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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Conversation With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Gillian E. Metzger, Abbe Gluck
A Conversation With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Gillian E. Metzger, Abbe Gluck
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Gillian Metzger: Katherine, thank you for that wonderful overview of all that the Justice has achieved and the history of Columbia Law School. And I want to apologize for those to whom I am showing my back, but this will allow us to have more of a conversation with the Justice.
Justice, thank you so much for being with us today. It is a real privilege for us to get to talk to you this way, and we know for the entire audience. You have had – as you have now heard (LAUGHS) – an amazing and just tremendously …
The Right To Plea Bargain With Competent Counsel After Cooper And Frye: Is The Supreme Court Making The Ordinary Criminal Process Too Long, Too Expensive, And Unpredictable In Pursuit Of Perfect Justice, Bruce A. Green
Faculty Scholarship
In Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye, the Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of criminal defendants who were deprived of a favorable plea offer because of their lawyers’ professional lapses. In dissent, Justice Scalia complained that “[t]he ordinary criminal process has become too long, too expensive, and unpredictable,” because of the Court’s criminal procedure jurisprudence; that plea bargaining is “the alternative in which...defendants have sought relief,” and that the two new decisions on the Sixth Amendment right to effective representation in plea bargaining would add to the burden on the criminal process. This essay examines several aspects of …
Oasis Or Mirage: The Supreme Court's Thirst For Dictionaries In The Rehnquist And Roberts Eras, James J. Brudney, Lawrence Baum
Oasis Or Mirage: The Supreme Court's Thirst For Dictionaries In The Rehnquist And Roberts Eras, James J. Brudney, Lawrence Baum
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court’s use of dictionaries, virtually non-existent before 1987, has dramatically increased during the Rehnquist and Roberts Court eras to the point where as many as one-third of statutory decisions invoke dictionary definitions. The increase is linked to the rise of textualism and its intense focus on ordinary meaning. This Article explores the Court’s new dictionary culture in depth from empirical and doctrinal perspectives. We find that while textualist justices are heavy dictionary users, purposivist justices invoke dictionary definitions with comparable frequency. Further, dictionary use overall is strikingly ad hoc and subjective. We demonstrate how the Court’s patterns of …
More Law Than Politics: The Chief, The “Mandate,” Legality, And Statesmanship, Neil S. Siegel
More Law Than Politics: The Chief, The “Mandate,” Legality, And Statesmanship, Neil S. Siegel
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter in a forthcoming book on NFIB v. Sebelius asks whether the various parts of Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion on the minimum coverage provision are legally justifiable. I focus on what Roberts decided, not why he decided it that way.
Law is fully adequate to explain the Chief Justice’s vote to uphold the minimum coverage provision as within the scope of Congress’s tax power. Roberts embraced the soundest constitutional understanding of the Taxing Clause. He also showed fidelity to the law by applying—and not just giving lip service to—the deeply entrenched presumption of constitutionality that judges are supposed to …