Law Commons^™

Casting Light On Cultural Property, John J. Costonis

Michigan Law Review

Theorists of private property invite comparison to theorists of light. For centuries, the latter have debated whether light is best understood as a wave or as a photon. The rivalry has been intense because each hypothesis explains some characteristics of light very well, but others very poorly. Wave theory outstrips photon theory in explaining such phenomena as light's frequencies and diffraction patterns. But photon theory, which reduces light to a succession of particles, more effectively explains such subatomic phenomena as changes in an atom's orbital shell produced by the interaction of photons and electrons. Property theorists too can be viewed …

Supreme Court's 1998-1999 Term: Fourth Amendment Decisions, Kathryn R. Urbonya

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Treaty-Making And The Nation: The Historical Foundations Of The Nationalist Conception Of The Treaty Power, David M. Golove

Michigan Law Review

Characteristic of the most enduring constitutional controversies is a clash between fundamental but ultimately irreconcilable principles. Unable to synthesize opposing precepts, we visit and revisit certain issues in an endless cycle. Each generation marches forward heedless, and sometimes only dimly aware, of how many times the battle has already been fought. Even the peace of exhaustion achieves only a temporary respite. The abiding controversy over the relationship between the treaty power of the national government and the legislative powers of the states is paradigmatic in this respect. Beginning as early as in the first debate over ratification of the Articles …

Sentencing Equality For Deportable Aliens: Departures From The Sentencing Guidelines On The Basis Of Alienage, Jason Bent

Michigan Law Review

Peter Bakeas, a thirty-three-year-old Greek citizen living in West Lynn, Massachusetts and working in an entry-level position at the First National Bank of Greece in Massachusetts, developed a cocaine habit he could not afford. Mounting debt from his cocaine habit pressured him to find alternative means for obtaining income. Bakeas, using his position at First National Bank of Greece, began to embezzle money from the accounts of a distant relative and some family friends. When his scheme was discovered, he confessed and made arrangements to repay the money he had taken. Bakeas pled guilty to embezzlement by a bank officer, …

Judicial Review & The Policy Of Federal Abstention: A Juvenile's Right To Ensure The Existence Of A "Substantial Federal Interest", Matthew Drexler

Michigan Law Review

The problem of juvenile delinquency must be dealt with in an effective and meaningful manner if we are to reduce the ever increasing levels of crime and improve the quality of life in America. With these words, the United States Senate opened its report in support of the first major federal juvenile delinquency statute in almost forty years. The goal of the statute and of federal involvement in juvenile delinquency proceedings was to give the highest attention to preventing juvenile crime and to minimizing the involvement of juveniles in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Until 1974, the federal government …

Judicial Abuse Of "Process": Examining The Applicability Of Section 2f1.1(B)(4)(B) Of The Federal Sentencing Guidelines To Bankruptcy Fraud, Hideaki Sano

Michigan Law Review

The proliferation of bankruptcy filings over the past decade has coincided with a comparable increase in the incidence of bankruptcy fraud. In response to this growing problem, the United States Department of Justice has placed greater emphasis on federal prosecution of bankruptcy fraud. As a result, federal judges are increasingly applying the Federal Sentencing Guidelines ("Guidelines") to bankruptcy fraud and have begun to implement uniform standards for sentencing defendants convicted of this crime. Congress enacted the Guidelines pursuant to the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. In instituting the Guidelines, Congress sought honesty, reasonable uniformity, and proportionality in sentencing. Congress attempted …

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Implications Of Pfaff V. Wells Electronics, Inc. And The Quest For Predictability In The On-Sale Bar, Timothy R. Holbrook

Faculty Articles

This Article posits a two prong approach to the on-sale bar. First, for the anticipatory version, the courts should expressly incorporate the law of enablement under 35 U.S.C. § 112 and of utility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 into the on-sale bar, thus providing a well-known body of law to promote predictability. Procedurally, the courts should establish a hierarchy of evidence, similar to the approach used in claim construction, that considers certain, more readily available information as the most pertinent while eschewing the use of expert testimony and other litigation based evidence. Second, for the obviousness version of the on-sale …

Review Of Leaving The Bench: Supreme Court Justices At The End, By D. N. Atkinson, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

David Atkinson points out an interesting anomaly near the beginning of his book, Leaving the Bench: scholars have spent an enormous amount of energy studying entrance to the Supreme Court-how justices are chosen-but much less studying exit. It is indeed an important issue. Do justices stay too long (or perhaps leave too early)? What mechanisms are in place to induce them to leave the Court when the time has come, and passed? Are further mechanisms needed?

Indirect Constitutional Discourse: A Comment On Meese, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

California Dental Association: Not The Quick Look But Not The Full Monty, Stephen Calkins

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court's Iolta Decision: Of Dogs, Mangers, And The Ghost Of Mrs. Frothingham, 30 Seton Hall L. Rev. 846 (2000), Donald L. Beschle

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Contract Reading' In Labor Arbitration, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

A quarter century ago, I used the phrase "contract reader" to characterize the role an arbitrator plays in construing a collective bargaining agreement. This phrase has almost invariable been misunderstood to refer to reading or interpreting the contract. When I spoke of the "contract reader," it was in the context of judicial review of an award. My point was this: When a court has before it an arbitrator's award applying a collective bargaining agreement, it is as if the employer and the union had signed a stipulation stating: "What the arbitrator says this contract means is exactly what we meant …

Uncoupling The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier

Articles

The law of takings couples together matters that should be treated independently. The conventional view, shared by courts and commentators alike, has been that any takings case can be resolved in one of two ways: either there is a taking and compensation is due, or there is no taking and no compensation is due. These results are fine as long as one holding or the other serves the two central concerns of the Takings Clause - eficiency and justice. But a problem arises when the two purposes behind the law of takings come into cordhct, as they readily might. It …

The Adversity Of Race And Place: Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence In Illinois V. Wardlow, 528 S. Ct. 673 (2000), Adam B. Wolf

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Case Note lays out Wardlow's pertinent facts, describes the decisions of the Court and lower courts, and then analyzes the ramifications of the Court's holding. In particular, this Case Note argues that the Court's ruling recognizes substantially less Fourth Amendment protections for people of color and indigent citizens than for wealthy Caucasians. This perpetuates a cycle of humiliating experiences, as well as fear and mistrust of the police by many poor people of color.

A Right To Confrontation Or Insinuation? The Supreme Court's Holding In Portuondo V. Agard, J. Fielding Douthat Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

Imagine that you are charged with a crime that you did not commit. Forced to attend your own trial, you choose to testify on your own behalf. The prosecutor conducts his best spin to discredit you, but his attempts are largely unsuccessful. Not only is your story consistent with that of other witnesses, but it is a plausible accounting of the disputed facts. The reason: your story is the truth. Nevertheless, in summation, the prosecutor attacks your credibility. His argument, however, addresses no inconsistencies, no physical evidence, and no concrete reason to cast doubt on your story. Instead, he argues …

Change And Continuity On The Supreme Court: Conversations With Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Philippa Strum

University of Richmond Law Review

Justice Harry A. Blackmun used to enjoy telling a story about Supreme Court conferences during the Court's 1970 term, his first on the Court. Warren Burger was ChiefJustice; Hugo Black was the most senior Justice. Court protocol, of course, is that the Chief Justice begins the discussion of each case, the most senior Justice speaks second, and the floor goes in turn to each of the other Justices according to descending seniority. Chief Justice Burger would present a case by laying out the issues involved as he saw them and the decision he believed the Court should reach. Then he …

Chief Justice John Marshall And The Course Of American Constitutional History, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 743 (2000), Samuel R. Olken

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

All Or Nothing: Explaining The Size Of Supreme Court Majorities, Paul H. Edelman, Suzanna Sherry

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this Article, Professors Edelman and Sherry use a probabilistic model to explore the process of coalition formation on the United States Supreme Court. They identify coalition formation as a Markov process with absorbing states and examine voting patterns from twelve Court Terms. On the basis of their data, they conclude that Justices are reluctant to remain in small minorities. Surprisingly, however, they also find that a three-Justice minority coalition is less likely to suffer defections than a four-Justice minority coalition. This counterintuitive result suggests that while in general it is minority Justices rather than majority Justices who drive the …

Cardozo The [Small R] Realist, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

In Part I of this Review, I will discuss aspects of Cardozo's life and character. In Part II, I will discuss Cardozo's jurisprudential theory as revealed in his lectures and essays. In Part IlI, I will suggest how we gain a better perspective on his judicial opinions by understanding not only that theory but also the man and his life.

Better-Off Walking: Wyoming V. Houghton Exemplifies What Acevedo Failed To Rectify, Erin Morris Meadows

University of Richmond Law Review

Over the years the United States Supreme Court attempted to produce bright-line rules governing the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. However, the Court's numerous, often confusing decisions in the past eight decades served only to blur those lines. With each attempt to fashion rules that would be workable for both law enforcement in application and lower courts in administration, citizens' Fourth Amendment rights were narrowed. Each time the Court attempted to clarify a rule, it expanded police power to conduct virtually limitless warrantless searches, consistently eviscerating personal privacy rights. The result is an exception originally intended to …

The Politics Of Meaning: Law Dictionaries And The Liberal Tradition Of Interpretation, Gary L. Mcdowell

Law Faculty Publications

At least since John Cowell's Interpreter was adjudged by the Committee on Grievances of the House of Commons in 1610 to be "very unadvised, and undiscreet, tending to the disreputation of the honour and power of the common laws" have law dictionaries been objects of occasional controversy. Yet legal dictionaries, as well as dictionaries more generally, have remained a constant resource in American law for those seeking to give meaning to the words of both statutes and constitutional provisions. They have appeared in the pages of the reports since the beginning of the republic; a majority of the justices of …

Congress' Arrogance, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Does Dickerson v. U.S., reaffirming Miranda and striking down §3501 (the federal statute purporting to "overrule" Miranda), demonstrate judicial arrogance? Or does the legislative history of §3501 demonstrate the arrogance of Congress? Shortly after Dickerson v. U.S. reaffirmed Miranda and invalidated §3501, a number of Supreme Court watchers criticized the Court for its "judicial arrogance" in peremptorily rejecting Congress' test for the admissibility of confessions. The test, pointed out the critics, had been adopted by extensive hearings and debate about Miranda's adverse impact on law enforcement. The Dickerson Court did not discuss the legislative history of §3501 at all. However, …

On The Meaning And Impact Of The Physician-Assisted Suicide Cases, Yale Kamisar

Book Chapters

I read every newspaper article I could find on the meaning and impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's June 1997 decisions in Washington v Glucksberg and Vacco v Quill. I came away with the impression that some proponents of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) were unable or unwilling publicly to recognize the magnitude of the setback they suffered when the Court handed down its rulings in the PAS cases.

A Technological Dream Turned Legal Nightmare, Brandon E. Ehrhart

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) provides precise positioning information to anyone in the world, regardless of nationality, as long as they have access to an inexpensive receiver. However, in managing and providing the GPS for no charge, the United States may have opened itself to worldwide tort exposure. This Note analyzes U.S. liability for negligently operating the GPS under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) in four categories.

First, this Note examines the transformation of the GPS from its domestic military beginnings to its current role as the foremost radionavigation technique in history and as a vital tool to …

Dna As Evidence: Viewing Science Through The Prism Of The Law, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In this article, we analyze a problem related to DNA evidence that is likely to be of great and increasing significance in the near future. This is the problem of whether, and how, to present evidence that the suspect has been identified through a DNA database search. In our view, the two well-known reports on DNA evidence issued by the National Research Council (NRC) have been badly mistaken in their analysis of this problem. The mistakes are significant because the reports have carried great authority with American courts; moreover, the DNA Advisory Board of the FBI has endorsed the second …

The Majority Opinion As The Social Constuction Of Reality: The Supreme Court And Prison Rules, James E. Robertson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Federalism, Individual Liberty, And The Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act Of 1998, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

This Article proceeds in four parts. Part I provides background on the historical development of constitutional federalism, the Supreme Court's decisions in this area, and the apparent demise of constitutional limits on federal power. Part II then reviews the Court's revival of constitutional federalism over the last decade. Based on this review, I argue that the Supreme Court's current federalism doctrine can be understood as a "constrained libertarianism" that attempts to use constitutional structure as a check on government interference with individual liberty. In this model, states are respected in our constitutional system because of the counterbalance that they provide …

Private Remedies For Public Wrongs Under Section 5 (Symposium: New Directions In Federalism), Evan H. Caminker

Articles

The Supreme Court has ushered in the new millennium with a renewed emphasis on federalism-based limits to Congress's regulatory authority in general, and Congress's Section 5 power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in particular. In a recent string of cases, the Court has refined and narrowed Section 5's enforcement power in two significant ways.1 First, the Court made clear that Congress lacks the authority to interpret the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive provisions themselves, and may only "enforce" the judiciary's definition of Fourteenth Amendment violations. 2 Second, the Court embraced a relatively stringent requirement concerning the relationship between means …

Judicial Lobbying At The Wto: The Debate Over The Use Of Amicus Curiae Briefs And The U.S. Experience, Padideh Ala'i

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The continuing debate over the use of amicus curiae briefs at the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) raises interesting questions about the influence of the U.S. legal system on the WTO dispute settlement process. Specifically, it brings to the surface differences between legal cultures and the fact that the U.S. legal culture with its emphasis on procedure is not readily transferable to the WTO. Comparing the controversy regarding the use of amicus curiae briefs before WTO Panels and the Appellate Body with the history and evolution of the institution of amicus curiae before the U.S. Supreme Court may help explain the …

For The Misdemeanor Outlaw: The Impact Of The Ada On The Institutionalization Of Criminal Defendants With Mental Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

This article argues that the Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead v. L.C., 119 S. Ct. 2176 (1999), finding a qualified right to community treatment and services for certain institutionalized persons under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), causes us to reconceptualize state policies that mandate that all defendants in four categories - those being evaluated for competency to stand trial, those found permanently incompetent to stand trial under the Supreme Court's decision in Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972), those being evaluated for insanity, and those found not guilty by reason of insanity - be treated and housed in …