Law Commons^™

An Overview Of The U.S. Retirement Income Security System And The Principles And Values It Reflects, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article is designed to provide an overview of the U.S. retirement income security system from a comparative law perspective. Like many countries, the U.S. has a three tier pension or retirement income system, with the three tiers consisting of (1) Social Security, (2) employment-based pensions, and (3) individual savings. Thus, superficially, the U.S. retirement income security system resembles that of many around the world. Yet, in other ways, such as its focus on individual rights and responsibility, the U.S. system is unique.

The article begins by discussing the nine guiding principles of the U.S. Social Security system as identified …

Video Games As A Protected Form Of Expression, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Video games, like motion pictures, failed to qualify for First Amendment protection until well after they emerged as a medium. Today, a number of courts have held that such games constitute a form of expression and do not fall into any recognized category of unprotected speech. Nevertheless, a number of commentators have called for limited constitutional protection for video games, predicating their arguments on a variety of grounds, including the alleged deleterious effects of such games on children. This Article responds to these commentators and defends recent decisions extending protection to video games.

Child Witness Policy: Law Interfacing With Social Science, Louise E. Graham, Dorothy F. Marsil, Jean Montoya, David Ross

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The number of children testifying in court has posed serious practical and legal problems for the judicial system. One problem confronting the courts is how to protect children from experiencing the psychological trauma resulting from a face-to-face confrontation with a defendant who may have physically harmed the child or threatened future harm to the child. Another concern is that this trauma may impair children's memory performance and their willingness to disclose the truth. In response to these concerns, child witness innovations proliferated throughout the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. Among the innovations were: placing a screen between child …

Family Protection Under Kentucky's Inheritance Laws: Is The Family Really Protected?, Carolyn S. Bratt

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Courts and legislatures always have granted widows some protection from the economic hardships that their husbands' deaths cause. At the earliest common law, a surviving wife was entitled to dower in the form of a right to remain in her husband's home along with the other heirs after the husband's death. Today, the states have enacted a variety of statutory devices that provide protection for families who might otherwise experience financial hardship upon the death of a spouse or parent. The older types of statutory safeguards take the form of homestead and personal property exemptions. Typically, the probate homestead exemption …

Surrogate Gestation And The Protection Of Choice, Louise E. Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Proponents of surrogate gestation contracts base their case on both the constitutional privacy rights of persons involved in the contract and the notion that contractual agreements are capable of sufficiently protecting all interests involved. This article first speculates on how courts might handle surrogate gestation contracts under existing laws and offers arguments for and against such contracts. Although some commentary on the contractual aspect of the agreement exists, little attention has been given to the privacy arguments of the parties. The major focus of this article, therefore, is upon the nature of the privacy claims asserted by the prospective parents …

Presuming Lawyers Competent To Protect Fundamental Rights: Is It An Affordable Fiction?, Robert G. Lawson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article explores the ramifications of Wainwright v. Sykes, a case decided before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1977. The broad question before the Court in Sykes concerned the extent to which state prisoners should have access to federal court by use of the writ of habeas corpus. The narrow issue before the Court concerned the impact on a prisoner's claim for habeas relief of procedural defaults (such as a failure to object to evidence, a failure to perfect an appeal, etc.) that occur in the state proceeding under attack. In considering these important issues Justice …

The Use And Legal Significance Of The Mean High Water Line In Coastal Boundary Mapping, Richard C. Ausness, Frank E. Maloney

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The effect of unplanned and ill-conceived land use development on the coastal ecology has been well documented in recent years. Recognizing the need for more effective governmental control in this area, a number of state legislatures have enacted statutes to protect the coastal environment and encourage the orderly development of coastal resources. These efforts have received the support of the federal government as well.

Determination of coastal boundaries is essential to the development of an effective coastal zone management program. In general such boundaries represent the intersection of the shore with a particular tidal elevation. However, the demarcation of coastal …