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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Law
Evidentiary Inequality, Sandra F. Sperino
Evidentiary Inequality, Sandra F. Sperino
Faculty Publications
Federal employment discrimination law is rife with evidentiary inequality. Courts allow employers to draw from a broad palette of evidence to defend against discrimination claims, while highly restricting the facts from which plaintiffs can prove their claims. This Article draws from hundreds of cases to show how judges favor the employer's evidence and disfavor the plaintiff's evidence across multiple dimensions, such as time, witnesses, documents, relevance, and reliability. Judges have created a host of named doctrines that severely restrict the evidence plaintiffs are allowed to use to prove their discrimination claims. At the same time, a host of unnamed, and …
Co-Worker Evidence In Court, Sandra F. Sperino
Co-Worker Evidence In Court, Sandra F. Sperino
Faculty Publications
This symposium explores ways to empower workers. Many employment laws rely on workers filing private rights of action to enforce the underlying substantive law. Unfortunately, when workers file these claims in court, courts often do not allow them to rely on evidence from their co-workers. While courts regularly allow employers to submit co-worker evidence of a plaintiff's poor performance or lack of qualifications, they often diminish or exclude a plaintiff's co-worker evidence that the plaintiff performed well or possessed desired qualifications. This Article identifies and explores this evidentiary inequality. It argues that efforts to empower workers must include the power …
What Do I Do With The Porn On My Computer: How A Lawyer Should Counsel Clients About Physical Evidence, Rodney J. Uphoff, Peter A. Joy
What Do I Do With The Porn On My Computer: How A Lawyer Should Counsel Clients About Physical Evidence, Rodney J. Uphoff, Peter A. Joy
Faculty Publications
For years, criminal defense lawyers and commentators have wrestled with thorny ethical and legal issues surrounding defense counsel's obligations with respect to handling items of physical evidence. Commentators have usually focused on the question of whether the lawyer should take possession of physical evidence of a crime as well as on counsel's obligations and options once the lawyer purposively or inadvertently comes into possession of such evidence. After discussing what the ethics rules and the law require concerning handling physical evidence, commentators have generally cautioned lawyers not to take possession of suspected contraband or possible evidence of a crime, except …
Jurisdictional Discovery In Transnational Litigation: Extraterritorial Effects Of United States Federal Practice, S. I. Strong
Jurisdictional Discovery In Transnational Litigation: Extraterritorial Effects Of United States Federal Practice, S. I. Strong
Faculty Publications
This article describes the device in detail, distinguishing it both practically and theoretically from methods used in other common law systems to establish jurisdiction, and discusses how recent US Supreme Court precedent provides international actors with the means of limiting or avoiding this potentially burdensome procedure.
A Discourse On The Aba's Criminal Justice Standards: Prosecution And Defense Functions: The Physical Evidence Dilemma: Does Aba Standard 4-4.6 Offer Appropriate Guidance?, Rodney J. Uphoff
Faculty Publications
Since 1966, when criminal defense lawyer Richard Ryder was disciplined for retaining physical evidence that connected his client to a bank robbery, lawyers and courts have struggled with the ethical dilemma of how defense lawyers should deal with physical evidence that potentially incriminates one of their clients. When a lawyer takes possession of an evidentiary item, must she always turn it over to the authorities, as required by most courts that have addressed this dilemma? Or, can defense counsel return the evidence to the source from whom counsel received it as recommended by Standard 4-4.6 of the ABA Criminal Justice …
Jurisdictional Discovery In United States Federal Courts, S. I. Strong
Jurisdictional Discovery In United States Federal Courts, S. I. Strong
Faculty Publications
The article begins with a discussion of the historical development and jurisprudential bases for jurisdictional discovery, then analyzes the two major structural problems with the device, namely (1) the lack of any identifiable standard regarding when jurisdictional discovery will be ordered and (2) the absence of any understanding about the proper scope of such discovery. Next, the article describes the root causes of these structural inadequacies and proposes several ways to address the root concerns, relying on a new line of Supreme Court precedent (including Ashcroft v. Iqbal) as well as analogies to other common law jurisdictions. The paper concludes …
Coconspirators, “Coventurers,” And The Exception Swallowing The Hearsay Rule, Ben L. Trachtenberg
Coconspirators, “Coventurers,” And The Exception Swallowing The Hearsay Rule, Ben L. Trachtenberg
Faculty Publications
In recent years, prosecutors - sometimes with the blessing of courts - have argued that when proving the existence of a “conspiracy” to justify admission of evidence under the Coconspirator Exception to the Hearsay Rule, they need show only that the declarant and the defendant were “coventurers” with a common purpose, not coconspirators with an illegal purpose. Indeed, government briefs and court decisions specifically disclaim the need to show any wrongful goal whatsoever. This Article contends that such a reading of the Exception is mistaken and undesirable. Conducted for this article, a survey of thousands of court decisions, including the …
Confidentiality In Arbitration: Beyond The Myth, Richard C. Reuben
Confidentiality In Arbitration: Beyond The Myth, Richard C. Reuben
Faculty Publications
Many people assume that arbitration is private and confidential. But is that assumption accurate? This article is the first to explore that question in the important context of whether arbitration communications can be discovered and admitted into evidence in other legal proceedings - a question that is just beginning to show up in the cases. It first surveys the federal and state statutory and case law, finding that arbitration communications in fact are generally discoverable and admissible. It then considers the normative desirability of discovering and admitting arbitration communications evidence, concluding that the free discovery and admissibility of arbitration communications …
Empirical Evidence And Malpractice Litigation, Philip G. Peters Jr.
Empirical Evidence And Malpractice Litigation, Philip G. Peters Jr.
Faculty Publications
Critics of medical malpractice litigation believe that expert testimony is often anecdotal and biased. To remedy this problem, several have recently suggested that attorneys should provide and courts should seek reliable empirical evidence of actual clinical norms. Their suggestion should be welcomed. If our expectations are realistic and the design pitfalls are avoided, greater use of use of empirical research will improve the fairness of malpractice adjudication. At least in theory, it could be useful in both the "easy" cases (where it reveals that a consensus standard of care exists) and also some of the harder cases (where clinical practices …
Who Should Control The Decision To Call A Witness: Respecting A Criminal Defendant's Tactical Choices, Rodney J. Uphoff
Who Should Control The Decision To Call A Witness: Respecting A Criminal Defendant's Tactical Choices, Rodney J. Uphoff
Faculty Publications
A law student approached me not long ago to discuss a problem he had encountered while helping to prepare a criminal case for retrial. The defendant's first trial ended with a hung jury. The defendant, Steven Brown, now faced a second trial on the same misdemeanor charge of assaulting a police officer. Although the defendant still wanted to go to trial, Brown told defense counsel that he did not want his elderly father to have to testify again. From defense counsel's standpoint, the father's testimony was critical because he was the only witness corroborating the defendant's version of the event. …
A Bludgeon By Any Other Name: The Misuse Of Ethical Rules Against Prosecutors To Control The Law Of The State, Frank O. Bowman Iii
A Bludgeon By Any Other Name: The Misuse Of Ethical Rules Against Prosecutors To Control The Law Of The State, Frank O. Bowman Iii
Faculty Publications
My objective here is threefold: (1) to explain these ethical rules and demonstrate how each is in conflict with longstanding principles of federal criminal law; (2) to explain why these rules are illegitimate, both as rules of ethics and as rules of positive law; and (3) to offer some observations on how the dispute over these rules can sharpen our thinking about the nature and proper limits of ethical rules governing lawyers.
Criminal Discovery In Oklahoma: A Call For Legislative Action, Rodney J. Uphoff
Criminal Discovery In Oklahoma: A Call For Legislative Action, Rodney J. Uphoff
Faculty Publications
This article first explores the Allen decision and the extent to which Allen changed the law of criminal discovery in Oklahoma. Next, the article examines some of the theoretical and practical problems with the Allen procedures as well as the efforts of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to address some of the troublesome questions generated by Allen. Finally, the article discusses the need to replace the Allen provisions with a legislative framework that facilitates pretrial access to information and minimizes “trial ambush,” but without compromising the fair and efficient operation of the adversary system.
The New Criminal Discovery Code In Oklahoma: A Two Way Street In The Wrong Direction, Rodney J. Uphoff
The New Criminal Discovery Code In Oklahoma: A Two Way Street In The Wrong Direction, Rodney J. Uphoff
Faculty Publications
This article first examines criminal discovery in Oklahoma prior to the Allen decision. Next, section II of the article explores Allen and the court’s justifications for creating a reciprocal discovery system. The article reviews the Allen procedures and similar pre-trial discovery provisions contained in the American Bar Association’s Standards for Criminal Justice and questions whether Allen’s new discovery system will achieve the desired results. Section II also focuses on the constitutionality of the defendant’s disclosure obligations and the adverse effects of mandating such disclosures on the adversary system. Finally, section III of the article proposes an alternative discovery code based …