Law Commons^™

Malthus The Federal Judge: A Comprehensive Economic Defense Of Selective Publication Of Judicial Opinions, Shlomo Maza

Shlomo Maza

My article seeks to examine the system of limited publication using the tools of economic analysis. Non-publication and its accompanying non-citation rules are in force in all of our courts, yet subject to widespread academic criticism. By using the tools of economic analysis, particularly the Rule of Diminishing Marginal Returns as put forth by both Classical and more modern economists, I seek to provide an economic model that provides theoretical support for non-publication. This model demonstrates that because of the inherent nature of legal precedent and its role in our legal system non-publication is not merely the lesser of two …

Appellate Judges And Philosophical Theories: Judicial Philosophy Or Mere Coincidence?, Gerald R. Ferrera, Mystica M. Alexander

Jonathan J. Darrow

Judicial reasoning found in appellate court decisions creates the substantive law relied upon to formulate policy in the private and public sector. Inevitably some will be adamantly opposed to the decisions and will participate in public debate to formulate change. This paper argues that judicial reasoning is based on a judicial philosophy supported by a theory that, once recognized and understood, enables a greater appreciation of judges’ decisions. A number of prominent judicial philosophers are identified and their philosophy is explained using current landmark cases. The final part of the paper uses the United States Supreme Court decision of Ricci …

Textualist Canons: Cabining Rules Or Predilective Tools, Stephen Durden

Stephen Durden

Justice Scalia proclaims homage to the “dead” Constitution. Justice Brennan honors the “living” Constitution. Others believe in “a partially living and partially dead Constitution.” But, whichever moniker selected, constitutional analysis remains (to the interpreter) personal; however, personal does not necessarily mean irrational or even singular (i.e., that no one else agrees with the interpretation). Rather, personal means that no matter how narrow the interpretational method, an interpreter of the Constitution inevitably makes personal choices when using any interpretational method - choices not required by, or perhaps even inconsistent with, the chosen interpretational method. This Article uses canons of construction to …

Partial Textualism, Stephen Durden

Stephen Durden

This Article seeks to demonstrate that plain meaning textualists do not apply plain meaning textualism to the entire Constitution. Instead, plain meaning textualists indulge their personal predilections and apply the doctrine of “partial textualism,” which selectively applies plain meaning textualism to only part of, rather than the entire, Constitution. Partial textualism destroys any possible fairness value to plain meaning textualism. Indeed, such an approach is entirely inconsistent with the goals of plain language textualism. Through examining the Takings Clause, this Article demonstrates that a plain meaning textualist will commonly apply plain meaning textualism to a part of the Constitution that …

Violent Crimes And Known Associates: The Residual Clause Of The Armed Career Criminal Act, David C. Holman

David Holman

Confusion reigns in federal courts over whether crimes qualify as “violent felonies” for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The ACCA requires a fifteen-year minimum sentence for felons convicted of possessing a firearm who have three prior convictions for violent felonies. Many offenders receive the ACCA’s mandatory minimum sentence of fifteen years based on judges’ guesses that their prior crimes could be committed in a violent manner—instead of based on the statutory crimes of which they were actually convicted. Offenders who do not deserve a minimum sentence of fifteen years may receive it anyway.

The courts’ application of …

Prophylactic Rules And State Constitutionalism, Arthur Leavens

Arthur Leavens

The article examines the conceptual legitimacy of state-law expansion of federal constitutional prophylactic rules. Owing to the nature and purpose of prophylactic rules – to guide lower courts in their implementation of the Constitution’s broader, more indeterminate principles – the article argues that such rules (while surely of constitutional status) are inherently subject to revision where necessary to correct a lack of fit with their respective underlying principles. If a state concludes that a prophylactic rule announced by the Supreme Court under-protects the constitutional principle that it is meant to implement, the article argues that it is conceptually appropriate for …

The Instrumental Justice Of Private Law, Alan Calnan

Alan Calnan

Instrumentalists and deontologists have long battled for an exclusive theory of private law. The instrumentalists have argued that private law is merely a means to achieving any number of political or social ends. Deontologists, by contrast, have contended that the law seeks only the moral end of justice and cannot be used for anything else. In this article, I critique these extreme positions and offer an intermediate theory called “instrumental justice.” I show that the absolute instrumental view is elusive, illusory, and illiberal, while the absolute deontological view is incoherent, implausible, and in one critical respect, impossible. Instrumental justice avoids …

Asking The Right Question In Business Ethics, Louis E. Wolcher

Louis E Wolcher

Based on an address the author gave in Paris in December 2009 at an international program entitled "Revisiting Business Ethics," the present paper attempts to clarify, both philosphically and ethically, the most important aspects of what are called "ethical business practices" and "corporate social responsibility" as these themes present themselves to the individual corporate employee confronted with ethical problems.

Кризисный Период Развития Отечественного Юридического Образования (1917-1920 Г.Г.), Leonid G. Berlyavskiy

Leonid G. Berlyavskiy

In 1917-1920 Sovnarkom and Narkompros of the RSFSR have accepted the whole complex of the statutory acts directed on abolition of the Law faculties and simultaneously establishment of the new state high schools and scientific institutions network, under control to the power. The Socialist Academy of Social Studies has been founded as a counterbalance to the project of the Institute of Social Sciences developed within the limits of the Academy of Sciences for social studies, including, jurisprudence, began to be considered as the sphere of the Party apparatus priority interests

In Self-Defense Regarding Self-Defense: A Rejoinder To Professor Corrado, Reid G. Fontaine

Reid G. Fontaine

This is a rejoinder to Professor Corrado in the upcoming special section of the American Criminal Law Review on the nature, structure, and function of self-defense and defense of others law.

Rethinking Categorical Prohibitions: How The Current Test Fails Mentally Ill Offenders And What To Do About It, Pamela A. Wilkins

Pamela A Wilkins

If offenders with serious mental illnesses generally are no more culpable than otherwise similarly situated juvenile or mentally retarded offenders, then why have they not also been found (as is true for juveniles and the mentally retarded) to be constitutionally exempt from being sentenced to death? The answer lies in the Supreme Court’s flawed Eighth Amendment test for categorical prohibitions: the Eighth Amendment imposes a desert limitation on the State’s ability to punish with death, but the current categorical prohibitions test does a poor job measuring offender deserts and even societal beliefs about offender deserts. This article proposes a new …

Legal Fictions And Juristic Truth, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

This Essay cautions against the revisionist trend in legal scholarship to dismiss discredited legal regimes and burdensome statutory schemes as mere "legal fictions." In the first instance, the expansive view of legal fictions employed in this new scholarship dilutes the analytic force of the classic definition proposed by Lon L. Fuller. More importantly, it misapprehends the constitutive power of law and the nature of juristic truth. The classic legal fiction is a curious artifice of legal reasoning. In a discipline primarily concerned with issues of fact and responsibility, the notion of a legal fiction should seem an anathema or, at …

Levinas, Law Schools And The Poor: They Stand Over Us, Marie A. Failinger

Marie A. Failinger

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has written about the ethics of the Face and our responsibility to the Other who is standing over us, demanding that we respond to his need and his welcome. This essay, which is written in Levinasan style, challenges the complacency of most American law schools in response to the plight of the poor. It proposes ways in which the law school curriculum, space and programs can be re-configured to bring the poor into community with legal educators and students.

Establishment Clause-Trophobia: Building A Framework For Escaping The Confines Of Domestic Church-State Jurisprudence, Jesse R. Merriam

Jesse R Merriam

Does the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” apply to United States conduct abroad? For years, this question has been lurking in the background of discussions of the Constitution’s extraterritorial application. Indeed, while the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments apply abroad in some circumstances, and that the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement generally does not apply abroad, the Court has never considered the transnational applicability of the Establishment Clause. In fact, only one case has directly addressed whether the Establishment Clause applies abroad, Lamont …

Whom Would Jesus Cover? A Biblical, Ethical Lens For The Contemporary American Health Care Debate, Jeffrey R. Baker

Jeffrey R Baker

The United States spends more per capita on health care than any other developed nation by orders of magnitude, yet nearly 47 million people, including nearly 9 million children, do not have health insurance. The vast majority of uninsured Americans are working poor people who earn too much to be eligible for public coverage but who earn too little to afford private insurance or exorbitant private care. Two questions spring from this “gap” to implicate Biblical ethical precepts. First, is access to health care for our uninsured neighbors a moral issue that should spur redress by conscientious communities? Second, if …

Constructing The Constitutional Canon: The Metonymic Evolution Of Federalist 10, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

This paper is part of larger symposium convened for the 2010 AALS annual meeting. In it I adapt some of my earlier constitutional theoretical work to engage the topic of that symposium: the so-called “interpretation/construction distinction”. I make two related criticisms of the distinction: (1) it relies on a flawed conception of linguistic meaning, and (2) while these flaws may be harmless in the “easy” cases of interpretation, they are much more problematic in the difficult cases of most concern. Thus, I doubt the ultimate utility of the distinction as part of a “true and correct” model of constitutional theory. …

Classification Of Participants In Suicide Attacks And The Implications Of This Classification For The Severity Of The Sentence: The Israeli Experience In The Military Courts In Judea And Samaria, Chagai D. Vinizky, Amit Preiss

Chagai D Vinizky

*** A revised version of this article is forthcoming in 30 Pace Law Review (Winter2010) *** The twenty-first century witnessed a considerable rise in the number of suicide attacks. The largest suicide attacks were carried out by Al-Qaeda in the United States on 11.9.2001 when that organization crashed four passenger planes (two into the Twin Towers and one into the Pentagon building) killing 2,973 civilians. Between the 11th September and the present time, suicide attacks have taken place throughout the world, including in Turkey, Great Britain, Egypt, India, Jordan, Spain and Iraq leading to thousands of deaths. A large proportion …

Bringing The Spies In From The Cold: Legal Cosmopolitanism, And Intelligence Under The Laws Of War, Peyton A. Cooke

Peyton A. Cooke

Recently, as never before, intelligence operations have come under international humanitarian law. The Supreme Court has handed down the Hamdan and Boumediene decisions; President Obama has required the CIA and other interrogators to abide by Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 standards for all interrogations; district courts have declared stringent law of war criteria for overseas detentions; the Executive has applied the laws of war to terrorist targeting; and the private groups which have initiated this litigation, and pressed for these changes, continue to work for even more reform. This paper addresses the roots and effects of such changes. It begins …

The Invisible Woman: Availability And Culpability In Reproductive Health Jurisprudence, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

Women’s health is widely assumed to be a significant consideration in reproductive rights cases. Court decisions relating to contraception, abortion, and childbirth demonstrate that while this assumption may have historical validity, consideration of women’s health is often truncated in recent reproductive rights jurisprudence. This occurs, in part, through the application of one or both of two recurring tools. First, judges regularly—and often inaccurately—cite the theoretical availability of alternative reproductive health services as proof that women’s health will not suffer even if a law curtailing reproductive rights is upheld. I label this the “availability tool.” Second, when alternatives are not available, …

Matters Of Preference: Tracing The Line Between Citizens, Democratic States, And International Law, Mark A. Chinen

Mark A. Chinen

In this Article, we assess the role the aggregation of citizen preferences into the foreign policy choices of a democratic country might play in the legitimization of international law. After addressing some of the theoretical and empirical issues associated with such an approach, we use an anticipated reaction model developed by Michael Bailey to show that even in large democracies there are mechanisms through which citizen preferences can be and are reflected in the policy choices of their representatives. Incumbents and candidates for office take policy positions in hopes of maximizing their future election chances. Although policymakers each have their …

"Beyond Rules", Larry A. Dimatteo, Samuel Flaks

Larry A DiMatteo

Our article, in contrast to the predominant scholarly view, contends that the influential Legal Realist Movement of the 1930s was actually two movements—radical legal realism and conservative legal realism (CLR). CLR is best understood through the works of Nathan Isaacs. This article will investigate the legitimacy and determinacy of the legal order through the lens of CLR as represented by Isaacs.

Isaacs and CLR are especially worthy subjects for study given the current economic crisis. It is a crisis, much like the Great Depression, that has spurred many people to question core capitalistic premises, such as the superiority of minimal …

The Illusion Of Creative Scholarship In American Universities And Law Schools, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

The aim of this brief essay is to explore several of the dominant forms of scholarship in the university and in law schools. This is done by examining what are described as five sometimes incompatible ideals, those of development and pursuit of original knowledge for its own sake, preservation, refinement and transmission of the best forms of knowledge, objective social critique, individual activism and collective activism. Tenure track positions in American universities and in law schools particularly are comfortable sinecures. In far too many instances these privileged and lifetime positions serve mainly the personal interests and agendas of the purported …

Clear As Mud: How The Uncertain Precedential Status Of Unpublished Opinions Muddles Qualified Immunity Determinations, David R. Cleveland

David R. Cleveland

While unpublished opinions are now freely citeable under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1, their precedential value remains uncertain. This ambiguity muddles the already unclear law surrounding qualified immunity and denies courts valuable precedents for making fair and consistent judgments on these critical civil rights issues. When faced with a claim that they have violated a person’s civil rights, government officials typically claim qualified immunity. The test is whether they have violated “clearly established law.” Unfortunately, the federal circuits differ on whether unpublished opinions may be used in determining clearly established law. This article, Clear as Mud: How the Uncertain …

Extraordinary Justice, David Gray

David C. Gray

This article is squarely opposed to views advanced by Eric Posner, Adrian Vermeule, and others that transitional justice is just a special case of “Ordinary Justice.” Paying special attention to debates about reparations, this article argues that transitional justice is extraordinary, reflecting the source and nature of atrocities perpetrated under an abusive regime, and focused on the challenges and goals that define transitions to democracy. In particular, this Article argues that transitional justice is not profane, preservative, and retrospective, but, rather, Janus-faced, liminal, and transformative. The literature on reparations in transitions is divided between critics who regard reparations as quasi-tort …

When Users Are Authors: Authorship In The Age Of Digital Media, Alina Ng

Alina Ng

This Article explores what authorship and creative production means in the digital age. Notions of the author as the creator of the work provided a point of reference for recognizing ownership rights in literary and artistic works in conventional copyright jurisprudence. The role of the author, as the creator and producer of a work, has been seen as distinct and separate from that of the publisher and user. Copyright laws and customary norms protect the author’s rights in his creation to provide the incentive to create and allow him to appropriate the social value generated by his creativity as recognition …

Gay And Lesbian Elders: History, Law, And Identity Politics In The United States, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The approximately two million gay and lesbian elders in the United States are an underserved and understudied population. At a time when gay men and lesbians enjoy an unprecedented degree of social acceptance and legal protection, many elders face the daily challenges of aging isolated from family, detached from the larger gay and lesbian community, and ignored by mainstream aging initiatives. Drawing on materials from law, history, and social theory, this book integrates practical proposals for reform with larger issues of sexuality and identity. Beginning with a summary of existing demographic data and offering a historical overview of pre-Stonewall views …

Lucy V. Adams, Sage Encyclopedia Of African American Education, Armando G. Hernandez

Armando G. Hernandez

Each topic in this 2-volume encyclopedia is discussed as it relates to the education of African Americans. The entries provide a comprehensive overview of educational institutions at every level, from preschool through graduate and professional training, with special attention to historically and predominantly Black colleges and universities. The encyclopedia follows the struggle of African Americans to achieve equality in education—beginning among an enslaved population and evolving into the present—as the efforts of many remarkable individuals furthered this cause through court decisions and legislation.

Putting The World Back Together? Recovering Faithful Citizenship In A Postmodern Age, Harry G. Hutchison

Harry G. Hutchison

Archbishop Chaput’s book, Render Unto Caesar, signifies the continuation of an impressive and persistent debate about what is means to be Catholic and how Catholics should live out the teachings of the Church in political life in our postmodern society. Render Unto Caesar provides evidence that the America’s identity and future are endangered by trends reifying radical human autonomy and choice. New threats surface in the form of legislation and judicial interpretations permitting choices that were once considered criminal to be accepted. This trend has been accompanied, if not facilitated, by U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have contributed greatly to …

Finding Footing In A Postmodern Conception Of Law, Bryan H. Druzin

Bryan H. Druzin

The following jurisprudence paper examines the implications of postmodern thought upon our conception of law. In this paper I argue that, despite the absolute, all-consuming moral relativism towards which postmodernism seems to lead in its most extreme form, its acceptance in fact in no way undermines the possibility of finding solid ground for our legal principles. This paper contends that moral objectivity can be found in the individual experience of suffering generated by these very subjective concoctions. Subjective concoctions or not, they are real in that they imbue a sense of value into conditions, and may thus serve as foundational …

Law Without The State: The Theory Of High Engagement And The Emergence Of Spontaneous Legal Order Within Commercial Systems, Bryan H. Druzin

Bryan H. Druzin