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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Right To A Well-Rested Jury, Caroline Howe
The Right To A Well-Rested Jury, Caroline Howe
Michigan Law Review
The vast amount of control that state trial judges exercise over the dynamics of their courtrooms is well established. The length of trial days and jury deliberations, however, has received little scholarly attention. Longstanding research has conclusively established the disruptive effects of sleep deprivation on many of the mental facilities necessary for juries to competently fulfill their duties. By depriving juries of sleep, trial judges may be compromising the fair rights of criminal defendants for the sake of efficiency. This Note argues that trial judges must use their discretion to ensure juries are well-rested, keeping jurors’ needs in mind. Further, …
Disentangling Michigan Court Rule 6.502(G)(2): The "New Evidence" Exception To The Ban On Successive Motions For Relief From Judgment Does Not Contain A Discoverability Requirement, Claire V. Madill
Michigan Law Review
Michigan courts are engaging in a costly interpretative mistake. Confused by the relationship between two distinct legal doctrines, Michigan courts are conflating laws in a manner that precludes convicted defendants from raising their constitutional claims in postconviction proceedings. In Michigan, a convicted defendant who wishes to collaterally attack her conviction must file a 6.500 motion. The Michigan Court Rules generally prohibit “second or subsequent” motions. Nonetheless, section 6.502(G)(2) permits a petitioner to avoid this successive motion ban if her claim relies on “new evidence that was not discovered” before her original postconviction motion. Misguided by the similarity between the language …
Horizontal Erie And The Presumption Of Forum Law, Michael Steven Green
Horizontal Erie And The Presumption Of Forum Law, Michael Steven Green
Michigan Law Review
According to Erie Railroad v. Tompkins and its progeny, a federal court interpreting state law must decide as the state's supreme court would. In this Article, I argue that a state court interpreting the law of a sister state is subject to the same obligation. It must decide as the sister state's supreme court would. Horizontal Erie is such a plausible idea that one might think it is already established law. But the Supreme Court has in fact given state courts significant freedom to misinterpret sister-state law. And state courts have taken advantage of this freedom, by routinely presuming that …
Electing Justice, Sol Wachtler
Electing Justice, Sol Wachtler
Michigan Law Review
A Review of In Pursuit of Justice: Reflections of a State Supreme Court Justice by Joseph R. Grodin
Corporate Auctions And Directors' Fiduciary Duties: A Third-Generation Business Judgment Rule, Steven G. Bradbury
Corporate Auctions And Directors' Fiduciary Duties: A Third-Generation Business Judgment Rule, Steven G. Bradbury
Michigan Law Review
This Note proposes a rationale and a methodology for applying the business judgment rule when directors resist a hostile bid during the auction phase of a control contest. Part I examines the changes that occur in the responsibilities of target directors when a corporate auction is initiated. This Part describes the Unocal business judgment rule test and discusses its usefulness in the auction phase of a takeover. While the test requires modification if it is to complement effectively the auction-phase duties announced in Revlon, this Part suggests that the business judgment rule continues to be relevant and important during …
The Wrong Side Of The Tracks: A Revolutionary Rediscovery Of The Common Law Tradition Of Fairness In The Struggle Against Inequality, Gregory A. Kalscheur
The Wrong Side Of The Tracks: A Revolutionary Rediscovery Of The Common Law Tradition Of Fairness In The Struggle Against Inequality, Gregory A. Kalscheur
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Wrong Side of the Tracks: A Revolutionary Rediscovery of the Common Law Tradition of Fairness in the Struggle Against Inequality by Charles M. Haar and Daniel W. Fessler
State Constitutional Law: Federalism In The Common Law Tradition, Ellen A. Peters
State Constitutional Law: Federalism In The Common Law Tradition, Ellen A. Peters
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Developments in State Constitutional Law edited by Bradley D. McGraw
Cameras In The Courtroom: Guidelines For State Criminal Trials, Nancy T. Gardner
Cameras In The Courtroom: Guidelines For State Criminal Trials, Nancy T. Gardner
Michigan Law Review
This Note analyzes the conflicting interests involved in televising state criminal trials and proposes a model set of guidelines for consideration by states that decide to permit electronic media in their courtrooms. The Note favors restrictions on broadcasters once in the courtroom and advocates that the defendant's right to a fair trial receive more scrupulous protection than the broadcast media's interest in attendance and the public's "right to know." Part I presents the constitutional principles with which any set of guidelines must comply. Part II analyzes the policy considerations that should guide the formulation of state guidelines, and concludes that …
The Evolution Of State Supreme Courts, Robert A. Kagan, Bliss Cartwright, Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanton Wheeler
The Evolution Of State Supreme Courts, Robert A. Kagan, Bliss Cartwright, Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanton Wheeler
Michigan Law Review
Part I of this Article describes in broad quantitative terms the changing relationship between the caseload of supreme courts and the population of the states in which these courts sit. Part II examines the various means states used to control supreme court caseloads, the political problems involved, and the types of courts that have resulted. Part III presents evidence that changes in court organization in response to caseload pressure are accompanied by changes in the kinds of cases state supreme courts hear, the style of their opinions, and the results of the cases.
Enforceability Of Religious Law In Secular Courts--It's Kosher, But Is It Constitutional?, Michigan Law Review
Enforceability Of Religious Law In Secular Courts--It's Kosher, But Is It Constitutional?, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
In several different contexts-for example, in enforcing contracts that refer to religious law or in enforcing secular laws that use religious terminology-secular courts may be called upon to apply and even to interpret laws established by religious bodies. The limitations imposed by the first amendment on the courts in these areas will be discussed here in the specific context of Judaism. It is the thesis of this Note that the courts may not be as constrained in enforcing laws of religious bodies and in resolving disputes about those laws as would appear at first glance.
Fraudulent Conveyances In The Conflict Of Laws: Easy Cases May Make Bad Law, Albert A. Ehrenzweig, Peter K. Westen
Fraudulent Conveyances In The Conflict Of Laws: Easy Cases May Make Bad Law, Albert A. Ehrenzweig, Peter K. Westen
Michigan Law Review
It has been said that hard cases often make bad law. The recent decision by the New York Court of Appeals in James v. Powell suggests that easy cases, too, may make bad law-especially where a scholarly judge ventures beyond the demands of the case before him.
Legal Aid--Lay Control And Organizational Complexity Render Oeo Legal Service Program Unacceptable To New York Court--In Re Community Action For Legal Services, Inc., Michigan Law Review
Legal Aid--Lay Control And Organizational Complexity Render Oeo Legal Service Program Unacceptable To New York Court--In Re Community Action For Legal Services, Inc., Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and the New York City Council Against Poverty approved the organization and the OEO funding of three legal service corporations as part of a comprehensive program to provide legal assistance to New York City's poor. According to the plan, the first corporation, Community Action for Legal Services, Inc. (CALS), was to approve proposed plans for setting up and operating neighborhood law offices with OEO funds and then to supervise and coordinate the agencies that sought to put those plans into operation. These agencies, operating as delegates of CALS, and under subcontracts with it, were …
Substantive Interests And The Jurisdiction Of State Courts, Paul D. Carrington, James A. Martin
Substantive Interests And The Jurisdiction Of State Courts, Paul D. Carrington, James A. Martin
Michigan Law Review
Pennoyer indeed is dead. The primitive ritual of service of process could not survive as a general solution to the problem of state power over individuals. Committed as we are to the idea that the judicial power should be exercised in a manner that is responsive to the common welfare, we could not suffer the limits of power to be determined irrationally by the random success of process servers. Offering only the virtues of simplicity and economy, the ritualistic method had to yield in order to make the judicial power a sharper and more effective tool with which to pursue …
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Arrest - Right of Officer to Kill when Serving Warrant for Misdimeanor- Defendant-had a warrant for the arrest of one White, charging him with being drunk and disorderly. When the defendant served the warrant, White advanced upon him with an open knife. Although the defendant had a chance to escape through an open door, he shot and wounded White. In the prosecution of defendant for shooting and wounding White, it was held that the defendant was justified in shooting him. State v. Dunning (N. C., igig), 98 S. E. 530
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Animals - Injuries by Animals at Large - In an action for damages for injuries sustained by the kick of a horse, the petition alleged that for many days the defendant carelessly and negligently permitted a horse owned by him to run loose on the streets unattended, and that the plaintiff while playing about was kicked by the horse. On demurrer, held, no cause of action stated because no allegation that the owner knew the horse was vicious. Brady v. Str.aub, (Ky. Ct. of App. 1917), 197 S. W. 938.
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Admiralty - Meaning of "Shore" - Certain sections of a dry dock containing a tug were driven by a violent storm across the Mobile River and left on the land above the ordinary high water mark. Held, subject to salvage, and a suit to recover for replacing the tug in the water within admiralty jurisdiction. The Gulfport, (Dist. Ct, S. D. Ala., 1917), 243 Fed. 676.
Note And Comment, Willard T. Barbour, John B. Waite, Evans Holbrook, Gordon Stoner, Raymond Archibald Fox
Note And Comment, Willard T. Barbour, John B. Waite, Evans Holbrook, Gordon Stoner, Raymond Archibald Fox
Michigan Law Review
The "Right" to Break a Contract - It is common knowledge that the fully developed common law affords no means to compel the performance of a contract according to its terms. Does it follow from this that there is no legal obligation to perform a contract, or if obligation there be, that it is alternative: to perform or pay damages? A note in the XIV MIcr. L. Rv. 48o appears to give an affirmative answer to this question and at least one court (Frye v. Hubbell, 74 N. H. 358, at p. 374) has taken the same view. Probably the …
Note And Comment, Gordon Stoner, Ralph W. Aigler, Michigan Law Review
Note And Comment, Gordon Stoner, Ralph W. Aigler, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Bradley Martin Thompson - For a second time within the year death has claimed a member of the Faculty of the Law School. Professor Jerome C. Knowlton died in January, and now on September 29th last, Professor Bradley M. Thompson has completed his life-work.
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Attorneys - Disobedience of Order of Suspension - What Acts Constitute - Defendants had been suspended from practice "in all the courts of this state" for one year. During suspension they had continued to maintain a law office with the usual signs on the doors and windows, used envelopes and stationery with their names printed thereon as Attorneys at Law, and permitted their names to be inserted as attorneys at law in telephone and city directories. Defendant M had caused the preparation of a complaint, affidavit, and bond in attachment under his direction and had them filed in a suit …
Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, John B. Waite, Eugene B. Hewitt
Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, John B. Waite, Eugene B. Hewitt
Michigan Law Review
State Legislation Extending to Navigable Waters - In Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen, 37 Sup. Ct. -, decided May 21, 1917, the Supreme Court announces a decision in some respects of far reaching importance. It was held therein, Mr. Justice HOL.Es dissenting, that the WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION AcT of the State of New York did not support an award to the widow and children of a workman killed on board a ship of the' Company while at the pier in New York City. Clearly the terms of the New York act covered the case, unless the fact that the accident occurred …
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Criminal Law - Directed Verdict of Acquittal - The accused was convicted of crime. Error was assigned upon the refusal of the court to direct a verdict of not guilty. Held, that a motion to direct a verdict of acquittal should never be entertained. People i% Zurek (Ill. 1917), uS N. E. 644
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Adverse Possession Mistake - From a decree quieting in plaintiff title by adverse possession, defendants appealed, contending that plaintiff claimed the land only under and by virtue of a will which in fact conferred no legal title, and that such a claim was not adverse. Held, assuming that plaintiff believed he was asserting legal rights only, and that his claim of title was defective, his possession would nevertheless ripen into title by adverse possession. Erickson v. Crosby, (Neb. 1916) x6o N. W. 94.
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Attorney and Client - Attorney's Charging Lien - Having agreed by contract to pay his attorney fifty percent of the proceeds recovered, the client, while suit was pending, and without the consent of his attorney, settled with the defendant for $3o. The attorney then gave notice of his claim to the defendant, and the district court, after hearing the case, gave judgment to the plaintiff attorney for $1oo. There was a statute (N. J. LAWS OF 1914, ch. 201, p. 410) which gave a lien to an attorney on the proceeds of a settlement out of court. Held, the action …
Note And Comment, John B. Waite, Samuel D. Frankel, Melville C. Mason
Note And Comment, John B. Waite, Samuel D. Frankel, Melville C. Mason
Michigan Law Review
The Death of Professor Knowlton - The loss to the Law School and to his colleagues of the law faculty in the death of Jerome Cyril Knowlton cannot be expressed. For thirty-one years, the longest period of active service ever given by any man to this Law School, Mr. Knowlton was an effective factor in the development of the institution and in the moulding of the character and the legal ideas and ideals of the thousands of graduates who have passed through the Law School into the service of community and state and country, at the bar, upon the bench, …
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Adoption - Inheritance from Natural Kindred - The plaintiff, a minor, by his guardian sued to recover his share of his deceased grandfather's estate under the law of succession of the state of California. After the death of his father and mother he had been adopted into another family. The statute of California provides that the natural parents of an adopted child are "relieved *** of all parental duties towards and all responsibilities for the child so adopted and have no right over it," and the child and persons adopting "shall sustain towards each other the legal xelation of parent …
Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, Harry G. Gault, Thomas E. Atkinson, Harry R. Hewitt
Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, Harry G. Gault, Thomas E. Atkinson, Harry R. Hewitt
Michigan Law Review
Special Assessments Upon Cemetaries - Though the power to tax cemeteries would seem to be'entirely clear, very commonly land devoted to such purpose is declared by constitution or statute to be exempt. See CooLY, TAxATION, (3rd ed.) 354. So also in the case of special assessments such land, in the absence of a clear exemption, is liable thereto. Bloomington Cemetery Assoc. v. People, i39 IIl. 16, 28 N. E. io76; Mullins v. Cemetery Assoc., 239 Mo. 681, i44 S. W. iog; Buffalo City Cemetery v. Buffalo, 46 N. Y. 5o3; Lima v. Lima Cemetery Assoc., 42 Oh. St. 128, 5! …
Note And Comment, Edgar N. Durfee, Harry J. Connine, Harry R. Hewitt, George C. Claassen
Note And Comment, Edgar N. Durfee, Harry J. Connine, Harry R. Hewitt, George C. Claassen
Michigan Law Review
The Mortgages in Possession in New York and in Michigan - It is interesting to observe how tenaciously the old common law of mortgages has persisted in the state of New York, the very cradle of the modem lien theory of the mortgage. As early as 18o2 Chancellor KENT began the importation into that state of Lord MANSFIELD'S Civil Law doctrines of mortgage. Johnson v. Hart, 3 Johns. Cas. 322. In 1814, in the case of Runyan v. Mersereau, ii Johns. 534, the lien theory definitely triumphed over the old law. In other cases, both before and since the statute …
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Adjoining Landowners-Lateral Support.-Defendant was sued for injuries to plaintiff's dwelling on an adjoining lot caused by defendant's having -excavated on his lot after having given plaintiff notice of the intended excavation. Held, defendant, after having given plaintiff reasonable notice of 'the intended excavation, was not liable for injuries to plaintiff's building which resulted from defendant's "ordinarily careful excavation of his own lot:' Vandegrift, et al. v. Boward (Md. I916), 98 AtI. 528.
Note & Comment, Michigan Law Review
Note & Comment, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Announcement; Note and Comment: The Right of a De Jure Officer to Recover Salary or Fees Paid to a De Facto Officer; Exemplary Damages Where Acutal Damages Merely Nominal; Seduction--Fiction of Service; Negligence--Druggist Selling Proprietary Medicine Without Knowing Contents; Physician--Duty to Respond to Call; Wills--Contract to Make--Fraud in Obtaining Charity--Relief in Equity; Sale--Bank Cashing Draft Drawn Against consignment of Goods as Purchaser--Liability Upon Express or Implied Warranty of Title or Quality; Voters--Right to Vote for Candidate whose Name is not on the Official Ballot; Constitutional Law--Fourteenth Amendment--Due Process--Equal Protection; Statute of Limitations--Failure to Leave Subjacent Support in Mining--When Statute begins …
Recent Decisions
Michigan Law Review
Agency--Ratification--Knowledge Necessary; Agency--Undisclosed Principal--Defence Against Agent; Bailments--Action by Bailee against Third Person; Bankruptcy--Homestead Exemption--State Law not Enforced; Bankruptcy--Homestead Exemption; Bills and Notes--Cashier's Check--Indorsed for Illegal Consideration; Carriers--Street Railway--Track Used by Another Company; Chattel Mortgage--Sufficiency of Description; Conflict of Laws--Statute of Frauds--Statute Affecting Remedy--Representations as to Another's Credit; Constitutional Law--14th Amendment--Class Legislation--License Law; Evidence--Physical Examination of Plaintiff in Personal Injury Suit; Insurance--Construction of Terms of Indemnity Policy; Insurance--Agreement to Issue New Policy--Effect of Failure to Surender Old Policy and Make Demand Within Time Stipulated; Landlord and Tenant--Covenant for Re-Entry--Re-Entry by Ejectment Only--Summary Proceedings; Landlord and Tenant--Covenant Not to Assign--Runs with the …