Law Commons^™

The First Amendment Status Of Commercial Speech: Why The Fcc Regulations Implementing The Telephone Consumer Protection Act Of 1991 Are Unconstitutional, Deborah L. Hamilton

Michigan Law Review

This Note considers the constitutionality of the FCC's regulations implementing the no-recorded-message provision of the 1991 TCPA and concludes that they violate the First Amendment because they impermissibly distinguish between commercial and noncommercial speech. Part I explains the structure of the FCC's recorded-message regulations and demonstrates that the regulations explicitly distinguish commercial recorded messages from other recorded messages. Part II examines First Amendment protection for commercial speech in light of three 1993 Supreme Court decisions that restructured commercial speech doctrine by holding that the government can single out commercial speech for regulation only in response to a distinct harm arising …

When Discretion Leads To Distortion: Recognizing Pre-Arrest Sentence-Manipulation Claims Under The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Jeffrey L. Fisher

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that sentence manipulation should be a legally viable partial defense - a defense that does not warrant complete exoneration, but does warrant a reduced sentence when the government's investigative techniques place a quantity of drugs before the court that overrepresents the defendant's culpability, or individual blameworthiness. Part I describes the policies and objectives that underlie the Guidelines, but then demonstrates how the rigid application of quantity-based sentencing provisions can lead to sentence manipulation that thwarts these goals, particularly the goal of sentencing according to culpability. Part II describes how courts have responded to sentence manipulation claims. It …

Statutory Interpretation And The Idea Of Progress, Daniel A. Farber

Michigan Law Review

A Review of William N. Eskridge, Dynamic Statutory Interpretation

Reading The Legal Process, Anthony J. Sebok

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in eh Making and Application of Law

Are Credit-Card Late Fees "Interest"? Delineating The Preemptive Reach Of Section 85 Of The National Bank Act Of 1864 And Section 521 Of The Depositary Institutions Deregulation And Monetary Control Act Of 1980, Kevin G. Toh

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that neither section 85 of the NBA nor section 521 of the DIDA preempts state consumer-credit-protection laws regulating late fees on credit-card transactions. Part I discusses the three approaches that the Supreme Court has devised and used over the years to determine when a federal law preempts state law: express preemption, implied preemption, and conflict preemption. Part II applies express preemption analysis and asserts that the ordinary meaning of DIDA section 521's express preemption language does not evince Congress's intent to preempt state prohibitions of late fees. Part III applies implied preemption analysis and argues that neither …

The Copyright Act Of 1976 And Prejudgment Interest, Jon M. Powers

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that prejudgment interest should be presumptively available on damages-plus-profits awards under section 504(b) but should not be available for statutory damages under section 504(c). Part I argues that Supreme Court precedent suggests that the explicit reference to interest found in the Patent Act does not prevent courts from awarding prejudgment interest under the 1976 Copyright Act. Part II asserts that the 1976 Copyright Act's silence regarding prejudgment interest does not represent a congressional choice to exclude this remedy and that, in the face of this silence, the underlying purposes of section 504 should determine the propriety of …

Rhetoric And Reality In Copyright Law, Stewart E. Sterk

Michigan Law Review

My first objective in this article is to explore the gulf between copyright rhetoric and copyright reality. After examining copyright rhetoric, the article demonstrates how neither the need to generate creative activity nor the desire to reward deserving authors provides a plausible justification for current copyright doctrine.

Why, then, does copyright doctrine continue to expand? The concluding section suggests some answers. Interest-group politics provides an obvious answer and one well-substantiated by the history of copyright legislation. But the story does not end with interest-group politics. Instead, I suggest that the nation's elite, including its lawmakers, has a stake in believing …