Law Commons^™

Too Young For The Death Penalty: An Empirical Examination Of Community Conscience And The Juvenile Death Penalty From The Perspective Of Capital Jurors, William J. Bowers, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, Valerie P. Hans, Michael E. Antonio

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As our analysis of jury decisionmaking in juvenile capital trials was nearing completion, the Missouri Supreme Court declared the juvenile death penalty unconstitutional in Simmons v. Roper. The court held that the execution of persons younger than eighteen years of age at the time of their crime violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. This decision patently rejected the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Stanford v. Kentucky, which permitted the execution of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. In deciding Simmons, the Missouri Supreme Court applied the U.S. Supreme Court's reasoning in Atkins v. Virginia to …

Capital Jurors As The Litmus Test Of Community Conscience For The Juvenile Death Penalty, Michael E. Antonio, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, Valerie P. Hans, William J. Bowers

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This fall, the United States Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty in Simmons v. Roper. The Eighth Amendment issue before the Court in Simmons will be whether the juvenile death penalty accords with the conscience of the community. This article presents evidence that bears directly on the conscience of the community in juvenile capital cases as revealed through extensive in-depth interviews with jurors who made the critical life-or-death decision in such cases. The data come from the Capital Jury Project, a national study of the exercise of sentencing discretion in capital cases conducted with …

The Employment Consequences Of Wrongful-Discharge Laws: Large, Small, Or None At All?, David H. Autor, John J. Donahue Iii, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Is It Wrong To Commute Death Row? Retribution, Atonement, And Mercy, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Is it a morally permissible exercise of mercy for a governor to commute the death sentences of everyone on a state's death row, as Governor Ryan recently did in Illinois? I distinguish three different theories of mercy. The first two theories locate mercy within a theory of punishment as retribution. The first theory treats mercy as a means by which to achieve equity. As such, this theory is not really a theory of mercy; it is instead a theory of justice. The second theory treats mercy as a genuine virtue independent of justice. In particular, mercy is understood as an …

Recent Evaluative Research On Jury Trial Innovations, B. Michael Dann, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

During the past decade, state jury reform commissions, many individual federal and state judges, and jury scholars have advocated the adoption of a variety of innovative trial procedures to assist jurors in trials. Many jury trial reforms reflect growing awareness of best practices in education and communication as well as research documenting that jurors take an active rather than a passive approach to their decision-making task. Traditional adversary jury trial procedures often appear to assume that jurors are blank slates, who will passively wait until the end of the trial and the start of jury deliberations to form opinions about …

Secondary Picketing In Canada: Thoughts For The Pepsi Generation, Henry Dinsdale, Dan Awrey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Before the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Local 558 v. Pepsi-Cola, the law on secondary picketing was a murky and often inconsistent area of jurisprudence. Yet the Court's attempt to clarify the issue by declaring the per se legality of secondary picketing may have muddied the waters even more. Specifically, the authors argue, the Court's reliance on the U.S. Supreme Court's Tree Fruits decision and the distinction it draws between general and struck product picketing may have made the law even more difficult to apply.

The authors contend that such a distinction ignores …

Interpretive Holism And The Structural Method, Or How Charles Black Might Have Thought About Campaign Finance Reform And Congressional Timidity, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Critiquing As An Opportunity, Joel Atlas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The path of critiquing a paper is, in all but a rare case, laced with mines: poorly constructed sentences, non-thematic paragraphs, and mangled legal standards. But rather than view these as trip interruptions, perhaps teachers can view them as challenges. After all, every student error is a learning opportunity for that student.

Profiling With Apologies, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Labor And Finance As Inevitably Transnational: Globalization Demands A Sophisticated And Transnational Lens, Katherine V.W. Stone, Timothy A. Canova, Claire Moore Dickerson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Domestic Violence And The Politics Of Privacy, By Kristin A. Kelly [Book Review], Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Explaining Death Row's Population And Racial Composition, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Twenty-three years of murder and death sentence data show how murder demographics help explain death row populations. Nevada and Oklahoma are the most death-prone states; Texas's death sentence rate is below the national mean. Accounting for the race of murderers establishes that black representation on death row is lower than black representation in the population of murder offenders. This disproportion results from reluctance to seek or impose death in black defendant-black victim cases, which more than offsets eagerness to seek and impose death in black defendant-white victim cases. Death sentence rates in black defendant-white victim cases far exceed those in …

Attorney Fees In Class Action Settlements: An Empirical Study, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Study of two comprehensive class action case data sets covering 1993-2002 shows that the amount of client recovery is overwhelmingly the most important determinant of the attorney fee award. Even in cases in which the courts engage in the lodestar calculation (the product of reasonable hours and a reasonable hourly rate), the client's recovery generally explains the pattern of awards better than the lodestar. Thus, the time and expense of a lodestar calculation may be wasteful. We also find no robust evidence that either recoveries for plaintiffs or fees of their attorneys increased overtime. The mean fee award in common …

Civil Obedience, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Discussions of legal ethics generally assume that lawyers should deliberate straightforwardly on the basis of reasons to act or refrain from acting. This model of deliberation fails to account for the role of the law in resolving normative disagreement and coordinating social activity by people who do not share comprehensive ethical doctrines. The law represents a collective decision about what citizens ought to do, which replaces the reasons individuals would otherwise have to act. This Article contends that legal ethics ought to be understood as an aspect of this theory of the authority of law. On this account, lawyers have …

Arbitration And Litigation Of Employment Claims: An Empirical Comparison, Theodore Eisenberg, Elizabeth Hill

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The authors conducted empirical research comparing court case and arbitrated outcomes for employment disputes. In cases not involving civil rights claims, they found little evidence that arbitrated outcomes materially differed from trial outcomes where the claimant was a higher-paid employee. Moreover, they found no statistically significant differences between employee win rates or in the median or mean awards in arbitration and litigation. They also reported evidence indicating that arbitrated disputes conclude more quickly than litigated disputes.

On International And Interdisciplinary Legal Ethics Scholarship, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

"Legal Ethics is an international and interdisciplinary journal dedicated to the field of legal ethics." The mission statement of this journal poses three concise challenges for scholars in this discipline: To define the domain of legal ethics, to study it from a perspective that is valid across jurisdictional boundaries, and to incorporate the insights of related disciplines. As befits an emerging and exciting field, lawyers and university faculty throughout the English- speaking common-law world have begun to engage with all three of these problems. The book reviews section of Legal Ethics has highlighted the publication of many of the …

Challenges For Democracy And Trade: The Case Of The United States, Chantal Thomas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Predominant political theory holds that legislators are protectionist regarding international trade because susceptibility to minority interest groups leads them to vote in ways that protect domestic industries at the expense of free trade. Because free trade is widely regarded as beneficial to the majority, the protectionist tendency of the legislature is believed to be a disservice to most Americans. These two theories have led to policies that restrict the role of the legislature in the formulation of trade policy, specifically, the creation of the fast track framework for trade policy legislation that exists today. This Essay challenges these two theories, …

Legal And Ethical Duties Of Lawyers After Sarbanes-Oxley, Roger C. Cramton, George M. Cohen, Susan P. Koniak

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

From "Mission-Creep" To Gestalt-Switch: Justice, Finance, The Ifis, And The Intended Beneficiaries Of Globalization, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Legal Treatment Of Cohabitation In The United States, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article discusses the variety of ways state legal systems in the United States treat cohabitation, both by same-sex and heterosexual couples. The different approaches are described along a spectrum that ranges from one extreme, under which cohabitants have essentially no rights against one another or against third parties, to the other extreme, under which cohabitants are to be treated as though they were married under state law. Different areas of law are discussed, including the rights of cohabitants both against one another (remedies upon dissolution, inheritance) and against third parties, such as state benefits, tort claims, health-related benefits, and …

Lifting The Veil On Punishment, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

When the state punishes a person, it treats him as it ordinarily should not. It takes away his property, throws him in prison, or otherwise interferes with his liberty. Theories of punishment try to explain why such harsh treatment is nonetheless morally permissible, if not morally obligatory. Such theories often seem to take for granted that the state in question is an upright one.

Among other things, the states in which we live fail, one might reasonably believe, to distribute wealth and power fairly among their citizens. Nor are the criminal justice systems they superintend flawless, not least of which …

Is Land Special? The Unjustified Preference For Landownership In Regulatory Takings Law, Eduardo M. Peñalver

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article critiques the Court's attempt to cabin the Lucas "per se" takings rule by limiting it to real property. It argues that the distinction between real and personal property cannot be justified by history or the differing expectations of property owners. It then applies five theoretical frameworks (libertarian, personhood, utilitarian, public choice, and Thomistic-Aristotelian natural law) and finds that none of them supports the jurisprudential distinction between real and personal property. As a result, the article argues that "because the distinction between personal and real property is an unprincipled one, it cannot save the Court from the unpalatable implications …

Searching For The Soul Of Judicial Decisionmaking: An Empirical Study Of Religious Freedom Decisions, Gregory C. Sisk, Michael Heise, Andrew P. Morriss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

During the past half century, constitutional theories of religious freedom have been in a state of great controversy, perpetual transformation, and consequent uncertainty. Given the vitality of religious faith for most Americans and the vigor of the enduring debate on the proper role of religious belief and practice in public society, a searching exploration of the influences upon judges in making decisions that uphold or reject claims implicating religious freedom is long overdue. Many thoughtful contributions have been to the debate about whether judges should allow their religious beliefs to surface in the exercise of their judicial role. Yet much …

Tahoe's Requiem: The Death Of The Scalian View Of Property And Justice, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

What Future Democracy?, Aziz Rana

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The threat posed by Aids to the development of democracy in Africa plays no part in current discussions of the impact of the disease.

Virtual Worlds As Comparative Law, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Davey And The Limits Of Equality, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Was Arthur Andersen Different? An Empirical Examination Of Major Accounting Firm Audits Of Large Clients, Theodore Eisenberg, Jonathan R. Macey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Enron and other corporate financial scandals focused attention on the accounting industry in general and on Arthur Andersen in particular. Part of the policy response to Enron, the criminal prosecution of Andersen eliminated one of the few major audit firms capable of auditing many large public corporations. This article explores whether Andersen's performance, as measured by frequency of financial restatements, measurably differed from that of other large auditors. Financial restatements trigger significant negative market reactions and their frequency can be viewed as a measure of accounting performance. We analyze the financial restatement activity of approximately 1,000 large public firms from …

Are Single-Sex Schools Inherently Unequal?, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Thoughts On Smith And Religious-Group Autonomy, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.