Law Commons^™

Did J. Edgar Hoover Kill Jfk?, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

This article reviews a recent story in the National Enquirer that asserts that J. Edgar Hoover ordered the JFK murder which directly contradicts earlier claims made by the publication.

Due Process Abroad, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

Defining the scope of the Constitution’s application outside U.S. territory is more important than ever. This month the Supreme Court will hear oral argument about whether the Constitution applies when a U.S. officer shoots a Mexican child across the border. Meanwhile the federal courts are scrambling to evaluate the constitutionality of an Executive Order that, among other things, deprives immigrants of their right to reenter the United States. Yet the extraterritorial reach of the Due Process Clause — the broadest constitutional limit on the government’s authority to deprive persons of “life, liberty, and property” — remains obscure. Up to now, …

The Jfk Cover-Up Continues, But The Truth Is Seeping Out, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

In 1992, nearly three decades after JFK was slain by hidden sniper fire in Dallas, TX, on Nov. 22, 1963, Congress without any dissenting votes passed a statute “to provide for the expeditious disclosure of records relevant to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”

The recent astonishing refusal of President Trump to release in full the contents of all remaining classified JFK assassination files confirms that more than half a century after the assassination the governmental coverup of the full truth about that dreadful murder is still underway.

This article reviews the actions immediately preceding October 26, 2017, the …

How Laws Are Made: The Courts, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Law, as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, is “a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority and having binding legal force.” Our laws come from our three branches of Government: legislative, executive, and judicial. These webinars will focus on the law-making activities of each branch, the documents that are created during the process, and how they are used by lawyers and legal researchers.

Courts interpret statutes, determine constitutionality, and create law as part of our common law system.

How Laws Are Made: The Administrative Agencies, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Law, as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, is “a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority and having binding legal force.” Our laws come from our three branches of Government: legislative, executive, and judicial. These webinars will focus on the law-making activities of each branch, the documents that are created during the process, and how they are used by lawyers and legal researchers.

Administrative agencies are part of the executive branch of Government headed by the President. They make laws through the rule-making process, but they also enforce the rules and have quasi-judicial power.

How Laws Are Made: The Legislature, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Law, as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, is “a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority and having binding legal force.” Our laws come from our three branches of Government: legislative, executive, and judicial. These webinars will focus on the law-making activities of each branch, the documents that are created during the process, and how they are used by lawyers and legal researchers

From Print To Digital And Back Again: Lessons From A Library Newsletter, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

UGA Law Library’s longstanding newsletter Amicus Briefs first saw circulation in 1984. Over a period of more than 30 years the publication has changed hands, formats and styles many times. Today the newsletter is published both electronically and physically, and in 2017 is now further expanding its reach via podcasting. This session will trace one library newsletter’s journey, sharing lessons learned along the way about platform and content choices, marketing and dissemination, and measuring readership. The past and present technology used will also be discussed including HTML, Drupal, WordPress, MailChimp, Google Analytics, Facebook and Piktochart.

Chevron In The Circuit Courts: The Codebook Appendix, Kent H. Barnett, Christopher J. Walker

Scholarly Works

For our empirical study on the use of Chevron deference in the federal courts of appeals, we utilized the following Codebook. This Codebook draws substantially from the codebook appended to William Eskridge and Lauren Baer's pathbreaking study of administrative law's deference doctrines at the Supreme Court. Our research assistants and we followed the instructions below when coding judicial decisions. To address questions as they arose and to ensure consistent coding, we maintained close contact with each other and our research assistants throughout the project and clarified the Codebook to address additional issues. Further details concerning our methodology (and its limitations) …

Inimicus Libertatis: Chief Justice Rehnquist’S Majority Or Plurality Opinions In The Field Of Criminal Procedure, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Scholarly Works

Since the early 1970’s an increasingly conservative Supreme Court of the United States has been leading this country through a “Criminal Procedure Counterrevolution” (also called “The Rehnquisition”), during which the federal rights and remedies of criminal defendants have been inexorably and significantly eroded. There are numerous books and law review articles discussing this counterrevolution. Chief Justice Rehnquist, the most articulate and ideological of the Courts conservative justices, may properly be regarded as the intellectual founder and leader of this trend in favor of restricting criminal procedure rights.

This article analyzes and provides a bibliography of Supreme Court criminal procedure opinions …

Is It Time To Welcome Our Robot Overlords?, Carol A. Watson, Kris Niedringhaus

Presentations

You've probably heard of ROSS Intelligence, Kira Systems, or Lex Machina but what about Premonition, Docubot, or the Do Not Pay chatbot? Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the practice of law. Or does it? Skeptics predicted a legal apocalypse while optimists predict positive outcomes. Either way, it's a revolution. Find out more about how AI is, and will, impact the legal industry. Topics will include defining artificial intelligence, the history of AI’s development, as well as big law’s approach to AI, ethics implications, and how AI is currently being used in the legal environment. We’ll also discuss whether …

Lawyer ≠ Luddite, Jason Tubinis, Khelani Clay, Jim Henneberger, Zanada Joyner, Shannon Roddy

Presentations

Being a competent attorney means being a competent technologist. ABA Model Rule 1.1 (Competence) requires all lawyers to stay abreast of technology even if they still use a Dictaphone and typewriter and think “the cloud” refers to the fluffy white stuff in the sky. It can be malpractice to misuse or misunderstand technology, and this misuse can take many forms. Lack of familiarity with technology can lead to improper production of confidential information, delays in litigation, wasting time and client funds, ending up on Above the Law (and not in a good way), and more.

Legal technology courses are becoming …

Decision Making Models In 2/2 Time: Two Speakers, Two Models (Maybe), Sharon Bradley, Tim Tarvin

Presentations

Our students have to learn so many new skills to be successful in law school and law practice. Legal research, client interviewing, and case analysis just for starters. Our teaching methods have to engage our students while preparing them to “think like a lawyer.” We also have the responsibility to familiarize students in evaluating the “benefits and risks associated with relevant technology” and to develop efficient practices and processes. The speakers will look at decision making models that are practical and useable.

One speaker will discuss his experiences in a clinical setting using decision trees, teaching his students to visualize …

Looking More Closely At The Platypus Of Formal Rulemaking, Kent H. Barnett

Popular Media

Professor Kent Barnett argues that the oft-criticized formal rulemaking process has virtues in proper settings.

Grassy Knoll Shots? Limousine Slowdown?, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

This article reviews the book Twenty-six Seconds by Alexandrea Zapruder. It also questions whether the only film of the JFK assassination was altered by the CIA.

Why Not Limit Neil Gorsuch — And All Supreme Court Justices — To 18-Year Terms?, Lori A. Ringhand, Paul M. Collins Jr.

Popular Media

Legal scholars and political scientists increasingly question whether life tenure remains a good idea for Supreme Court justices. While scholars disagree about the exact numbers, our Supreme Court justices are serving longer and longer terms; presidents have incentives to choose younger and younger nominees; and the justices themselves appear to delay retirement in the hope of having an ideologically compatible president select their replacements. Moreover, the confirmation process has become increasingly contentious, culminating last year in Senate Republicans refusing to even grant a hearing to President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.

As a result, many scholars propose a shift to …

Circumstances Undetermined: Dorothy Kilgallen And Jfk's Murder, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

This article reviews the mysterious circumstances surrounding reporter Dorothy Kilgallen's death and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Real Resources For Researching Ip Law, Anne Burnett

Presentations

A presentation on strategies for researching intellectual property law in classroom L. Sponsored by the Alexander Campbell King Law Library and the Intellectual Property Law Society.

The Persistence Of Fatal Police Taserings 2016, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

In this Article, Professor Wilkes updates his research on police tasering by surveying the fatal taserings by police officers that occurred in 2016.

Don’T Expect The First Amendment To Protect The Media, Ronnell Anderson Jones, Sonja R. West

Popular Media

Op-ed in the New York Times about the limits on the protection of the press under the First Amendment.

Was Castro Behind The Jfk Assassination?, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

A month after Fidel Castro’s death, on Dec. 19, 2016, the tabloid National Enquirer published an article tinglingly titled “Dying Castro Admitted Killing JFK!” The article’s sensationalistic subtitle proclaimed “Chilling New Evidence Blows Assassination Wide Open After 53 Years.” This article by Professor Wilkes debunks the assertions set forth in the Enquirer article.

Green Home Standards: Information And Incentives, James Smith

Scholarly Works

The “green building” movement began in the United States during the 1990s. In its early stages, reformers focused on minimizing adverse environmental impacts from major public, institutional, and commercial buildings. Private-sector organizations developed voluntary standards to promote green building practices, the most prominent being LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). More recently, widespread interest in residential green building has developed. Several organizations having developed voluntary green home standards. A standard promulgated by the federal government, the Energy Star Certified Home, has achieved substantial market success during the past decade. This article describes and assesses the Energy Star Home and …

Why Some Religious Accommodations For Mandatory Vaccinations Violate The Establishment Clause, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

All states require parents to inoculate their children against deadly diseases prior to enrolling them in public schools, but the vast majority of states also allow parents to opt out on religious grounds. This religious accommodation imposes potentially grave costs on the children of non-vaccinating parents and on those who cannot be immunized. The Establishment Clause prohibits religious accommodations that impose such costs on third parties in some cases, but not in all. This presents a difficult line-drawing problem. The Supreme Court has offered little guidance, and scholars are divided.

This Article addresses the problem of religious accommodations that impose …

Dictation And Delegation In Securities Regulation, Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

When Congress undertakes major financial reform, either it dictates the precise contours of the law itself or it delegates the bulk of the rulemaking to an administrative agency. This choice has critical consequences. Making the law self-executing in federal legislation is swift, not subject to administrative tinkering, and less vulnerable than rulemaking to judicial second-guessing. Agency action is, in contrast, deliberate, subject to ongoing bureaucratic fiddling and more vulnerable than statutes to judicial challenge.

This Article offers the first empirical analysis of the extent of congressional delegation in securities law from 1970 to the present day, examining nine pieces of …

Proportionality Lost? The Rise Of Enforcement-Based Equity In The Deportation System And Its Limitations, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

This article briefly explains and critiques the legal framework that has made enforcement discretion the primary means of injecting proportionality and fairness into the modern deportation system. The article provides an overview of shifting approaches to this enforcement discretion under the Obama and Trump administrations, and describes some of the key Supreme Court jurisprudence interpreting this framework.

Short-Circuiting The New Major Questions Doctrine, Kent H. Barnett, Christopher J. Walker

Scholarly Works

In Minor Courts, Major Questions, Michael Coenen and Seth Davis advance perhaps the most provocative proposal to date to address the new major questions doctrine articulated in King v. Burwell. They argue that the Supreme Court alone should identify “major questions” that deprive agencies of interpretive primacy, prohibiting the doctrine’s use in the lower courts. Although we agree that the Court provided little guidance about the doctrine’s scope in King v. Burwell, we are unpersuaded that the solution to this lack of guidance is to limit its doctrinal development to one court that hears fewer than eighty cases per year. …

Adjudicating Religious Sincerity, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

Recent disputes about the “contraception mandate” under the Affordable Care Act and about the provision of goods and services for same-sex weddings have drawn attention to the law of religious accommodations. So far, however, one of the requirements of a religious accommodation claim has escaped sustained scholarly attention: a claimant must be sincere. Historically, scholars have contested this requirement on the ground that adjudicating religious sincerity requires government officials to delve too deeply into religious questions, something the Establishment Clause forbids. Until recently, however, the doctrine was fairly clear: though the government may not evaluate the objective accuracy or plausibility …

Reforming The Tax Incentives For Higher Education, Camilla E. Watson

Scholarly Works

Federal spending on higher education has long been controversial, primarily because it has grown exponentially since the 1950s but it has produced a system which many regard as too expensive and grossly inefficient. The soaring costs are placing higher education beyond the reach of many Americans, and of those who enter college, less than half complete their degrees. Particular criticism has been directed toward the education tax incentives, enacted mostly in the late 1990s, which shifted federalfunding for higher education from direct benefits to students in the form of grants, loans and work-study programs to indirect benefits through the tax …

The “Sovereigns Of Cyberspace” And State Action: The First Amendment’S Application (Or Lack Thereof) To Third-Party Platforms, Jonathan Peters

Scholarly Works

Many scholars have commented that the state action doctrine forecloses use of the First Amendment to constrain the policies and practices of online service providers. But few have comprehensively studied this issue, and the seminal article exploring “[c]yberspace and the [s]tate [a]ction [d]ebate” is fifteen years old, published before the U.S. Supreme Court reformulated the federal approach to state action. It is important to give the state action doctrine regular scholarly attention, not least because it is increasingly clear that “the private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression.” It is critical to understand whether the First …

Which Supreme Court Cases Influenced Recent Supreme Court Ip Decisions? A Citation Study, Joseph S. Miller

Scholarly Works

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided an increasing number of intellectual property cases — especially patent cases — over the last several terms. Which prior cases influence the stated reasoning in these recent Supreme Court IP cases? A handful of citation studies of supreme courts in the U.S., both state and federal, conducted over the last 40 years suggest that the Court would most often cite its own prior cases; that it would cite its more recent cases more often than its older cases; and that a small number of its prior cases would receive a large share of the …

The Grand Jury: A Shield Of A Different Sort, R. Michael Cassidy, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

According to the Washington Post, 991 people were shot to death by police officers in the United States during calendar year 2015, and 957 people were fatally shot in 2016. A disproportionate percentage of the citizens killed in these police-civilian encounters were black. Events in Ferguson, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; Charlotte, North Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Staten Island, New York - to name but a few affected cities - have now exposed deep distrust between communities of color and law enforcement. Greater transparency is necessary to begin to heal this culture of distrust and to inform the debate going forward …