Law Commons^™

Issue 1: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fool Me Once, Shame On Me; Fool Me Again And You're Gonna Pay For It: An Analysis Of Medicare's New Reporting Requirements For Primary Payers And The Stiff Penalties Associated With Noncompliance, Brent M. Timberlake, Monica A. Stahly

University of Richmond Law Review

This article discusses the new requirements and the issues that currently face insurers, claimants, and attorneys in cases involving Medicare-eligible beneficiaries.

Don't Answer The Door: Montejo V. Louisiana Relaxes Police Restrictions For Questioning Non-Custodial Defendants, Emily Bretz

Michigan Law Review

In 2009, the Supreme Court held in Montejo v. Louisiana that a defendant may validly waive his Sixth Amendment right to counsel during police interrogation, even if police initiate interrogation after the defendant's invocation of the right at the first formal proceeding. This Note asserts that Montejo significantly altered the Sixth Amendment protections available to represented defendants. By increasing defendants' exposure to law enforcement, the decision allows police to try to elicit incriminating statements and waivers of the right to counsel after the defendant has expressed a desire for counsel. In order to protect the defendant's constitutional guarantee of a …

Oral Dissenting On The Supreme Court, Christopher W. Schmidt, Carolyn Shapiro

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In this Article we offer the first comprehensive evaluation of oral dissenting on the Supreme Court. We examine the practice in both historical and contemporary perspective, take stock of the emerging academic literature on the subject, and suggest a new framework for analysis of oral dissenting. Specifically, we put forth several claims. Contrary to the common assumption of scholarship and media coverage, oral dissents are nothing new. Oral dissenting has a long tradition, and its history provides valuable lessons for understanding the potential and limits of oral dissents today. Furthermore, not all oral dissents are alike. Dissenting Justices may have …

Bridging The Gap: How United States V. Munn Correctly Interprets The Legislative Intent Of Amendment 706 Addressing The Disparity Between Crack And Cocaine Offenses, Alyn Goodson

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Response To "Snyder V. Louisiana: Continuing The Historical Trend Towards Increased Scrutiny Of Peremptory Challenges", Bidish J. Sarma

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

John P. Bringewatt's recent note makes several important observations about the Supreme Court's opinion in Snyder v. Louisiana. Although he provides reasonable support for the claim that Snyder represents a sea change in Batson jurisprudence, the US Supreme Court's fresh opinion in Thaler v. Haynes (rendered on February 22, 2010) reads the Snyder majority opinion narrowly and suggests the possibility that Snyder is not as potent as it should be. The Haynes per curiam's guarded reading of Snyder signals the need for courts to continue to conduct the bird's-eye cumulative analysis that the Court performed in Miller-El v. Dretke[hereinafter Miller-El …

Kids Are Different, Stephen St.Vincent

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The Supreme Court recently handed down its decision in Graham v. Florida. The case involved a juvenile, Graham, who was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted as an adult of a nonhomicidal crime. The offense, a home invasion robbery, was his second; the first was attempted robbery. Due to Florida's abolition of parole, the judge's imposition of a life sentence meant that Graham was constructively sentenced to life without parole for a nonhomicide crime. Graham challenged this sentence as unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Somewhat surprisingly, the Supreme Court invalidated Graham's sentence by a 6-3 majority. By a …

"What Do I Do About This Word, 'Unavoidable'?": Resolving Textual Ambiguity In The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, Jason Lafond

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The quote in the title of this Essay comes from Justice Breyer, expressing his frustration with the language of section 22(b)(1) of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. Justice Breyer made this comment during the October 12, 2010, oral argument in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, Inc., a case about the availability of state tort claims based on vaccine design defects. The question before the Court was whether that section expressly preempts such claims against vaccine manufacturers "if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions …

Inferiorizing Judicial Review: Popular Constitutionalism In Trial Courts, Ori Aronson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The ongoing debates over the legitimacy of judicial review-the power of courts to strike down unconstitutional statutes-as well as the evolving school of thought called "popular constitutionalism, " are characterized by a preoccupation with the Supreme Court as the embodiment of judicial power This is a striking shortcoming in prevailing constitutional theory, given the fact that in the United States, inferior courts engage in constitutional adjudication and in acts of judicial review on a daily basis, in ways that are importantly different from the familiar practices of the Supreme Court. The Article breaks down this monolithic concept of "the courts" …

Law Versus Ideology: The Supreme Court And The Use Of Legislative History, David S. Law, David Zaring

William & Mary Law Review

Much of the social science literature on judicial behavior has focused on the impact of ideology on how judges vote. For the most part, however, legal scholars have been reluctant to embrace empirical scholarship that fails to address the impact of legal constraints and the means by which judges reason their way to particular outcomes. This Article attempts to integrate and address the concerns of both audiences by way of an empirical examination of the Supreme Court’s use of a particular interpretive technique— namely, the use of legislative history to determine the purpose and meaning of a statute. We analyzed …

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.

Issue 3: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Smart Grid Technology: The Future Of The Electric Utility Industry, Michael W. Yackira

University of Richmond Law Review

Energy is leading many agendas these days, and, indeed, the energy landscape is changing-taking it a step further, it is actually transforming. This could be as big a transformation for the electric utility industry as the automated teller machine was for the banking industry and the cell phone was for telecommunications.

Fcc V. Fox: Has The Supreme Court Sanctioned Political Influence In Agency Decision-Making?, Catherine E. Bell

Mercer Law Review

I. INTRODUCTION

Can agencies radically change policy simply because of a change in the White House? The United States Supreme Court's latest decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. suggests that agencies can do exactly that. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent United States agency, regulates the content of U.S. broadcasting stations. In 2002 and 2003, the FCC and Fox clashed when Fox aired two separate Billboard Music Awards (BMA) shows during which BMA guests uttered isolated expletives. Prior to these incidents, the FCC had never issued an indecency violation to a broadcaster for airing only isolated …

Barber V. Thomas: The Supreme Court's Interpretation Of The Federal Good Time Credits Statute Is Undermining Sentencing Reform, Max Hellman

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

"The Prejudice Of Caste": The Misreading Of Justice Harlan And The Ascendency Of Anticlassificaiton, Scott Grinsell

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article reconsiders the familiar reading of Justice Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson as standing for the principle of constitutional colorblindness by examining the significance of Harlan's use of the metaphor "caste" in the opinion. By overlooking Harlan's invocation of "caste," it argues that conservative proponents of anticlassification have reclaimed the opinion for "colorblindness," and buried a powerful statement of the antisubordination principle that is at the heart of our equality law. The Article begins by examining the emergence of a reading of the opinion as articulating a view of equality law based in anticlassification. The Article then returns …

Limiting Article Iii Standing To "Accidental" Plaintiffs: Lessons From Environmental And Animal Law Cases, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

Georgia Law Review

According to the Supreme Court, Article III's extension
of "judicialPower" to "Cases" and "Controversies"limits
standing to plaintiffs who can demonstrate an
individualized "injury in fact" that was caused by the
defendant and that is judicially redressable. Article III's
text and history, however, do not mention "injury,"
"causation,"or "redressability."
Furthermore, these standards are malleable and have
been applied to achieve ideological goals, especially in
cases involving environmental and animal-welfare laws.
Most notably, the Court has recognized an "injury in fact"
to one's aesthetic enjoyment of nature, but determining
such an injury is arbitrarybecause "aesthetics"is a matter
of personal taste. Judges have …

Native Hawaiians And The Ceded Lands Trust: Applying Self-Determination As An Alternative To The Equal Protection Analysis, R. Hōkūlei Lindsey

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Congressional End-Run: The Ignored Constraint On Judicial Review, Luke M. Milligan

Georgia Law Review

This Article identifies an untended connection between
the research of legal academics and political scientists. It
explains how recent developments in constitutional theory,
when read in good light, expose a gap in the judicial
politics literature on Supreme Court decision making. The
gap is the "congressional end-run."
End-runs occur when Congress mitigates the policy cost
of adverse judicial review through neither formal limits on
the Court's autonomy nor substitution of its constitutional

interpretationfor that of the Court, but through a different
decision which cannot, as a practical if not legal matter,
be invalidated by the Court. End-runs come in several …

Redemption Song: Graham V. Florida And The Evolving Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence, Robert Smith, G. Ben Choen

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In Graham v. Florida, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a sentence of life without parole ("LWOP") for a juvenile under eighteen who commits a non-homicide offense. For Terrance Graham, who committed home-invasion robbery at seventeen, the decision does not mean necessarily that he someday will leave the brick walls of Florida's Taylor Annex Correctional Institution. Unlike previous Eighth Amendment decisions, such as Roper v. Simmons, where the Court barred the death penalty for juveniles, this new categorical rule does not translate into automatic relief for members of the exempted class: "A State need not guarantee the …

Past As Prologue: Old And New Feminisms, Martha Chamallas

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Each "stage" of feminist legal theory-and each brand or strand of feminism- stays alive and is never completely replaced by newer approaches. When I first attempted to synthesize the field of Feminist Legal Theory for a treatise I was writing at the end of the twentieth century, I thought it would be useful to think chronologically and to analyze the major developments of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. I crudely divided feminist legal theory into three stages roughly corresponding to the preceding decades: the equality stage of the 1970s, the difference stage of the 1980s, and the diversity stage of …

Rethinking Consent In A Big Love Way, Cheryl Hanna

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article is based on a presentation at the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law as part of their symposium "Rhetoric & Relevance: An Investigation into the Present & Future of Feminist Legal Theory." In it, I explore the problem of categorical exclusions to the consent doctrine in private intimate relationships through the lens of the HBO series Big Love, which is about modern polygamy. There remains the normative question both after Lawrence v. Texas and in feminist legal theory of under what circumstances individuals should be able to consent to activity that takes place within the context of a …

Issue 2: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Worcester V. Georgia: A Breakdown In The Separation Of Powers, Matthew L. Sundquist

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pleading With Congress To Resist The Urge To Overrule Twombly And Iqbal, Michael R. Huston

Michigan Law Review

In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court changed the rhetoric of the federal pleading system. Those decisions have been decried by members of the bar, scholars, and legislators as judicial activism and a rewriting of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Such criticism has led members of both houses of Congress to introduce legislation to overrule the decisions and return to some variation of the "notice pleading" regime that existed before Twombly. This Note argues that both of the current proposals to overrule Twombly and Iqbal should be rejected. Although the bills take different …

Reestablishing Actual Impartiality As The Fundamental Value Of Judicial Ethics: Lessons From "Big Judge Davis", Raymond J. Mckoski

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

New Pleading, New Discovery, Scott Dodson

Michigan Law Review

Pleading in federal court has a new narrative. The old narrative was one of notice, with the goal of broad access to the civil justice system. New Pleading, after the landmark Supreme Court cases of Twombly and Iqbal, is focused on factual sufficiency, with the purpose of screening out meritless cases that otherwise might impose discovery costs on defendants. The problem with New Pleading is that factual insufficiency often is a poor proxy for meritlessness. Some plaintifs lack sufficient factual knowledge of the elements of their claims not because the claims lack merit but because the information they need is …

Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores what happens to longstanding remedies for past racial discrimination as conditions change. It shows that Congress and the Supreme Court have responded quite differently to changed conditions when they evaluate such remedies. Congress has generally opted to stay the course, while the Court has been more inclined to view change as cause to terminate a remedy. The Article argues that these very different responses share a defining flaw, namely, they treat existing remedies as fixed until they are terminated. As a result, remedies are either scrapped prematurely or left stagnant despite dramatically changed conditions. The Article seeks …