Law Commons^™

Completing Caperton And Clarifying Common Sense Through Using The Right Standard For Constitutional Judicial Recusal, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Jeffrey W Stempel

In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a state supreme court decision in which a justice who had received $3 million in campaign support from a company CEO cast the deciding vote to relieve the company of a $50 million liability. The Caperton majority adopted a “probability of bias” standard for constitutional due process review of judicial disqualification decisions that differs from the ordinary “reasonable question as to impartiality” standard for recusal. Four dissenters objected to the majority’s limited supervision of state court disqualification practice, minimized the danger of biased judging presented by the …

Debacle: How The Supreme Court Has Mangled American Sentencing Law And How Justice Sotomayor Might Help Fix It, Frank O. Bowman

Frank O. Bowman III

This Article argues that the line of Supreme Court Sixth Amendment jury right cases that began with McMillan v. Pennsylvania in 1986, crescendoed in Blakely v. Washington and United States v. Booker in 2004-2005, and continues in 2009 in cases such as Oregon v. Ice, has been a colossal judicial failure. First, the Court has failed to provide a logically coherent, constitutionally based answer to the fundamental question of what limits the Constitution places on the roles played by the institutional actors in the criminal justice system. It failed to recognize that defining, adjudicating and punishing crimes implicates both the …

State-Created Property And Due Process Of Law: Filling The Void Left By Engquist V. Oregon Department Of Agriculture, Michael L. Wells, Alice E. Snedeker

Michael L. Wells

Several years ago, in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, the Supreme Court recognized a “class-of-one” Equal Protection theory, under which individuals charging that they were singled out for arbitrary treatment by officials may sue for vindication. Last term, in Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture, the Court barred recourse to this type of claim on the part of government employees. The reasoning of Enguist, which emphasizes the discretionary nature of employment decisions, threatens to eliminate a wide range of class-of-one claims outside the employment area as well. There is a pressing need for an alternative. This article proposes another basis …

International Arbitrary Arbitrator In Cas: An Uphill Battle Against Sports Organizations’ Corruption, Jae Soog Lee

Jae Soog Lee

No abstract provided.

Reliability, Waterboarded Confessions And Reclaiming The Lessons Of ‘Brown V. Mississippi’ In The Terrorism Cases, M. Katherine B. Darmer

M. Katherine B. Darmer

This essay traces a "protection gap" for terrorism suspects to a shift away from a concern with the reliability of confessions in the Supreme Court's post-"Miranda" jurisprudence. It argues that in order to avoid results plainly inconsistent with the Court's earlier repudiation of torture almost 75 years ago in "Brown v. Mississippi," notions of due process must be interpreted more broadly, consistent with "Brown's" recognition of an absolute prohibition on torture in our adversarial system.

Plains Commerce Bank V. Long Family Land And Cattle Company, Inc.: An Introduction With Questions, Frank Pommersheim

Frank Pommersheim

No abstract provided.

Help Wanted: Seeking One Good Appellate Brief That Forces The Arkansas Supreme Court To Clarify Its Criminal Discovery Jurisprudence, Brian Gallini

Brian Gallini