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Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Law
Jury Selection In The Weeds: Whither The Democratic Shore?, Jeffrey Abramson
Jury Selection In The Weeds: Whither The Democratic Shore?, Jeffrey Abramson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article reports on four federal jury challenges in which the trial judge or defendants retained the author to provide research on jury selection plans. The research shows a persistent and substantial loss of representation for African Americans and Hispanics on federal juries, even though no intentional discrimination took place. Problems with undeliverable jury summonses, as well as failure to respond to summonses, were the main causes of departures from the ideal of cross-sectional jury selection. However, a cramped understanding of what it takes for a defendant to prove that minority jurors were systematically excluded, as required by Duren v. …
Litigating Federal Habeas Corpus Cases: One Equitable Gateway At A Time, Eve Brensike Primus
Litigating Federal Habeas Corpus Cases: One Equitable Gateway At A Time, Eve Brensike Primus
Other Publications
Habeas corpus, also known as the Great Writ, was meant to be a “bulwark against convictions that violate fundamental fairness,” according to the Supreme Court. Yet today, federal courts provide relief in fewer than half of one percent of cases in which a non-capital state prisoner seeks relief through habeas. The Great Writ, it would seem, is no longer so great. In Litigating Federal Habeas Corpus Cases: One Equitable Gateway at a Time, Eve Brensike Primus examines the various procedural and substantive hurdles that have been erected in the past half century that make it nearly impossible for state prisoners …
The Pragmatism Of Interpretation: A Review Of Richard A. Posner, The Federal Judiciary, Amul R. Thapar, Benjamin Beaton
The Pragmatism Of Interpretation: A Review Of Richard A. Posner, The Federal Judiciary, Amul R. Thapar, Benjamin Beaton
Michigan Law Review
A review of Richard A. Posner, The Federal Judiciary.
The Lottery Docket, Daniel Epps, William Ortman
The Lottery Docket, Daniel Epps, William Ortman
Michigan Law Review
We propose supplementing the Supreme Court’s caseload with a “lottery docket” of cases selected at random from final judgments of the circuit courts. The Court currently possesses almost unfettered authority to set its own agenda through its certiorari jurisdiction. By rule and custom, the Court exercises that discretion by selecting cases that it sees as important, in a narrow sense of that term. The Court’s free hand in agenda setting has obvious benefits, but it has drawbacks as well. It deprives the Court of critical information about how the law operates in ordinary cases. It signals to circuit courts that …
Climate Change Litigation In The Federal Courts: Jurisdictional Lessons From California V. Bp, Gil Seinfeld
Climate Change Litigation In The Federal Courts: Jurisdictional Lessons From California V. Bp, Gil Seinfeld
Michigan Law Review Online
On March 21 of this year, something unusual took place at a U.S. courthouse in San Francisco: a group of scientists and attorneys provided Federal District Judge William H. Alsup with a crash course in climate science. The five-hour tutorial was ordered by Judge Alsup in connection with a lawsuit that had been filed by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco (“the Cities”) against the world’s five largest producers of fossil fuels. The central issue in the case is whether the energy companies can be held liable for continuing to market fossil fuels long after they learned that such …