Law Commons^™

Waiving Sovereign Immunity In An Age Of Clear Statement Rules, John C. Nagle

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court has been creating clear statement rules faster than commentators can keep track of them. At their strongest, clear statement rules treat all statutes as maintaining the status quo unless Congress clearly states its contrary intention in the text of the statute. Because clear statement rules "foreclose inquiry into extrinsic guides of interpretation," they eliminate any need—or opportunity—to glean evidence from the structure, purpose, or history of a statute to inform a determination about congressional intent. But the Court has vacillated regarding precisely what Congress must do to satisfy clear statement rules. Sometimes broad general language suffices; sometimes …

Closing Argument, James H. Seckinger

Journal Articles

To put closing argument in perspective, lawsuits are won or lost on the evidence and the law, not on the advocate's analytical and oratory skill. As pointed out by Broun and Seckinger: “This is not intended to minimize the importance of the closing argument. It is merely to relegate it to its proper position, which is a summation of the evidence that has preceded it and a relation of that evidence to the issues in the case.”

An effective closing is an argument, not a summation. An effective closing argument should attack the serious problems in a case and put …

Profiling Minority Law Librarians: A Report On The 1992-93 Survey, Dwight B. King, Rhea A-L Ballard, Helena Lai, Grace M. Mills

Journal Articles

The authors present a demographic and professional profile of AALL minority law librarian members based upon responses to a detailed survey that elicited information about work experience and skills, professional activities and participation, and career aspirations. The results lead the authors to suggest some recruitment strategies to increase diversity in law librarianship and the level of minority participation in AALL.

The Legality And Morality Of Using Deadly Force To Protect Unborn Children From Abortionists, Charles E. Rice, John P. Tuskey

Journal Articles

Is killing abortionists as they arrive at abortuaries to perform regularly scheduled abortions a legally justifiable use of force in defense of another person's life? Under commonly accepted criminal law principles of justification, a person normally is entitled to use force—even deadly force—when necessary to save a person's life from an aggressor bent on taking that life. But because Roe and its progeny have made abortion a constitutionally protected right, courts would predictably hold that using force against an abortionist is not legally justified, despite the fact that the motive for that force is to defend innocent human life.

Even …

Are Litigating Attorneys Debt Collectors Under The Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act?, Tang Thi Thanh Trai Le

Journal Articles

In 1986 Congress amended the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to include attorneys under the definition of debt collector. Now the Supreme Court is asked to determine if the law applies to attorneys suing debtors on behalf of clients, not just when they conduct debt-collection activities.

If the Supreme Court affirms the decision of the Seventh Circuit, thus finding for Jenkins, attorneys who litigate cases involving collection of debts may find themselves subject to liability for communications with the consumer or the consumer's attorney regarding the litigation. Furthermore, these attorneys would face personal liability for any violations of the Act …

Multiple Punishment For Similar Crimes: Is The Double Jeopardy Clause Violated?, Jimmy Gurule

Journal Articles

Criminal defendants often are charged and convicted of multiple offenses. And often one offense is a lesser included offense of another, which means that proving one offense proves the other. If the offender is sentenced for both crimes, is the prohibition against double jeopardy violated? That is the question the Supreme Court addresses in this drug trafficking case, a case in which two concurrent life imprisonment sentences were imposed for virtually the same conduct.

Federal Criminal Law: The Need, Not For Revised Constitutional Theory Or New Congressional Statutes, But The Exercise Of Responsible Prosecutive Discretion, G. Robert Blakey

Journal Articles

My basic point is that major aspects of systems of legal justice deal with antisocial behavior. That an aspect of these systems may be categorized as “criminal,” “civil,” “state,” “federal,” or “international,” is relevant principally to a question of legal theory or governmental organization, which is fundamentally secondary to the character of the behavior itself. In short, we have to look at the behavior first–and only then ask questions of legal theory or governmental organization.

We should not be talking about “federalization.” That is a constitutional question to which we now have a fairly clear constitutional answer. Little or no …

The Legal Aspects Of Foreign Investment In Vietnam, Tang Thi Thanh Trai Le

Journal Articles

Recent years have brought burgeoning interest in foreign investment in Vietnam. Although a few observers have sounded discordant notes about Vietnam's economic potential, they have been drowned out in the chorus of the prevailing opinion that Vietnam appears set to become the next 'tiger' of Southeast Asia. Recognising this potential, the US lifted its trade embargo of Vietnam in early 1994. By this time, foreign investors from other nations had already established a presence in Vietnam.

Foreign investors have well-founded reasons underlying their interest in Vietnam. Vietnam's plentiful natural resources, including timber, oil, agricultural resources, a long coastline, tourism, and …

Can A Deficiency Notice To A Non-Filing Taxpayer Shorten The Time To Claim A Refund In The Tax Court?, Matthew J. Barrett

Journal Articles

Each year, about three million people overpay their federal income taxes but don't file returns. Taxpayers usually have three years to claim a refund. When a non-filer waits more than two years before seeking a refund, the IRS often seeks more tax because the taxpayer has not filed. If the taxpayer appeals to the Tax Court to avoid paying the additional tax, the IRS says the refund period is only two years. Now the Supreme Court decides if a deficiency notice can shorten the time to claim a refund in the Tax Court.

Introduction: The Ancient Roots Of Modern Forfeiture Law, Jimmy Gurule

Journal Articles

Civil forfeiture is one of the most potent weapons available to prosecutors in the “war on drugs” and against traditional organized crime. Unlike criminal forfeiture it is in rem and based on a legal fiction that property used in violation of law must be held responsible for harm that it has caused. The conceptual underpinnings of civil forfeiture are long established and can be traced back to English common law, but they also create the potential for abuse. There is currently federal legislation that considers scaling back the reach of civil forfeiture and recent Supreme Court decisions have also limited …

Lawyers As Strangers And Friends: Reply To Professor Sammons:, Thomas L. Shaffer, Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Journal Articles

Our thanks to the editors of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Journal for the opportunity to respond to Jack Sammons' review of our recent book. We are honored to be taken seriously by someone as thoughtful as Sammons. We especially like his suggestion that, "[I]t would be good for everyone in the legal profession to pay attention to what Shaffer and Cochran have done here." (We hope they all buy copies of the book.) We see his book review (as we know he sees it) as moral discourse among friends; we respond in the same spirit. Though …

An Independent Contractor Speaks His Mind: Can He Lose His Government Contract? An Analysis Of Heiser V. Umbehr, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

This article previews the Supreme Court case Heiser v. Umbehr, 515 U.S. 1172 (1995). The author expected the Court to consider whether, and to what extent, a governmental unit can take into account an independent contractor's poltical speech in making decisions regarding the award or termination of government contracts.

Are Back Pay And Damages In Age Discrimination Cases Subject To Income Taxes?, Matthew J. Barrett

Journal Articles

The Internal Revenue Code excludes damages received "on account of personal injuries" from federal income taxation. In this case, the Supreme Court decides if back pay and damages received under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act qualify for this exclusion. The Court's decision could affect thousands of workers who have brought, or may bring, federal age discrimination claims after losing their jobs in downsizings. It may also resolve the tax status of punitive damages.

Human Nature And Moral Responsibility In Lawyer-Client Relationships, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

My interest here is ethics—whether observation, intuition, the ability to make appeals to human nature, and insight into the workings of the human heart are useful as guides for legal judgments in relationships between lawyers and clients. A modern American lawyer and her client use power as certainly as Solomon used power and, I suppose, are as manifestly subject to indirection in deciding how to use power as the kings of Israel were. In both cases the enterprise is undertaken, as W.H. Auden put it, on "a moral planet tamed by terror."

Marriage And The Liberal Imagination, Gerard V. Bradley, Robert P. George

Journal Articles

In an article marked by the intelligence and fairmindedness for which his work is widely-and rightly-admired, Stephen Macedo has argued against our view that sodomy, including homosexual sodomy, is intrinsically nonmarital and immoral. His goal is to show that "new natural law" theorists, such as Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and the two of us, have no sound argument for drawing moral distinctions-which would, in turn, provide a basis for legal distinctions (particularly in the area of marriage)­ between the sodomitical acts of "devoted, loving, committed homosexual partners" and the acts of genital union of men and women in marriage. We …

Shaping Today's Forfeiture Law: A Conversation With Senator Mcclellan, G. Robert Blakey

Journal Articles

In any society, the government's ability to interfere with life, liberty or property is always open for full discussion. In this conversation, Professor Blakey discusses property in the context of organized and white-collar crime, in addition to criminal forfeiture, and frames his discussion around his work with Senator John McClellan on drafting the Organized Crime Control Act.

War Crimes And Other Human Rights Abuses In The Former Yugoslavia, Robert T. Mounts, Jeffrey L. Bleich, Doug Cassell

Journal Articles

Mr. Cassel: Today, the world is witnessing in Europe the first genocide in half a century. Unfortunately, everyone has failed to date to do much about it. Everyone has seen it so often in the papers and on the television in the last two years, that it sounds almost banal at this point to repeat it. History, sociology and the law can get pretty dry. One of the things that the report of the U.N. Commission of Experts on Violations of International Humanitarian Law in the Former Yugoslavia attempted to do was to give all this a human face. This …

United States: Deconstructing The American Family - Developments In Family Law During 1993, Lynn D. Wardle, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Persons unfamiliar with the American legal system might be dismayed by the variety and inconsistency of developments in domestic relations law during 1993. The key to comprehending family law in the United States is to know that, within the broad parameters set by the Constitution and minimal federal legislation, each of the fifty American states retains substantial constitutional autonomy when regulating domestic relations. As a result, "a hundred flowers bloom" in American family law-in the form of tremendously varied (sometimes diametrically inconsistent) statutes, policies and doctrines. Despite national trends, novelties or developments of potentially broad interest that occur every year, …

A Maternalistic Approach To Surrogacy: Comment On Richard Epstein's Surrogacy: The Case For Full Contractual Enforcement, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Many of the other participants in this Symposium have written extensively about surrogacy. Not only have they contributed to the debate, in some instances they have framed it. In some respects, therefore, I merely thank all of them and chime in. Unlike my fellow panelists, however, I do not think surrogacy merits an enthusiastic, positive response.

In this Comment, I propose to restate objections to specifically enforceable surrogacy contracts from a family-law perspective as well as from the philosophical or psychological roots of family law. I will then reexamine the problems of surrogacy from a contractarian, law-and-economics perspective, showing how …

Why Does The Church Have Law Schools?, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Why does the church have law schools?

The title I was given for this talk during the Marquette Conference of March, 1994, was "the mission of the religiously affiliated law school." The title raises the possibility that the church has a law school in order to carry out a mission. The church does not get its mission from the state or the civil community. The only workable meaning of the title I was given is that each of our law schools has a mission from God.

If the assignment of mission comes from the civil community or the state, the …

Does Mediation Systematically Disadvantage Women?, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

When state legislatures enabled spouses to obtain divorces without proving fault, one of the real achievements was lower transaction costs. Although the benefit of lower transaction costs for divorce is not completely noncontroversial, the relaxed proof requirements mean that lawyers do not necessarily have to be involved in divorce proceedings. The vast majority of marriage dissolutions involve written agreements between the parties. No-fault divorce also energized the divorce mediation movement.

Mediation is the least intrusive form of third-party involvement in a dispute. Whereas a judge or arbitrator imposes an outcome on the disputants, the mediator assists the parties in reaching …

Enforcement And The Success Of International Environmental Law, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Professor O'Connell discusses the traditional methods used for international law "enforcement," and she argues that international law is generally obeyed. Its enforcement is based primarily on compliance, not enforcement. Accordingly, the author argues against using international enforcement mechanisms to enforce international environmental law. Instead, she posits that domestic courts should be used for international environmental law enforcement; however, certain obstacles, such as sovereign immunity, the doctrine of standing, and the principle of forum non conveniens, must be overcome. Professor O'Connell argues that it may be possible to overcome many of these court-made obstacles to enforcing international law through domestic courts. …

The Money Laundering Control Act Of 1986: Creating A New Federal Offense Or Merely Affording Federal Prosecutors An Alternative Means Of Punishing Specified Unlawful Activity?, Jimmy Gurule

Journal Articles

The purpose of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 was to make the hiding and reinvestment of illegal profit made from a criminal enterprise into a new federal offense. The act targets conduct that occurs after the underlying crime. It is not intended to be an alternative means of punishing the crime itself. Courts must closely adhere to this legislative intent if they seek to properly and consistently apply the law. They must be aware of several key aspects of the law: 1) The financial transaction requirement under section 1956(c)(3) of the act includes the transportation of proceeds from …

An Overview Of The Scholarship In Law And Religion Of Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

I first met John Noonan at a Law Review dinner when I was a year or so out of law school and he was a third year student. Chance placed us at the same table, and the conversation-naturally-proved to be more interesting than the speeches.

I am honored, indeed, blessed, to have been exposed to that witness for so many decades, and deeply grateful for the opportunity to come here on this occasion and bear my own witness in return.

Rights Talk: The Impoverishment Of Political Discourse And A Nation Under Lawyers (Book Review), Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

In these two lively, elegant, and lucid books, Mary Ann Glendon points to an increasing bloody-mindedness in our society, and argues persuasively that law and lawyers are in great part to blame for it. It seems that we are constantly pelting each other with non-negotiable demands backed by the threat of litigation, and that our legal profession has become too venal or too lacking in moral fiber to tell us to lighten up. The first part of the argument is presented in Rights Talk, the second in A Nation Under Lawyers. Both parts are presented with passion, charity, and a …