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Articles 1 - 25 of 25
Full-Text Articles in Law
After The Spill Is Gone: The Gulf Of Mexico, Environmental Crime, And Criminal Law, David M. Uhlmann
After The Spill Is Gone: The Gulf Of Mexico, Environmental Crime, And Criminal Law, David M. Uhlmann
Articles
The Gulf oil spill was the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and will be the most significant criminal case ever prosecuted under U.S. environmental laws. The Justice Department is likely to prosecute BP, Transocean, and Halliburton for criminal violations of the Clean Water Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which will result in the largest fines ever imposed in the United States for any form of corporate crime. The Justice Department also may decide to pursue charges for manslaughter, false statements, and obstruction of justice. The prosecution will shape public perceptions about environmental crime, for reasons that are …
Public Consensus As Constitutional Authority, Richard A. Primus
Public Consensus As Constitutional Authority, Richard A. Primus
Articles
Barry Friedman's new book The Will of the People attempts to dissolve constitutional law's countermajoritariand ifficulty by showing that, in practice,t he Supreme Court does only what the public will tolerate. His account succeeds if "the countermajoritarian difficulty" refers to the threat that courts will run the country in ways that contravene majority preference, but not if the "the countermajoritarian difficulty" refers to the need to explain the legitimate sources of judicial authority in cases where decisions do contravene majority preference. Friedman's book does not pursue the second possibility, and may suggest that doing so is unimportant, in part because …
Pangloss Responds, Daniel A. Crane
Pangloss Responds, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
I am afraid that William Shieber and I are speaking past each other. I agree wholeheartedly with his assertion that anyone who believes that political appointees do not exert a considerable influence over the antitrust agencies is naïve. However, Technocracy and Antitrust does not advance the Panglossian view that the antitrust agencies are apolitical, if by that we mean that robotic machines devoid of human perspective or ideological commitment churn out scientifically predetermined antitrust results.
Double-Consciousness In Constitutional Adjudication, Richard A. Primus
Double-Consciousness In Constitutional Adjudication, Richard A. Primus
Articles
Constitutional theorists are familiar with epistemic and consequentialist reasons why judges might allow their decision making to be shaped by strongly held public opinion. The epistemic approach treats public opinion as an expert indicator, while the consequentialistapproach counsels judges to compromise legally correct interpretations so as not to antagonize a hostile public. But there is also a third reason, which we can think ofas constitutive. In limited circumstances, the fact that the public strongly holds a given view can be one of the factors that together constitute the correct answer to a constitutional question. In those circumstances, what the public …
China's Acquisitions Abroad - Global Ambitions, Domestic Effects, Nicholas C. Howson
China's Acquisitions Abroad - Global Ambitions, Domestic Effects, Nicholas C. Howson
Articles
In the past year or so, the world has observed with seeming trepidation what appears to be a new phenomenon-China's "stepping out" into the world economy. The move, labeled the "Going Out Strategy" by Chinese policy makers, sees China acting in the world not just as a trader of commodities and raw materials, or the provider of inexpensively-produced consumer goods for every corner of the globe, but as a driven and sophisticated acquirer of foreign assets and the equity interests in the legal entities that control such assets. The New Yorker magazine, ever topical and appropriately humorous, highlighted this attention …
Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross
Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
In case after case, erroneous conviction for capital murder has been proven. I contend that these are not disconnected accidents, but systematic consequences of the nature of homicice prosecution in the general and capital prosecution in particular - that in this respect, as in others, death distorts and undermines the course of the law.
Why Did Voters Reject Michigan's Physician-Assisted Suicide Initiative?, Yale Kamisar
Why Did Voters Reject Michigan's Physician-Assisted Suicide Initiative?, Yale Kamisar
Articles
In November 1997, when Oregon voters reaffirmed their support for doctor-assisted suicide, some commentators called it a turning point for the "right to die" movement. But the lopsided defeat of a similar proposal in Michigan is a better barometer: in general, assisted suicide continues to fare badly in the political arena.
Why The Proposal To Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide In Michigan Failed, Yale Kamisar
Why The Proposal To Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide In Michigan Failed, Yale Kamisar
Articles
Some commentators and participants in the national debate over physician-assisted suicide (PAS) made much of the fact that in 1997 Oregon voters reaffirmed their support for assisted suicide by a much larger margin than the initial 1994 vote. The state legislature had put the initiative (which had initially passed by a 5149% vote) back on the ballot for an unprecedented second vote. This time the initiative was reaffirmed overwhelmingly, 60-40%. Barbara Coombs Lee, Executive Director of Compassion in Dying (an organization that counsels people considering PAS and one of the plaintiffs in Washington v. Glucksberg, 1997), hailed the second Oregon …
Update: American Public Opinion On The Death Penalty - It's Getting Personal (Symposium: How The Death Penalty Works: Empirical Studies Of The Modern Capital Sentencing System), Samuel R. Gross
Articles
Americans' views on capital punishment have stabilized. In 1994, when Professor Phoebe Ellsworth and I published a review of research on death penalty attitudes in the United States,' we began by noting that "support for the death penalty [is] at a near record high."'2 That finding, like most of the others we reported, has not changed. Nonetheless, it is interesting to pause and review the data on public opinion on the death penalty that have accumulated over the past several years. Stability is less dramatic than change but it may be equally important, and there is some news to report. …
Enlightenment, Donald J. Herzog
Enlightenment, Donald J. Herzog
Articles
It's a curious broadside, a work of austere graphics and polite prose far removed from the mischievous engravings and bawdy ballads usually appearing on such sheets. Drawn from an address that 345 printers had signed and 138 had presented to the queen, the original text was committed to parchment "and accompanied by a Copy surperbly printed on white Satin, edged with white Silk Fringe, backed with purple Satin, and mounted in an Ivory Roller with appropriate Devices." Even in the published version, the arch is full of intricately detailed work. The printers took pride in their craftmanship: "This Specimen of …
Chief Justice Hughes' Letter On Court-Packing, Richard D. Friedman
Chief Justice Hughes' Letter On Court-Packing, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
After one of the great landslides in American presidential history, Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office for the second time on January 20, 1937. As he had four years before, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, like Roosevelt a former governor of New York, administered the oath. Torrents of rain drenched the inauguration, and Hughes’ damp whiskers waved in the biting wind. When the skullcapped Chief Justice reached the promise to defend the Constitution, he “spoke slowly and with special emphasis.” The President responded in kind, though he felt like saying, as he later told his aide Sam Rosenman: …
Hardening Of The Attitudes: Americans' Views On The Death Penalty, Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Samuel R. Gross
Hardening Of The Attitudes: Americans' Views On The Death Penalty, Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
American support for the death penalty has steadily increased since 1966, when opponents outnumbered supporters, and now in the mid-1990s is at a near record high. Research over the last 20 years has tended to confirm the hypothesis that most people’s death penalty attitudes (pro or con) are based on emotion rather than information or rational argument. People feel strongly about the death penalty, know little about it, and feel no need to know more. Factual information (e.g., about deterrence and discrimination) is generally irrelevant to people’s attitudes, and they are aware that this is so. Support for the death …
Democratic Credentials, Donald J. Herzog
Democratic Credentials, Donald J. Herzog
Articles
We've made a mistake, urges Bruce Ackerman. We've failed to notice, or have forgotten, that ours is a dualist democracy: ordinary representatives passing their statutes are in fact the democratic inferiors of We the People, who at rare junctures appear on the scene and affirm new constitutional principles. (Actually, he claims in passing that we have a three-track democracy.)' Dwelling lovingly on dualism, Ackerman doesn't quite forget to discuss democracy, but he comes close. I want to raise some questions about the democratic credentials of Ackerman's view. Not, perhaps, the ones he anticipates. So I don't mean to argue that …
The Romance Of Revenge: Capital Punishment In America, Samuel R. Gross
The Romance Of Revenge: Capital Punishment In America, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
On February 17, 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing and dismembering 15 young men and boys (Associated Press 1992a). Dahmer had been arrested six months earlier, on July 22, 1991. On January 13 he pled guilty to the fifteen murder counts against him, leaving open only the issue of his sanity. Jury selection began two weeks later, and the trial proper started on January 30. The jury heard two weeks of testimony about murder, mutilation and necrophilia; they deliberated for 5 hours before finding that Dahmer was sane when he committed these …
To Tell What We Know Or Wait For Godot?, Phoebe C. Ellsworth
To Tell What We Know Or Wait For Godot?, Phoebe C. Ellsworth
Articles
Professor Elliott raises two questions about the American Psychological Association's practice of submitting amicus briefs to the courts. First, are our data sufficiently valid, consistent, and generalizable to be applicable to the real world issues? Second, are amicus briefs adequate to communicate scientific findings? The first of these is not a general question, but must be addressed anew each time the Association considers a new issue. An evaluation of the quality and sufficiency of scientific knowledge about racial discrimination, for example, tells us nothing at all about the quality and sufficiency of scientific knowledge about sexual abuse. "Are the data …
Some Implications Of Cognitive Psychology For Risk Regulation, Roger G. Noll, James E. Krier
Some Implications Of Cognitive Psychology For Risk Regulation, Roger G. Noll, James E. Krier
Articles
Beginning with a set of books and articles published in the 1950s, cognitive psychologists have developed a new descriptive theory of how people make decisions under conditions of risk and uncertainty. A dominant theme in the theory is that most people do not evaluate risky circumstances in the manner assumed by conventional decision theory-they do not, that is, seek to maximize the expected value of some function when selecting among actions with uncertain outcomes. The purpose of this article is to consider some implications of the cognitive theory for regulatory policies designed to control risks to life, health, and the …
Risk, Courts, And Agencies, Clayton P. Gillette, James E. Krier
Risk, Courts, And Agencies, Clayton P. Gillette, James E. Krier
Articles
Public risks are precisely the risks that have recently captured the attention of the legal community and the world at large, in no small part because they give rise to such novel problems for lawyers and such grave apprehensions among lay people. Public risks have moved the legal system to relax doctrines--regarding, for example, standards of causation and culpability, burdens of proof, sharing of liability--that were designed to deal with the private risks that once dominated the landscape. And public risks have moved lay people to intensify their demands for risk control measures. These developments suggest that public risks are …
The Assassination Attempt, Yale Kamisar
The Assassination Attempt, Yale Kamisar
Articles
From the moment the would-be assassin opened fire until many days after he was found not guilty by reaaon of insanity, the press was fascinated by the case. The very same day that it reported the assassination attempt "in the open street, and in the broad face of day," the Times considered but quickly dismissed the possibility of insanity: "The defndant's purpose was carried out with the most cold-blooded determination. . . . His demeanor throughout was cool and collected, nor did there appear any evidence of insanity." When, several days later, it became plain that the defendant was indeed …
A Reflection Upon Amnesty / The Case For Alternative Service: A Reply To Professor Sax, Douglas A. Kahn
A Reflection Upon Amnesty / The Case For Alternative Service: A Reply To Professor Sax, Douglas A. Kahn
Articles
Professor Sax advocates that unconditional amnesty should be granted to Vietnam draft evaders and deserters, and he contends that the condition of alternative service imposed by President Ford, while superficially attractive to some, is unsupported by an acceptable rationale. While I harbor misgivings concerning the grant of any type of amnesty for Vietnam evaders and deserters, I have concluded that amnesty should be given provided that it is conditioned on the performance of some service such as that required by President Ford's program. Obviously, this places me squarely at issue with Professor Sax, and I will attempt to detail the …
The Reincarnation Of The Death Penalty: Is It Possible?, Yale Kamisar
The Reincarnation Of The Death Penalty: Is It Possible?, Yale Kamisar
Articles
Fifty years ago Clarence Darrow, probably the greatest criminal defense lawyer in American history and a leading opponent of capital punishment, observed: The question of capital punishment has been the subject of endless discussion and will probably never be settled so long as men believe in punishment. Some states have abolished and then reinstated it; some have enjoyed capital punishment for long periods of time and finally prohibited the use of it. The reasons why it cannot be settled are plain. There is first of all no agreement as to the objects of punishment. Next there is no way to …
Defects In Our Legal System, Henry M. Bates
Defects In Our Legal System, Henry M. Bates
Articles
That the practice of law and the administration of justice are under a fire of popular distrust and criticism of extraordinary intensity requires no proof. A fact of which there is evidence in numerous contemporary books, in almost every magazine, in the daily papers, in the remarks, or the questions, or it may be in the sneers, of one's friends, requires no further demonstration. The only questions of importance to be answered are to what extent this criticism and this distrust are well founded, what are the remedies for such defects as exist, and how and by whom should they …
Popular Discontent With Law And Some Proposed Remedies, Henry M. Bates
Popular Discontent With Law And Some Proposed Remedies, Henry M. Bates
Articles
That the practice of law and the administration of justice are under the fire of popular distrust and criticism of extraordinary intensity requires no proof. A fact of which there is evidence in numerous contemporary books, in almost every magazine, in the daily papers, in the remarks, or the questions, or it may be in the sneers of one's friends, requires no further demonstration. The only questions of importance to be answered are to what extent this criticism and this distrust are well founded, what are the remedies for such defects as exist, and what are we lawyers going to …
The Corporation Tax Decision, Ralph W. Aigler
The Corporation Tax Decision, Ralph W. Aigler
Articles
Seldom, if ever, in the history of the country has the Supreme Court been called upon within a comparatively short period of time to decide so many questions of widespread interest and vital importance as has been the case during the last year or two. Attempts on the part of the state and national governments to regulate and control corporations, which in recent years have come to exercise such a large and not always wholesome influence upon affairs generally, have been the occasion for the consideration by the court of many of the important cases recently presented. Among these are …
Labor And Capital Before The Law, Thomas M. Cooley
Labor And Capital Before The Law, Thomas M. Cooley
Articles
The chief concern of every political society is the establishment of rights and of adequate securities for their protection. In America, it has been agreed that this shall be done by the people themselves; they shall make their own laws, and choose their own agents to administer them. But the obvious difficulty of doing this directly has been recognized, and the people, after formulating the charter of government, incorporating in it such principles as they deem fundamental, content themselves with delegating all powers of ordinary legislation to representatives. Notwithstanding this delegation, much direct legislation of a very effective and important …
Some Hints On Defects In The Jury System, James V. Campbell
Some Hints On Defects In The Jury System, James V. Campbell
Articles
The occasional freaks of juries have now and then led some members of the bar to speculate on the policy of doing without them entirely, and some persons no doubt think that they have strong convictions that the jury system has become useless. It is safe to say that these extreme views are altogether speculative, and not based on any careful comparison of results. Most persons who have looked into their own experience with courts and juries are ready to agree that where there is no dispute about main facts, so that the chief dispute is one of law, there …