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Articles 31 - 46 of 46

Full-Text Articles in Law

How Great Is America's Tolerance For Judicial Bias - An Inquiry Into The Supreme Court's Decisions In Caperton And Citizens United, Their Implications For Judicial Elections, And Their Effect On The Rule Of Law In The United States, Norman L. Green Apr 2010

How Great Is America's Tolerance For Judicial Bias - An Inquiry Into The Supreme Court's Decisions In Caperton And Citizens United, Their Implications For Judicial Elections, And Their Effect On The Rule Of Law In The United States, Norman L. Green

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.


Hearings, Mark Spottswood Jan 2010

Hearings, Mark Spottswood

Faculty Working Papers

This article explores a constantly recurring procedural question: When is fact-finding improved by a live hearing, and when would it be better to rely on a written record? Unfortunately, when judges, lawyers, and rulemakers consider this issue, they are led astray by the widely shared—but false—assumption that a judge can best determine issues of credibility by viewing the demeanor of witnesses while they are testifying. In fact, a large body of scientific evidence indicates that judges are more likely to be deceived by lying or mistaken witnesses when observing their testimony in person than if the judges were to review …


Understanding Caperton: Judicial Disqualification Under The Due Process Clause, Dmitry Bam Jan 2010

Understanding Caperton: Judicial Disqualification Under The Due Process Clause, Dmitry Bam

Faculty Publications

It is virtually impossible to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. without hearing some variant of the following response: “I can’t believe it was as close as it was.” And it does not matter whether you are chatting with your next-door neighbor who had never thought about judicial ethics in his life or discussing the case with a judicial-recusal expert. Nearly everyone seems to agree: Caperton was an “easy” case and that four justices dissented is an indication that there is something terribly wrong. Not only has Caperton elevated the issue of judicial impartiality …


In Defense Of Appearances: What Caperton V. Massey Should Have Said, Jed Handelsman Shugerman Jan 2010

In Defense Of Appearances: What Caperton V. Massey Should Have Said, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

In June of 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that an elected judge must recuse himself from a case that involves a major campaign contributor. In Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co., a coal company had been hit with a $50 million jury verdict. While appealing this verdict, the company's CEO, Don Blankenship, spent $3 million to help a challenger, Brent Benjamin, who had no judicial experience, defeat the incumbent, West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw. Blankenship funded political attack ads by a political organization (And for the Sake of the Kids) that …


Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen Dec 2008

Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The law on apparent bias has been mired in some controversy following the High Court decision of Re Shankar Alan s/o Anant Kulkarni, where Sundaresh Menon J.C. seemingly departed from the tentative views of Andrew Phang J.C. (as he then was) in Tang Kin Hwa v. Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Board on the issue of whether there were any material differences between the “reasonable suspicion of bias” test and the “real likelihood of bias” test, the two formulations of the test for apparent bias that have been variously adopted by different jurisdictions in the common law world. In Tang Kin …


Misjudging, Chris Guthrie Mar 2007

Misjudging, Chris Guthrie

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Confronting Conventional Thinking: The Heuristics Problem In Feminist Legal Theory, Nancy Levit Jan 2006

Confronting Conventional Thinking: The Heuristics Problem In Feminist Legal Theory, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

The thesis of The Heuristics Problem is that the societal problems about which identity theorists are most concerned often spring from and are reinforced by thinking riddled with heuristic errors. This article first investigates the ways heuristic errors influence popular perceptions of feminist issues. Feminists and critical race theorists have explored the cognitive bias of stereotyping, but have not examined the ways probabilistic errors can have gendered consequences. Second, The Heuristics Problem traces some of the ways cognitive errors have influenced the development of laws relating to gender issues. It explores instances in judicial decisions in which courts commit heuristic …


Discrimination In Sentencing On The Basis Of Afrocentric Features, William T. Pizzi, Irene V. Blair, Charles M. Judd Jan 2005

Discrimination In Sentencing On The Basis Of Afrocentric Features, William T. Pizzi, Irene V. Blair, Charles M. Judd

Publications

For a long time, social scientists have worried about possible racial discrimination in sentencing in the United States. With a prison population that exceeds two million inmates of whom approximately 48% are African American, the worry over the fairness of the sentencing process is understandable. This article is not about discrimination between racial categories as such, but about a related form of discrimination, namely, discrimination on the basis of a person's Afro-centric features. Section I of the article describes a line of social science research that shows that a person's Afro-centric features have a strong biasing effect on judgment such …


A Principled Approach To The Quest For Racial Diversity On The Judiciary, Kevin R. Johnson, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer Jan 2004

A Principled Approach To The Quest For Racial Diversity On The Judiciary, Kevin R. Johnson, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Article considers the different voices and perspectives added to the judiciary by the appointment of minorities. Part II analyzes the many impacts of diversity on the bench, including greater judicial impartiality. Part III sets forth the arguments supporting a diverse jury pool and discusses how they inform the analysis of the quest for racial diversity among judges. Part IV outlines a principled approach to the pursuit of judicial diversity.


Judges, Juries, And Patent Cases - An Emprical Peek Inside The Black Box, Kimberly A. Moore Nov 2000

Judges, Juries, And Patent Cases - An Emprical Peek Inside The Black Box, Kimberly A. Moore

Michigan Law Review

The frequency with which juries participate in patent litigation has skyrocketed recently. At the same time, there is a popular perception that the increasing complexity of technology being patented (especially in the electronic, computer software, biological and chemical fields) has made patent trials extremely difficult for lay juries to understand. These developments have sparked extensive scholarly debate and increasing skepticism regarding the role of juries in patent cases. Juries have participated in some aspects of patent litigation since the enactment of the first patent statute in 1790, which provided for "such damages as shall be assessed by a jury." The …


What Will Diversity On The Bench Mean For Justice?, Theresa M. Beiner Jan 1999

What Will Diversity On The Bench Mean For Justice?, Theresa M. Beiner

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article is aimed at the general question: whether having a woman judge would make a difference in sexual harassment cases. This article is aimed at this general question, the response to which has been elusive: Does the race, gender, or other background characteristics of a judge make a difference in the outcome of cases? The effects of diversity on the bench are just becoming measurable. Many legal scholars have assumed diversity will make a difference. While this conclusion may seem commonsensical, it is important to be able to support such assertions with actual data. The supposition has been that …


Judicial Bias, Donald C. Nugent Jan 1994

Judicial Bias, Donald C. Nugent

Cleveland State Law Review

This article examines how bias and prejudice may impact the decision making process of our judiciary. It begins in Part II from the premise that all judges, as a part of basic human functioning, bring to each decision a package of personal biases and beliefs that may unconsciously and unintentionally affect the decision making process. To the extent that we, as judges, recognize the potential for bias to enter into our deliberations, we combat the potential harm and unfairness that bias can produce if unchecked. Moreover, attorneys and other participants in the justice system should also be conscious of the …


Judicial Bias, Donald C. Nugent Jan 1994

Judicial Bias, Donald C. Nugent

Cleveland State Law Review

This article examines how bias and prejudice may impact the decision making process of our judiciary. It begins in Part II from the premise that all judges, as a part of basic human functioning, bring to each decision a package of personal biases and beliefs that may unconsciously and unintentionally affect the decision making process. To the extent that we, as judges, recognize the potential for bias to enter into our deliberations, we combat the potential harm and unfairness that bias can produce if unchecked. Moreover, attorneys and other participants in the justice system should also be conscious of the …


Rehnquist, Recusal, And Reform, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 1987

Rehnquist, Recusal, And Reform, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

In September 1986, the Senate confirmed William H. Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the United States by a vote of 66 to 33, an unusually close vote for a successful Supreme Court nominee. Although Justice Rehnquist’s elevation from Associate to Chief Justice engendered substantial criticism because of his judicial philosophy, past political activity, and possible views on race relations, the most serious threat to his nomination arose from his decision fifteen years earlier to sit and cast the deciding vote in a Supreme Court case in which many questioned both his impartiality and his candor. That Justice Rehnquist's role in …


Controlling The Structural Injunction, Robert F. Nagel Jan 1984

Controlling The Structural Injunction, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.


Disqualification Of Judges By Prejudice, Edson R. Sunderland Jan 1921

Disqualification Of Judges By Prejudice, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

Under the provisions of Section 21 of the Federal Judicial Code, Victor Berger and others, who had been indicted under the Espionage Act in the Northern District of Illinois, filed an affidavit charging Judge Landis with personal bias and prejudice against them as German-Americans, and moved for the assignment of another judge to preside at their trial. The motion was overruled by Judge Landis, and he himself presided at the trial, and the defendants were convicted and sentenced. The Supreme Court of the United States, to which the matter came on certificate, held, three justices dissenting, that Judge Landis could …