Law Commons^™

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

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My aim in this short Article is both specific and general. Specifically, I examine whether the Eighth Amendment should be held to prohibit imposition of death sentences upon offenders with severe mental illnesses, as is the case with mentally retarded and juvenile offenders. More generally, and perhaps more importantly, I examine the current Eighth Amendment test for categorical prohibitions, find it wanting, and propose a different test that, at least in my view, more neatly captures what the Eighth Amendment is intended to accomplish.

I believe the key to an Eighth Amendment analysis of categorical prohibitions lies in two dilemmas …

Teaching Multiple Skills In Drafting & Simulation Courses, Karen J. Sneddon

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Good morning. I am really excited to be at this conference as a transactional lawyer who never drafted anything before she went into practice and had very, very little experience with any of the other transactional skills that I would be using on a daily basis. I am really excited to hear about the number of courses and opportunities that students have now. Of course, I am thrilled to speak about the opportunities that I offer the students in my courses.

What I do is provide two opportunities to learn about counseling. Every student at Mercer University School of Law …

Race To The Left: A Legislator’S Guide To Greening A Corporate Code, Judd F. Sneirson

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American corporate law tolerates green businesses. Green business decisions that are informed, disinterested, and made in the good-faith best interests of the firm will enjoy deference pursuant to the business judgment rule, whether the decisions maximize shareholder profits or sacrifice them in the name of sustainability. Corporate law generally stops there, however, and neither encourages green business efforts nor particularly discourages them.

States are more or less uniform in this approach, and thus new businesses selecting a state of incorporation have had no green basis for preferring one state’s corporate laws to those of another. Recent efforts in Oregon to …

Competition: The Next Generation Of Environmental Regulation?, Stephen M. Johnson

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Risk. In the environmental arena, when determining whether to regulate or how to regulate activities or products, policymakers must begin by assessing the level of risk presented by the activity or product. Although essential information about the level of risk is often in the hands of the actors or producers, they may be reluctant to provide this information to policymakers, unless they are compelled to do so, because the disclosure of information about the risk presented by their activity or product could reduce demand for their activity or product, increase potential liability for harm caused by their activity or product, …

Is Religion The Environment’S Last Best Hope? Targeting Change In Individual Behavior Through Personal Norm Activation, Stephen M. Johnson

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This Article explores the important role that religious organizations have played, and can play, in personal norm activation to influence change in individuals’ environmentally destructive actions. Part I of the Article describes the need for regulating or targeting individuals, in addition to industrial sources, in order to address many of the remaining significant environmental problems. Part II examines the advantages and disadvantages of targeting individual actions through command-and-control regulation, economic-based alternatives, and information disclosure programs. Part III outlines the concept of norm activation and details the manner in which information disclosure programs can be used to activate personal norms to …