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Michigan Law Review

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Voting As Veto, Michael S. Kang Jan 2010

Voting As Veto, Michael S. Kang

Michigan Law Review

This Article introduces an alternate conception of voting as vetobased on "negative preferences" against a voter's least preferred outcomes-that enriches voting theory and practice otherwise dominated by a conception of voting as a means of expressing a voter's ideal preferences. Indeed, the familiar binary choices presented in American political elections obscure the pervasiveness of negative preferences, which are descriptively salient in voting under all types of circumstances. Negative preferences have been overlooked, despite their theoretical and practical importance across many domains, leaving important questions unexplored in the literature. The Article develops a normative and positive account of voting as veto …


Wasting The Corporate Waste Doctrine: How The Doctrine Can Provide A Viable Solution In Controlling Excessive Executive Compensation, Steven Clayton Caywood Jan 2010

Wasting The Corporate Waste Doctrine: How The Doctrine Can Provide A Viable Solution In Controlling Excessive Executive Compensation, Steven Clayton Caywood

Michigan Law Review

In the midst of the global recession of the late 2000s, there was an outcry against corporate executives and what the public deemed to be their excessive compensation. Although this anger is still featured in today's headlines, it is nothing new. In fact, excessive executive compensation complaints arose when the very concept of a corporation was still new. Most of the complaints that the public has leveled have had little effect on boards of directors' decisions. Occasionally, however the outcry is so great that the public compels a company's leadership to take action. This happened early in 2009 when American …


Front Matter Jan 2010

Front Matter

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.


Front Matter Jan 2010

Front Matter

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.


Front Matter Jan 2010

Front Matter

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.


Relative Doubt: Familial Searches Of Dna Databases, Erin Murphy Jan 2010

Relative Doubt: Familial Searches Of Dna Databases, Erin Murphy

Michigan Law Review

The continued growth of forensic DNA databases has brought about greater interest in a search method known as "familial" or "kinship" matching. Whereas a typical database search seeks the source of a crime-scene stain by making an exact match between a known person and the DNA sample, familial searching instead looks for partial matches in order to find potential relatives of the source. The use of a familial DNA search to identify the alleged "Grim Sleeper" killer in California brought national attention to the method, which has many proponents. In contrast, this Article argues against the practice of familial searching …


When A Company Confesses, Christopher Jackson Jan 2010

When A Company Confesses, Christopher Jackson

Michigan Law Review

Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a defendant is normally obligated to attend all of the proceedings against her. However Rule 43(b)(2) carves out an exception for organizational defendants, stating that they "need not be present" if represented by an attorney. But on its face, the language of 43(b)(2) is ambiguous: is it the defendant or the judge who has the discretion to decide whether the defendant appears? That is, may a judge compel the presence of an organizational defendant? This Note addresses the ambiguity in the context of the plea colloquy, considering the text of several of the …


Pleading With Congress To Resist The Urge To Overrule Twombly And Iqbal, Michael R. Huston Jan 2010

Pleading With Congress To Resist The Urge To Overrule Twombly And Iqbal, Michael R. Huston

Michigan Law Review

In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court changed the rhetoric of the federal pleading system. Those decisions have been decried by members of the bar, scholars, and legislators as judicial activism and a rewriting of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Such criticism has led members of both houses of Congress to introduce legislation to overrule the decisions and return to some variation of the "notice pleading" regime that existed before Twombly. This Note argues that both of the current proposals to overrule Twombly and Iqbal should be rejected. Although the bills take different …


Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz Jan 2010

Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores what happens to longstanding remedies for past racial discrimination as conditions change. It shows that Congress and the Supreme Court have responded quite differently to changed conditions when they evaluate such remedies. Congress has generally opted to stay the course, while the Court has been more inclined to view change as cause to terminate a remedy. The Article argues that these very different responses share a defining flaw, namely, they treat existing remedies as fixed until they are terminated. As a result, remedies are either scrapped prematurely or left stagnant despite dramatically changed conditions. The Article seeks …


Front Matter Jan 2010

Front Matter

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.


Front Matter Jan 2010

Front Matter

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.


A Review Of Richard A. Posner, How Judges Think (2008), Jeffrey S. Sutton Jan 2010

A Review Of Richard A. Posner, How Judges Think (2008), Jeffrey S. Sutton

Michigan Law Review

I was eager to enter the judiciary. I liked the title: federal judge. I liked the job security: life tenure. And I could tolerate the pay: the same as Richard Posner's. That, indeed, may have been the most flattering part of the opportunity-that I could hold the same title and have the same pay grade as one of America's most stunning legal minds. Don't think I didn't mention it when I had the chance. There is so much to admire about Judge Posner-his lively pen, his curiosity, his energy, his apparent understanding of: everything. He has written 53 books, more …


The Vitality Of The American Sovereign, Todd E. Pettys Jan 2010

The Vitality Of The American Sovereign, Todd E. Pettys

Michigan Law Review

The proposition that "the people" are the preeminent sovereign in the United States has long been a tenet of American public life. The authors of the Declaration of Independence characterized the American people's sovereignty as a "self-evident" truth when announcing the colonies' decision to sever their ties with Great Britain, the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 invoked the people's sovereignty when framing the nation's Constitution, and Americans today exercise their sovereignty each time they cast their ballots on Election Day. Yet what prerogatives, precisely, does the people's sovereignty entail? In modern America, where neither a bloody revolution nor …


Leaps And Bounds, Nestor M. Davidson Jan 2010

Leaps And Bounds, Nestor M. Davidson

Michigan Law Review

Imagine how stunted our understanding of the federal government would be without any detailed scholarly examination of the U.S. Constitution itself. As remarkable as that sounds, that is essentially the problem that Gerald Frug and David Barron have set out to remedy for local governments in their superb City Bound. In the book, Frug and Barron take a comprehensive, empirical look at the legal frameworks under which cities and other local governments operate, providing an invaluable roadmap for understanding the hidden architecture of legal constraints that-largely without notice-are shaping America's urban future. Why this kind of analysis has rarely been …


Visionary Pragmatism And The Value Of Privacy In The Twenty-First Century, Danielle Keats Citron, Leslie Meltzer Henry Jan 2010

Visionary Pragmatism And The Value Of Privacy In The Twenty-First Century, Danielle Keats Citron, Leslie Meltzer Henry

Michigan Law Review

Part I of our Review discusses the central premises of Understanding Privacy, with particular attention paid to Solove's pragmatic methodology and his taxonomy of privacy. We introduce his pluralistic approach to conceptualizing privacy, which urges decision makers to assess privacy problems in context, and we explore his view that meaningful choices about privacy depend on an appreciation of how privacy benefits society as a whole. We also describe how Solove's taxonomy aims to account for the variety of activities that threaten privacy. In Part II, we analyze the strengths of Solove's pragmatism by demonstrating its functionality and flexibility in …


Front Matter Jan 2010

Front Matter

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.


Katrina, Federalism, And Military Law Enforcement: A New Exception To The Posse Comitatus Act, Sean Mcgrane Jan 2010

Katrina, Federalism, And Military Law Enforcement: A New Exception To The Posse Comitatus Act, Sean Mcgrane

Michigan Law Review

In the days following Hurricane Katrina, as lawlessness and violence spread throughout New Orleans, the White House considered invoking the Insurrection Act so that members of the U.S. military could legally perform law enforcement functions inside the flooded city. This Note contends that the White House's decision not to invoke the Act was substantially driven by federalism concerns-in particular, concerns about intruding on Louisiana's sovereignty. But, this Note further contends, in focusing so heavily on these state sovereignty concerns, the White House largely ignored the other side of the 'federalism coin "-namely, enabling the federal government to act where national …


Structure And Precedent, Jeffrey C. Dobbins Jan 2010

Structure And Precedent, Jeffrey C. Dobbins

Michigan Law Review

The standard model of vertical precedent is part of the deep structure of our legal system. Under this model, we rarely struggle with whether a given decision of a court within a particular hierarchy is potentially binding at all. When Congress or the courts alter the standard structure and process offederal appellate review, however, that standard model of precedent breaks down. This Article examines several of these unusual appellate structures and highlights the difficulties associated with evaluating the precedential effect of decisions issued within them. For instance, when Congress consolidates challenges to agency decision making in a single federal circuit, …


Front Matter Jan 2010

Front Matter

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.


Commerce, Jack M. Balkin Jan 2010

Commerce, Jack M. Balkin

Michigan Law Review

This Article applies the method of text and principle to an important problem in constitutional interpretation: the constitutional legitimacy of the modem regulatory state and its expansive definition of federal commerce power Some originalists argue that the modem state cannot be justified, while others accept existing precedents as a "pragmatic exception" to originalism. Nonoriginalists, in turn, point to these difficulties as a refutation of originalist premises. Contemporary originalist readings have tended to view the commerce power through modem eyes. Originalists defending narrow readings offederal power have identified "commerce" with the trade of commodities; originalists defending broad readings of federal power …


New Pleading, New Discovery, Scott Dodson Jan 2010

New Pleading, New Discovery, Scott Dodson

Michigan Law Review

Pleading in federal court has a new narrative. The old narrative was one of notice, with the goal of broad access to the civil justice system. New Pleading, after the landmark Supreme Court cases of Twombly and Iqbal, is focused on factual sufficiency, with the purpose of screening out meritless cases that otherwise might impose discovery costs on defendants. The problem with New Pleading is that factual insufficiency often is a poor proxy for meritlessness. Some plaintifs lack sufficient factual knowledge of the elements of their claims not because the claims lack merit but because the information they need is …


Snyder V. Louisiana: Continuing The Historical Trend Towards Increased Scrutiny Of Peremptory Challenges, John P. Bringewatt Dec 2009

Snyder V. Louisiana: Continuing The Historical Trend Towards Increased Scrutiny Of Peremptory Challenges, John P. Bringewatt

Michigan Law Review

In March 2008, the Supreme Court decided Snyder v. Louisiana, the latest in the line of progeny of Batson v. Kentucky. This Note demonstrates that Snyder is part of a historical pattern of Supreme Court decisions concerning the use of peremptory challenges in which the Court has moved away from permitting the unfettered use of the peremptory challenge in favor of stronger Equal Protection considerations. Snyder alters the requirements for trial judges in deciding Batson challenges by requiring them to provide some explanation of their reasons for accepting a prosecutor's justification of a peremptory challenge. Snyder is the …


"Once Victim, Always Victim": Compensated Individuals Under The Amended Sentencing Guidelines On Fraud, Jacqueline Harrington Dec 2009

"Once Victim, Always Victim": Compensated Individuals Under The Amended Sentencing Guidelines On Fraud, Jacqueline Harrington

Michigan Law Review

Until recently, courts disagreed over whether individuals who were compensated by a third party such as a bank or insurance company ought to count as victims for purposes of the multiple-victim sentencing enhancement in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on Fraud. The most recent Amendments to the Guidelines resolve this split, permitting compensated individuals to be counted as victims where their identity was used in the commission of the fraud. However, the new Guidelines do not resolve a separate split, likely to become more divisive under the new Guidelines, over whether both compensated individuals and their compensators can simultaneously be treated …


Law's Expressive Value In Combating Cyber Gender Harassment, Danielle Keats Citron Dec 2009

Law's Expressive Value In Combating Cyber Gender Harassment, Danielle Keats Citron

Michigan Law Review

The online harassment of women exemplifies twenty-first century behavior that profoundly harms women yet too often remains overlooked and even trivialized. This harassment includes rape threats, doctored photographs portraying women being strangled, postings of women's home addresses alongside suggestions that they are interested in anonymous sex, and technological attacks that shut down blogs and websites. It impedes women's full participation in online life, often driving them offline, and undermines their autonomy, identity, dignity, and well-being. But the public and law enforcement routinely marginalize women's experiences, deeming the harassment harmless teasing that women should expect, and tolerate, given the internet's Wild …


Negligence And Insufficient Activity: The Missing Paradigm In Torts, David Gilo, Ehud Guttel Dec 2009

Negligence And Insufficient Activity: The Missing Paradigm In Torts, David Gilo, Ehud Guttel

Michigan Law Review

Conventional wisdom in tort law maintains that the prevention of undesirable risks mandates restriction of harmful conduct. Against this widely held conviction, this Article shows that undesirable risks often stem from insufficient, rather than excessive, activity. Because negligence requires investments in only cost-justified care, parties might deliberately limit their activity so that the size of the ensuing risk would be lower than the cost of welfare-enhancing precautions. Parties' incentives to strategically restrict their activity levels have striking implications for the inducement of efficient harm prevention. The overlooked paradigm of insufficient activity calls for the imposition of a new form of …


Shareholder Compensation As Dividend, James J. Park Dec 2009

Shareholder Compensation As Dividend, James J. Park

Michigan Law Review

This Article questions the prevailing view that securities-fraud actions suffer from a circularity problem. Because shareholder plaintiffs are owners of the defendant corporation, it is commonly argued that shareholder compensation is a payment from shareholders to themselves with substantial transaction costs in the form of attorney fees. But shareholder compensation is no more circular than a dividend, which is a cash payment to shareholders from the company they own with substantial transaction costs in the form of taxes. In fact, shareholder compensation is less circular than a dividend because it is a transfer to shareholders who purchased stock when the …


Free Speech Federalism, Adam Winkler Nov 2009

Free Speech Federalism, Adam Winkler

Michigan Law Review

For decades, constitutional doctrine has held that the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech applies equally to laws adopted by the federal, state, and local governments. Nevertheless, the identity of the government actor behind a law may be a significant, if unrecognized, factor in free speech cases. This Article reports the results of a comprehensive study of core free speech cases decided by the federal courts over a 14-year period. The study finds that speech-restrictive laws adopted by the federal government are far more likely to be upheld than similar laws adopted by state and local governments. Courts applying strict …


Private Production Of Public Goods: Liability For Unrequested Benefits, Ariel Porat Nov 2009

Private Production Of Public Goods: Liability For Unrequested Benefits, Ariel Porat

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores why the law treats negative externalities (harms) and positive externalities (benefits) differently. Ideally, from an economic perspective, both negative and positive externalities should be internalized by those who produce them, for with full internalization, injurers and benefactors alike would behave efficiently. In actuality, however, whereas the law requires that injurers bear the harms they create (or wrongfully create), benefactors are seldom entitled to recover for benefits they voluntarily confer on recipients without the latter's consent ( "unrequested benefits"). One aim of this Article is to explore the puzzle of the law's differing treatment of negative and positive …


A Sea Of Confusion: The Shipowner's Limitation Of Liability Act As An Independent Basis For Admiralty Jurisdiction, Amie L. Medley Nov 2009

A Sea Of Confusion: The Shipowner's Limitation Of Liability Act As An Independent Basis For Admiralty Jurisdiction, Amie L. Medley

Michigan Law Review

The Shipowner's Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 allowed the owner of a vessel to limit his liability in the case of an accident to the value of the vessel and its cargo if he could show he had no knowledge of or participation in the negligent act that resulted in the loss. In 1911, the Supreme Court decided Richardson v. Harmon, a case which was interpreted for several decades to hold that the Limitation Act formed an independent basis for admiralty jurisdiction. In a 1990 case, the Supreme Court stated in a footnote that it would not reach …


Loss Causation And Class Certification, Steven Serajeddini Nov 2009

Loss Causation And Class Certification, Steven Serajeddini

Michigan Law Review

Courts have long faced difficulty interpreting loss causation under Section 10b-5 of the Securities Act of 1934. This difficulty stems from the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between this core element of common law fraud and the procedural demands of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the typical vehicle for a 10b-5 class action. Recently, some courts and commentators have begun to consider loss causation as an individualized inquiry that is not common among class members, and one that therefore warrants consideration at the class certification stage. The existing justifications center on the conceptually distinct 10b-5 element of reliance, …