed by the prohibition against “cruel and unusual” punishment in the Eighth Amendment. The meaning of “cruel and unusual,” unlike every other part of the U.S. Constitution, is determined by public opinion as it reflects society's evolving standards of decency. With regard to how the death penalty is carried out, the role of physicians in capital punishment has been controversial for more than two decades. …

Conjoined Twins: The Limits Of Law At The Limits Of Life, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Conjoined twins have been the subject of scientific exhibits, medical study, human curiosity, and even entertainment, but until the year 2000, conjoined twins had never been the subject of a courtroom battle. A unique case that was the subject of two British court decisions deserves study.1 The case illustrates the difficulty of applying legal principles to unprecedented life-and-death decisions involving proposed medical interventions for children — particularly when parents and physicians disagree about what should be done.

Fragments On The Deathwatch, Louise Harmon

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Bell Tolls For A Constitutional Right To Physician-Assisted Suicide, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway's novel about the Spanish Civil War, ends with its American hero, Robert Jordan, mortally wounded and trying to decide whether to commit suicide with a machine gun or risk capture by trying to retain consciousness long enough to cover the retreat of his comrades. Confronting his impending death, Jordan thinks, “Dying is only bad when it takes a long time and hurts so much that it humiliates you.” Hemingway, one of the most American of American writers, committed suicide with a shotgun. Most suicides in the United States are committed with guns, but …

The Promised End: Constitutional Aspects Of Physician-Assisted Suicide, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The debate over physician-assisted suicide has dramatically shifted to a discussion of constitutional issues. This spring, within a month of each other, U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals on both coasts ruled that state prohibitions of assisted suicide are unconstitutional when applied to physicians who prescribe lethal medication for terminally ill, competent adults who wish to end their lives. The Ninth Circuit includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, and the Second Circuit includes New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. Both courts reached the same conclusion but for different legal reasons.

The Empire Of Death: How Culture And Economics Affect Informed Consent In The U.S., The U.K., And Japan, George J. Annas, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Historically, most Americans have treated health care as a private commodity whose price, and therefore availability, is primarily determined by market forces. In such a context, the law not unsurprisingly places a high premium on information disclosure by physicians. Personal autonomy-an individual's power to choose among medical options-enjoys its most zealous protection under U.S. jurisprudence.⁷ The dominant U.S. version of informed consent is grounded on principles of patient/consumer autonomy, and seems to enhance market choice. But a strong theme of collectivism now runs through some discussions of U.S. health policy.⁸ President Clinton was elected at least in part …

Physician-Assisted Suicide -- Michigan's Temporary Solution, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Lewis Thomas has noted that doctors “are as frightened and bewildered by the act of death as everyone else”. “Death is shocking, dismaying, even terrifying,” Thomas has written. “A dying patient is a kind of freak . . . an offense against nature itself”. It is thus not surprising that many physicians have difficulty talking candidly with dying patients and caring for them, a reaction that often results in undermedication for pain and expensive and ineffective overtreatment.

American patients know this, and although death is a culture-wide enemy, many Americans fear the process of dying in an impersonal modern hospital …

Reconciling Quinlan And Saikewicz: Decision Making For The Terminally Ill Incompetent, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most perplexing problems in the medicolegal field concerns the criteria on which decisions not to treat terminally ill incompetent patients should be made. These decisions traditionally have been made by physicians in hospitals-sometimes with the assistance of the patient's family-on the basis of their perceptions of the patient's "best interests." Recently, two state supreme courts have ruled on this question. The New Jersey Supreme Court, in the Quinlan case, developed a medical prognosis criterion, and permitted the patient's guardian, family, and physicians to apply it with the concurrence of a hospital "ethics committee." The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial …