Law Commons^™

Doctoring Discrimination In The Same-Sex Marriage Debates, Elizabeth Sepper

Indiana Law Journal

As the legalization of same-sex marriage spreads across the states, some religious believers refuse to serve same-sex married couples. In the academy, a group of law and religion scholars frames these refusals as “conscientious objection” to the act of marriage. They propose “marriage conscience protection” that would allow public employees and private individuals or businesses to refuse to “facilitate” same-sex marriages. They rely on the theoretical premise that commercial actors’ objections to marriage are equivalent to doctors’ objections to controversial medical procedures. They model their proposal on medical conscience legislation, which allows doctors to refuse to perform abortions. Such legislation, …

The Collective Origins Of Toxic Air Pollution: Implications For Greenhouse Gas Trading And Toxic Hotspots, David E. Adelman

Indiana Law Journal

This Article presents the first synthesis of geospatial data on toxic air pollution in the United States. Contrary to conventional views, the data show that vehicles and small stationary sources emit a majority of the air toxics nationally. Industrial sources, by contrast, rarely account for more than ten percent of cumulative cancer risks from all outdoor sources of air toxics. This pattern spans multiple spatial scales, ranging from census tracts to the nation as a whole. However, it is most pronounced in metropolitan areas, which have the lowest air quality and are home to eighty percent of the U.S. population. …

Rethinking Hiv-Exposure Crimes, Margo Kaplan

Indiana Law Journal

This Article challenges the current legislative and scholarly approaches to HIV-exposure crimes and proposes an alternative framework to address their flaws. Twenty-four states criminalize consensual sexual activities of people with HIV. Current statutes and the scholarship that supports them focus on HIV-positive status, sexual activity, and knowledge of HIV-positive status as proxies for risk, mental state, and consent to risk. As a result, they are dramatically over- and underinclusive and stigmatize individuals living with HIV. Criminalization should be limited to circumstances in which a defendant exposed her partner to a substantial degree of unassumed risk and did so with a …

The Paradox Of Statutory Rape, Russell L. Christopher, Kathryn H. Christopher

Indiana Law Journal

What once protected only virginal girls under the age of ten now also protects sexually aggressive males under the age of eighteen. While thirteenth-century statutory rape law had little reason to address the unthinkable possibility of chaste nine-year-old girls raping adult men, twenty-first-century statutory rape law has failed to address the modern reality of distinctly unchaste seventeen-year-old males raping adult women. Despite dramatically expanding statutory rape’s protected class, the minimalist thirteenth-century conception of the offense remains largely unchanged—intercourse with a juvenile. Overlooked is the new effect of this centuries-old offense—a sexually aggressive seventeen-year-old raping an adult now exposes the adult …

How Jon Stewart And Lady Gaga Made Congress Less Lame: The Impact Of Social Media On The Passage Of Bills Through The "Lame Duck" Session Of The 111th Congress And Beyond, Onika K. Williams

Indiana Law Journal

The lame duck 111th Congress saw tremendous action in a relatively short period of time, and it was also witness to a phenomenon of social media. Users on websites such as Facebook and Twitter employed social media to send messages to their representatives and to actively participate in the lame duck session. Jon Stewart used television to advocate for Congress’s passing of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, and Lady Gaga employed Twitter to support the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010. Both bills subsequently passed Congress. The social media phenomenon did not end with the …

Bullycide In American Schools: Forging A Comprehensive Legislative Solution, Jason A. Wallace

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Community As A Redistricting Principle: Consulting Media Markets In Drawing District Lines, Jason C. Miller

Indiana Law Journal

With the 2011 redistricting process poised to commence across the country, debates are raging as to who should draw district lines, how to keep those individuals from drawing them for partisan advantage, and the best way to draw minority districts. This paper addresses the largely overlooked area of media markets. Districts drawn to conform with media markets experience higher voter turnout. Moreover, linking a city and its economically-connected suburbs together is simply common sense. Discussing the impact of district conformity, or lack thereof, with media market boundaries on campaign strategy, news reporting, voter participation, grassroots organizing, and candidate recruitment, this …

Facial Challenges And Separation Of Powers, Luke Meier

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Confident Uncertainty, Excessive Compensation & The Obama Plan, Michael B. Dorff

Indiana Law Journal

Public outrage at the enormous bonuses TARP recipients paid to senior executives recently prompted the Obama administration to impose sweeping new curbs on executive compensation. Shortly thereafter, Senator Dodd added restrictions on executive bonuses to the stimulus bill President Obama subsequently signed. These are understandable political reactions, but will they achieve the twin goals of reducing executive compensation in recipients of federal assistance while spurring better corporate performance? To examine this question, I analyze excessive compensation as the product of "confident uncertainty, "the tendency of even the most sophisticated actors to place unwarranted confidence in their ability to predict the …

An Empirical Assessment Of The Potential For Will Substitutes To Improve State Intestacy Statutes, Mary Louise Fellows, E Gary Spitko, Charles Q. Strohm

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Crossroads And Signposts: The Ada Amendments Act Of 2008, Jeannette Cox

Indiana Law Journal

Although the apparent purpose of the 2008 amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is solely to broaden the ADA 's protected class, the manner in which the amendments achieve this purpose erodes the statute's explicit textual support for understanding persons with disabilities as a politically subordinated minority. The amendments also strengthen the statutory link between the biological severity of a person's disability and that person's right to sue for ADA accommodations. Accordingly, for some courts, the amendments will reinforce the perception that the ADA differs from traditional civil rights law.

Federal courts' understanding of the ADA 's relationship …

Anti-Horse Slaughter Legislation: Bad For Horses, Bad For Society, Laura J. Durfee

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Judicial Deference To Legislation Fact-Finding, Caitlin E. Borgmann

Indiana Law Journal

It is traditionally assumed that the role of ascertaining and evaluating the social facts underlying a statute belongs to the legislatures. The courts in turn are tasked with deciding the law and must defer to legislative fact-finding on relevant issues of social fact. This simplistic formula, however, does not accurately describe the courts' confused approach to legislative fact-finding. Although the courts often speak in terms of deference, they follow no consistent or predictable pattern in deciding whether to defer in a given case. Moreover, blanket judicial deference to legislative fact-finding would not be a wise general rule. Because social fact-finding …

Scientific Avoidance: Toward More Principled Judicial Review Of Legislative Science, Emily H. Meazell

Indiana Law Journal

Courts increasingly confront legislative enactments made in light of scientific uncertainty. Even so, the degree of deference appropriate to this type of judicial review is a moving target, seemingly determined on an ad hoc, unprincipled basis. On one hand, the decision of how to legislate in light of scientific uncertainty is quintessentially one of policy, suggesting that the highest degree of deference is appropriate. But certain classes of cases, and certain types of scientific questions, seem singularly inappropriate for extreme judicial deference. While significant scholarly attention has focused on the comparative institutional competence of courts and legislatures with respect to …

The Alien Tort Claims Act In 2007: Resolving The Delicate Balance Between Judicial And Legislative Authority, Hannah R. Bornstein

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Legislation And Legitimation: Congress And Insider Trading In The 1980s, Thomas W. Joo

Indiana Law Journal

Orthodox corporate law and economics holds that American corporate and securities regulation has evolved inexorably toward economic efficiency. That position is difficult to square with the fact that regulation is the product of government actors and institutions. Indeed, the rational behavior assumptions of law and economics suggest that those actors and institutions would tend to place their own self-interest ahead of economic efficiency. This Article provides anecdotal evidence of such self interest at work. Based on an analysis of legislative history-primarily congressional hearings-this Article argues that Congress had little interest in the economic policy effect of insider trading legislation in …

Regulating The Commander In Chief: Some Theories, Saikrishna Prakash

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: War, Terrorism and Torture: Limits on Presidential Power in the 21st Century. Convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington, prominent legal scholars, human rights advocates and government lawyers gathered in Bloomington on October 7, 2005.

The War Powers Outside The Courts, William Michael Treanor

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: War, Terrorism and Torture: Limits on Presidential Power in the 21st Century. Convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington, prominent legal scholars, human rights advocates and government lawyers gathered in Bloomington on October 7, 2005.

Lost Constitutional Moorings: Recovering The War Power, Louis Fisher

Indiana Law Journal

For the past half century, Presidents have claimed constitutional authority to take the country from a state of peace to a state of war against another nation. That was precisely the power that the Framers denied to the President and vested exclusively in Congress. That allocation of power was understood by all three branches until President Harry Truman went to war against North Korea in 1950. He never came to Congress for authority before he acted or at any time thereafter. Similar false claims of authority have been made by Presidents since that time. These constitutional violations have been assisted …

The Executive And The Avoidance Canon, H. Jefferson Powell

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: War, Terrorism and Torture: Limits on Presidential Power in the 21st Century. Convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington, prominent legal scholars, human rights advocates and government lawyers gathered in Bloomington on October 7, 2005.

Can The President Be Torturer In Chief?., Harold Hongju Koh

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: War, Terrorism and Torture: Limits on Presidential Power in the 21st Century. Convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington, prominent legal scholars, human rights advocates and government lawyers gathered in Bloomington on October 7, 2005.

Finding Effective Constraints On Executive Power: Interrogation, Detention, And Torture, Deborah N. Pearlstein

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: War, Terrorism and Torture: Limits on Presidential Power in the 21st Century. Convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington, prominent legal scholars, human rights advocates and government lawyers gathered in Bloomington on October 7, 2005.

Loaded Dice And Other Problems: A Further Reflection On The Statutory Commander In Chief, Christopher H. Schroeder

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: War, Terrorism and Torture: Limits on Presidential Power in the 21st Century. Convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington, prominent legal scholars, human rights advocates and government lawyers gathered in Bloomington on October 7, 2005.

Foreword To: War, Terrorism And Torture: Limits On Presidential Power In The 21st Century Symposium, Dawn E. Johnsen

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: War, Terrorism and Torture: Limits on Presidential Power in the 21st Century. Convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington, prominent legal scholars, human rights advocates and government lawyers gathered in Bloomington on October 7, 2005.

Juvenile Competency Statutes: A Model For State Legislation, Kellie M. Johnson

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Treaties As Laws: A Defense Of The Last-In-Time Rule For Treaties And Federal Statutes, Julian G. Ku

Indiana Law Journal

For nearly 150 years, courts have applied the "last-in-time" rule to resolve conflicts between treaties and federal statutes by giving effect to whichever was enacted later in time. Despite its acceptance by the courts, this rule has received unanimous criticism in the legal academy. In this article, I present the first comprehensive defense of the last-in-time rule on textual, structural, historical, and functional grounds. I argue that the last-in-time rule should be applied because the text of the Constitution grants treaties the status of enacted domestic law. As such, treaties are subject to the principle of statutory construction, leges posteriors …

Toward A Model Death Penalty Code: The Massachusetts Governor's Council Report (Introduction And Participants)

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: Toward A Model Death Penalty Code: The Massachusetts Governor's Council Report.

A Legislative Strategy Conditioned On Corruption: Regulating Campaign Financing After Mcconnell V. Fec, Bryan R. Whitaker

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Government Of Laws And Not Men: Prohibiting Non-Precedential Opinions By Statute Or Procedural Rule, Amy E. Sloan

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Actions Founded On Statutory Liability: Adopting A Limitations Period For Attorneys' Fees Actions Brought Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Darren A. Craig

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.