Law Commons^™

"Toiling In The Danger And In The Morals Of Despair": Risk, Security, Danger, The Constitution, And The Clinician's Dilemma, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Julia Lynch

Michael L Perlin

Abstract: Persons institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals and “state schools” for those with intellectual disabilities have always been hidden from view. Such facilities were often constructed far from major urban centers, availability of transportation to such institutions was often limited, and those who were locked up were, to the public, faceless and often seen as less than human.

Although there has been regular litigation in the area of psychiatric (and intellectual disability) institutional rights for 40 years, much of this case law entirely ignores forensic patients – mostly those awaiting incompetency-to-stand trial determinations, those found permanently incompetent to stand trial, those …

“Friend To The Martyr, A Friend To The Woman Of Shame”: Thinking About The Law, Shame And Humiliation, Michael L. Perlin, Naomi Weinstein

Michael L Perlin

The need to pay attention to the law‘s capacity to allow for, to encourage, or (in some cases) to remediate humiliation, or humiliating or shaming behavior has increased exponentially as we begin to also take more seriously international human rights mandates, especially – although certainly not exclusively – in the context of the recently-ratified United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a Convention that calls for “respect for inherent dignity,” and characterizes "discrimination against any person on the basis of disability [as] a violation of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person...."

Humiliation and shaming, …

Vulnerability And Power In The Age Of The Anthropocene, Angela Harris

Angela P Harris

No abstract provided.

The Means Principle, Larry Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

Michael Moore believes there are deontological constraints on actors’ pursuit of good consequences. He believes these constraints are best conceived of as agent-relative prohibitions such as “you must not intentionally kill, batter, rape, steal, etc.” I, joined in recent years by Kimberly Ferzan, believe that the best interpretation of deontological constraints — the interpretation that best accounts for our intuitions about certain stock cases — is that they are constraints on the causal means by which good consequences may be achieved. We believe those constraints can be unified under a single deontological principle, what we call the “means principle.” It …

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

Through Our Glass Darkly: Does Comparative Law Counsel The Use Of Foreign Law In U.S. Constitutional Adjudication?, Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This (35 pp.) essay appears as a contribution to a law review symposium on the work of Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon in comparative law. The essay begins by asking what comparative law as a scholarly discipline might suggest about the use of foreign (or unratified or nationally "unaccepted" international law) by US courts in US constitutional adjudication. The trend seemed to be gathering steam in US courts between the early-1990s and mid-2000s, but by the late-2000s, it appeared to be stalled as a practice, notwithstanding the intense scholarly interest throughout this period.

Practical politics within the US …

The Surprising Acquittals In The Gotovina And Perisic Cases: Is The Icty Appeals Chamber A Trial Chamber Is Sheep's Clothing, Mark A. Summers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Restoring Constitutional Equilibrium, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

In areas such as the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court's lack of institutional restraint has affected citizens of every political persuasion. In Bush v. Gore, the Florida Supreme Court’s recount order was blocked. ‘Liberals,’ lost. In Roe v. Wade, the Court required state legislatures to allow most abortions in the first trimester. ‘Conservatives’ lost. In Clinton v. City of New York and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the coordinate branch’s attempt to ensure a more efficient and fairer government was thwarted. Average citizens lost. The problem is not a liberal or conservative one, whatever those words mean. It is …

The Criminalization Of Consensual Adult Sex After Lawrence, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

Ten years after the Supreme Court’s supposedly momentous decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the case still confounds not merely constitutional law, but the criminal law of sex, as well. This Article seeks to advance the literature on both Lawrence and the criminal law by examining Lawrence’s impact upon sex crimes that involve consensual, private, non-prostitution conduct between adults. It positions Lawrence as a relatively conservative opinion as to sex crimes generally, especially in light of the “Exclusions Paragraph” on page 578 of the Court’s opinion. Still, Lawrence (albeit ambiguously) must protect some form of private, consensual, non-prostitution adult sexuality beyond …

The Criminalization Of Consensual Adult Sex After Lawrence, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

Ten years after the Supreme Court’s supposedly momentous decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the case still confounds not merely constitutional law, but the criminal law of sex, as well. This Article seeks to advance the literature on both Lawrence and the criminal law by examining Lawrence’s impact upon sex crimes that involve consensual, private, non-prostitution conduct between adults. It positions Lawrence as a relatively conservative opinion as to sex crimes generally, especially in light of the “Exclusions Paragraph” on page 578 of the Court’s opinion. Still, Lawrence (albeit ambiguously) must protect some form of private, consensual, non-prostitution adult sexuality beyond …

Gandhi’S Nightmare: Bhopal And The Need For A Mindful Jurisprudence, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

No abstract provided.

Masculinity And Title Ix: Bullying And Sexual Harassment Of Boys In The American Liberal State, Nancy C. Cantalupo

Nancy C Cantalupo

This article examines two recent “hot topics” related to Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”): sex-segregated schooling and gender-based violence including sexual harassment and bullying. First, in 2006, the Department of Education suspended Title IX’s prohibition of sex-segregated education in K-12 public schools amidst some sex segregation advocates’ claims that a “feminized” educational system causes sex discrimination against boys. Second, over the last decade an increasing number of boys have sued or complained against their schools for sex discrimination in the form of gender-based violence (including same-sex bullying, sexual harassment, hazing, and sexual violence).

This article …

Four Challenges Confronting A Moral Conception Of Universal Human Rights, Eric Blumenson

Eric Blumenson

This Essay describes some fundamental debates concerning the nature and possibility of universal human rights, conceived as a species of justice rather than law. It identifies four claims entailed by such rights and some significant problems each claim confronts. The designation “universal human rights” explicitly asserts three of them: paradigmatic human rights purport to be (1) universal, in that their protections and obligations bind every society, regardless of its laws and mores; (2) human, in that the rights belong equally to every person by virtue of one’s humanity, regardless of character, social standing, disabilities, or other individual attributes; and (3) …

Surveillance, Speech Suppression And Degradation Of The Rule Of Law In The “Post-Democracy Electronic State”, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

None of us can claim the quality of original insight achieved by Alexis de Tocqueville in his early 19th Century classic Democracy in America in his observation that the “soft” repression of democracy was unlike that in any other political form. It is impossible to deny that we in the US, the United Kingdom and Western Europe are experiencing just such a “gentle” drift of the kind that Tocqueville describes, losing our democratic integrity amid an increasingly “pretend” democracy. He explained: “[T]he supreme power [of government] then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society …

Judge Posner, Judge Wilkinson, And Judicial Critique Of Constitutional Theory, Kevin C. Walsh

Law Faculty Publications

Judge Richard Posner's well-known view is that constitutional theory is useless. And Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III has lambasted constitutional theory for the way in which its "cosmic" aspirations threaten democratic self-governance. Many other judges hold similar views. And yet both Posner and Wilkinson-in the popular press, in law review articles, and in books-have advocated what appear to be their own theories of how to judge in constitutional cases. Judicial pragmatism for Posner and judicial restraint for Wilkinson seem to be substitutes for originalism, living constitutionalism, political process theory, and so on. But both Posner and Wilkinson also deny that …

Patent Dialogue, Jonas Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article examines the unique dialogic relationship that exists between the Supreme Court and Congress concerning patent law. In most areas of the law, Congress and the Supreme Court engage directly with each other to craft legal rules. When it comes to patent law, however, Congress and the Court often interact via an intermediary institution: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In patent law, dialogue often begins when Congress or the Supreme Court acts as a dialogic catalyst, signaling reform priorities to which the Federal Circuit often responds.

Appreciating the unique nature of patent dialogue has important …

Lionfish As A Metaphor For Governance In An Era Of Climate Change, Rebecca M. Bratspies

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The New Haven School, Molly Land

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel Before "Powell V. Alabama": Lessons From History For The Future Of The Right To Counsel, Sara Mayeux

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In the first Part of this Essay, I outline the common law agency rule that precluded reversal of a judgment on the basis of counsel negligence. While this rule was developed in civil litigation, state judges also applied it in criminal appeals. In many states, judges continued to apply the rule strictly through the 1920S or even later. However, from the 188os through the 1920s, some state judges moved toward a more flexible application of the rule in criminal cases. Though judges still recited the traditional rule that counsel negligence could not be grounds for a new trial, they now …

Saving Originalism’S Soul, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can The Law Meet The Demands Made On It?, George C. Christie

Faculty Scholarship

This is my contribution to a festscrift in honor of Professor Don Wallace on his retirement from the Georgetown University School of Law. My essay points out the problems and dangers of the increasing delegation to international and domestic courts, in broad and vague value-laden language, the responsibility of making basic moral and policy decisions for society. It saddles courts with a task that they are not particularly suited to perform and it is certainly not the way a democratic society should function.

Congress As A Catalyst Of Patent Reform At The Federal Circuit, Jonas Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is the dominant institution in patent law. The court’s control over patent law and policy has led to a host of academic proposals to shift power away from the court and towards other institutions, including the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and federal district courts. Surprisingly, however, academics have largely dismissed Congress as a potential institutional check on the Federal Circuit. Congress, it is felt, is too slow, too divided, and too beholden to special interests to effectively monitor changes in innovation and respond with appropriate reforms. …

Empathy And Reasoning In Context: Thinking About Anti-Gay Bullying, Kris Franklin

Articles & Chapters

“Empathy” has negative connotations for many legal theorists, who may conceive of it as subjective, lacking in intellectual rigor, and emphasizing sensitivity over reason. Even those legal scholars who have embraced the importance of empathy in legal work have emphasized its affective dimensions: pointing out that empathy is central to human relations and motivations, and is therefore a crucial lawyering skill. This paper builds on social science literature that identifies both cognitive and affective dimensions to empathy, and recasts empathy as in part a central component to higher-order thinking in law. It draws examples from empathetic reasoning in foundational cases …

Preface: Policy-Oriented Jurisprudence And Contemporary American Legal Education, Tai-Heng Cheng

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Possibility Of Private Rights And Duties, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

Is it possible for us to know what we owe others, or do we need the state to tell us? To ask the question this way could be understood as a provocation. It might suggest that the possibility of private rights and duties - a possibility that common law takes for granted and which lawyers witness in their daily practice threatens the foundations of the legal realist jurisprudential project and the liberal political project. But it is not my intention here to attack those projects. I simply want to consider the possibility that legal realism and liberalism might not be …

What Jurors Want To Know: Motivating Juror Cognition To Increase Legal Knowledge & Improve Decisionmaking, Sara Gordon

Scholarly Works

What do jurors want to know? Jury research tells us that jurors want to understand the information they hear in a trial so they can reach the correct decision. But like all people, jurors who are asked to analyze information in a trial—even jurors who consciously want to reach a fair and accurate verdict—are unconsciously influenced by their internal goals and motivations. Some of these motives are specific to individual jurors; for instance, a potential juror with a financial interest in a case would be excluded from the jury pool. But other motivations, like the motive to understand the law …

Expanding The “Geography” Of Policy Options To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Commentary On Hari Osofsky’S The Geography Of Solving Global Environmental Problems, William Ascher

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Conceptual And Jurisprudential Aspects Of Property In The Context Of The Fundamental Rights Of Indigenous People: The Case Of The Shuar Of Ecuador, Winston P. Nagan, Craig Hammer

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law And Artifice In Blackstone's Commentaries, Jessie Allen

Articles

William Blackstone is often identified as a natural law thinker for whom property rights were preeminent, but reading the Commentaries complicates that description. I propose that Blackstone’s concept of law is more concerned with human invention and artifice than with human nature. At the start of his treatise, Blackstone identifies security, liberty and property as “absolute” rights that form the foundation of English law. But while security and liberty are “inherent by nature in every individual” and “strictly natural,” Blackstone is only willing to say that “private property is probably founded in nature.” Moreover, Blackstone is clear that there is …

Private Law In The Gaps, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Journal Articles

Private law subjects like tort, contract, and property are traditionally taken to be at the core of the common law tradition, yet statutes increasingly intersect with these bodies of doctrine. This Article draws on recent work in private law theory and statutory interpretation to consider afresh what courts should do with private law in statutory gaps. In particular, it focuses on statutes touching on tort law, a field at the leading edge of private law theory. This Article's analysis unsettles some conventional wisdom about the intersection of private law and statutes. Many leading tort scholars and jurists embrace a regulatory …