Law Commons^™

The State Of Judiciary: A Corporate Perspective, Larry D. Thompson

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The rule of law depends on highly talented, independent judges who conscientiously strive to ensure that the law is consistently applied in a principled and predictable manner This Essay addresses two potential threats to judicial independence and the rule of law that we believe warrant special attention at this time. First, inadequate judicial salaries pose a threat to the quality and independence of the judiciary. Judges' real pay has declined substantially over the past generation, even as the compensation of other callings within the legal profession has risen dramatically. This growing disparity in pay has prompted an increasing number of …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Confirmation Hearings Of The Justices Of The Rehnquist Natural Court, Jason J. Czarnezki, William K. Ford, Lori A. Ringhand

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The interpretive or judicial philosophies of Supreme Court Justices can be thought of as “packages of beliefs” about how to interpret the law, packages that go by names like formalism, originalism, and textualism. Given the reasonable assumption that a judge's judicial philosophy could matter for how he or she will decide cases, the judicial philosophy of a nominee to the Supreme Court is of great interest to members of the Senate who vote on a nominee's confirmation. Figuring out a nominee's judicial philosophy is, consequently, one purpose of the confirmation hearings in the Senate, and Senators often claim to base …

Judicial Activism: An Empirical Examination Of Voting Behavior On The Rehnquist Natural Court, Lori A. Ringhand

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This paper attempts to quantify one of the most deeply contested terms in constitutional law: “judicial activism.” Most discussions of “judicial activism” define activism either in reference to a particular political ideology (such as complaints about “liberal activist judges”) or a particular method of constitutional interpretation (such as assertions that a decision was “activist” because it was not based on the original meaning of the Constitution). This paper sidesteps those debates, focusing instead on an empirical examination of how recent U.S. Supreme Court justices have in fact exercised their judicial power. I do this by examining the voting records of …

What Is The Definition Of An "Organ" Under The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act?, Peter B. Rutledge

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Did the court of appeals have jurisdiction to review the district court's remand order, notwithstanding 28 U.S.C. 1447(d)?

does a company wholly owned by a Canadian crown corporation -- that is itself wholly owned by the Canadian Province of British Columbia and that performs obligations and exercises rights of the Province pursuant to a treaty with the United States -- quality as an "organ" of a foreign state or political subdivision under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act?

The Future Of Footnote Four, Dan T. Coenen

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The Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Carolene Products Co. generated the most famous footnote-and perhaps the most famous passage-in all of the American Judiciary's treatment of constitutional law. Among other things, Footnote Four suggested that "prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry." The importance of this principle cannot be overstated. It pervaded the work of the Warren Court and has played a prominent role …

The Essential Holding Of Casey: Rethinking Viability, J. Randy Beck

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The Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey plurality acknowledged an obligation to "justify the lines we draw." The corollary would seem to be an obligation to eschew lines that defy principled justification. In the decades since Roe v. Wade, the Court has offered no adequate rationale for the viability standard, notwithstanding persistent judicial and academic critiques. Exacerbating this country's divisions over abortion and placing us out of step with the world community, the viability rule seems a strong candidate for abandonment as the Court continues to rethink its abortion jurisprudence in the aftermath of Casey.

Reflections On Hope, Erica J. Hashimoto

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This is an article from a Symposium In Honor of Professor Milner S. Ball. This article describes Professor Ball's dedication towards public interest law and encourages others to join the the fight for justice.

Fighting for a more just society-a society that treats all of its members with dignity and respect-calls for courage, passion, and vision. People with those qualities who choose to work in the public interest will discover the joy of having a "job" that many days is exhilarating and rewarding and often is just plain fun.' There will also, however, be difficult days. Surviving those days and …

Milner S. Ball: Proof That One Professor Can Make A Difference, David Shipley

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Milner S. Ball, the Harmon W. Caldwell Chair in Constitutional Law, is proof positive that one person can make a difference in the world. There is no doubt that he has made a substantial difference for the better during his distinguished career at the University of Georgia, as a campus minister, as a non-traditional law student who was the First Honor Graduate in the Class of 1971 and editor in chief of the Georgia Law Review, and as a highly regarded professor at the School of Law since 1978. This article is part of a symposium in tribute to Milner …

The State Of The Judiciary: A Corporate Perspective, Larry D. Thompson, Charles J. Cooper

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The rule of law depends on highly talented, independent judges who conscientiously strive to ensure that the law is consistently applied in a principled and predictable manner. This Essay addresses two potential threats to judicial independence and the rule of law that we believe warrant special attention at this time. First, inadequate judicial salaries pose a threat to the quality and independence of the judiciary. Judges' real pay has declined substantially over the past generation, even as the compensation of other callings within the legal profession has risen dramatically. This growing disparity in pay has prompted an increasing number of …

A Tax Lawyer's Perspective On Section 527 Organizations, Gregg D. Polsky

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Proponents of campaign finance reform generally assume that, by definition, all section 527 organizations are partisan, election-driven organizations. They also believe that by self-identifying to the IRS, these organizations receive substantial tax benefits. Based on these presuppositions, reformers argue that strict regulation of 527organizations is both constitutional and normatively beneficial. In this Essay, I argue that once section 527 is carefully analyzed from a tax perspective, it becomes evident that these assumptions are flawed. Ultimately, I conclude that section 527 should not be used as a mechanism for regulating campaign finance

"He Said," "She Said," And Issues Of Life And Death: The Right To Confrontation At Capital Sentencing Proceedings, Penny White

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No abstract provided.

Hell Hath No Fury Like An Investor Scorned: Retribution, Deterrence, Restoration, And The Criminalization Of Securities Fraud Under Rule 10b-5, Joan Macleod Heminway

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This brief article focuses attention on the ineffectual nature of prosecutions of corporations and their insiders - generally, officers and directors - for securities fraud under Rule 10b-5. Specifically, the article begins by briefly summarizing the nature of enforcement actions and related penalties under Rule 10b-5. Next, the article argues that, as currently conceived and executed, criminal enforcement actions under Rule 10b-5 are ineffective as a means of achieving retribution, as deterrents of undesirable behavior, and as enforcement vehicles that vindicate the policies underlying Rule 10b-5. As a means of addressing these criticisms, the article suggests possible enhancements to Rule …

Personal Facts About Executive Officers: A Proposal For Tailored Disclosures To Encourage Reasonable Investor Behavior, Joan Macleod Heminway

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Required disclosures under U.S. securities laws, whether mandated by line-item disclosure rules, gap-filling regulations, or antifraud provisions, tend to focus principally, although not exclusively, on corporate facts - information about an issuer of securities or a transaction involving an issuer of securities. Although there are line-item disclosure rules that require the public revelation of personal facts about executive officers (both by the issuer and by the executive himself or herself), these rules are limited in scope.

However, public disclosure of executives' personal facts not covered by these line-item rules still may be required under applicable gap-filling regulations or antifraud provisions. …

Assignment Of Receivables Under Article 9: Structural Incoherence And Wasteful Filing, Thomas E. Plank

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No abstract provided.

Sexual Abuse And Exploitation Of Women And Girls By U.N. Peacekeeping Troops, Valorie K. Vojdik

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No abstract provided.

Doomed To Re-Repeat History: The Triangle Fire, The World Trade Center Attack, And The Importance Of Strong Building Codes, Gregory M. Stein

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Imagine this: You are a member of a commission charged with recommending changes to the building code of a densely-packed urban city, say New York. Your recommendation is that high-rise office buildings are overly safe and that your city should relax its codes. That, more or less, is what happened in New York in 1968. Fifty-seven years after the Triangle Waist Company fire, in which 146 people trapped in the upper floors of an unsafe building burned, jumped, or fell from a collapsed fire escape to their deaths, New York City relaxed its safety rules for high-rise buildings.

In his …

Shrinking Boomer Social Security Retirement Benefits, Francine J. Lipman

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No abstract provided.

The Immigrant Rights Marches (Las Marchas): Did The “Gigante” (Giant) Wake Up Or Does It Still Sleep Tonight?, Sylvia R. Lazos

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This article documents the genesis of the March 2006 immigrant rights protests and analyzes their impact. Las Marchas were truly spontaneous grassroots protests, the largest massive civil rights mobilization effort for a single event in the United States to date. This paper provides a macro- and micro-analysis of the forces that account for this success. First, the catalyst, HR 4437, a bill that was successfully approved by the House of Representatives would have criminalized illegal presence. This law was perceived as unjust, and engendered a debate around immigrant rights debate in terms with universal and simple appeal, human dignity, the …

Developing Las Vegas: Creating Inclusionary Affordable Housing Requirements In Development Agreements, Ngai Pindell

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The lack of affordable shelter for all of America's families often appears to be an immutable part of America's housing landscape. If the inclusionary housing regime in Las Vegas allowed local governments and developers any discretion in the decision to include affordable housing in a particular development agreement, the regime would have to establish an equivalent mechanism such as individual developer suits to check abuses of this discretion. A potential safeguard of effective affordable housing planning under development agreements could be the expertise of planners and other local government officials. Inclusionary housing requirements within development agreements ensure affordable housing issues …

Restoring The Lost World Of Classical Legal Thought: The Presumption In Favor Of Liberty Over Law And The Court Over The Constitution, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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In 1998, legal historian William M. Wiecek published a book outlining the basic legal ideology that brought us the “Lochner era” in Supreme Court decision-making. It was fittingly entitled, The Lost World of Classical Legal Thought in America: Law and Ideology, 1886-1937. Wiecek demonstrated that the “classical” legal thought that generated the “libertarian” decision-making of the Lochner era, which occurred during the first third or so of the twentieth century, was the attempt to bring Lockean political principles directly to bear on the task of interpreting the 1787 Constitution in the post-Reconstruction era. In 2004, Professor Randy E. Barnett contends …

Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Sales, Keith A. Rowley, Carolyn L. Dessin, Larry T. Garvin, Robyn L. Meadows

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2006 Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Sales

Colloquy, Transactional Economics: Victor Goldberg’S Framing Contract Law, Keith A. Rowley, Mark P. Gergen, Victor Goldberg, Stewart Mcaulay

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Panel discussion among law faculty who teach contracts of 2007 book authored by Victor Goldberg, which suggests that an economic approach to contract interpretation is appropriate.

Evidentiary Wisdom And Blinders In Perspective: Thoughts On Misjudging, Elaine W. Shoben

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Empirical studies serve to enlighten the law, even when they simply confirm the wisdom of existing rules. Chris Guthrie's article, Misjudging, primarily serves that useful function—confirming the wisdom of existing rules—even though the author sought to establish something different. Guthrie's article applies insights from cognitive psychology to the resolution of legal disputes and presents some empirical proof of the effect of the application. He concludes that three sets of “blinders”—informational, cognitive, and attitudinal—affect the ability of judges to reach correct resolutions of disputes. He therefore recommends further appreciation of the ability of arbitration and mediation to avoid some of the …

Toward A History Of Children As Witnesses, David S. Tanenhaus, William Bush

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This brief essay offers a selective overview of recent trends in the historical scholarship on American childhood from the origins of the American Revolution to the early years of the Cold War. This overview of the literature has two purposes. First, it highlights recent socio-cultural scholarship that presents substantive challenges to the conventional ways of understanding the history of children and the law. Second, in so doing, it points out that legal histories concerned solely with doctrinal matters can, and often do, present a limited and distorted window into the past. Instead, the essay argues that the place of children, …

A Proposed Solution To The Scholarly Communication Crisis, Chad J. Schatzle

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After reviewing the history and parameters of the scholarly communications crisis, particularly in regard to skyrocketing prices for journals in the natural sciences, the author reviews and rejects previously attempted solutions. He then employs the principles of game theory in proposing a new solution to the crisis.

Restitution As A Remedy For Refugee Property Claims In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Michael Kagan

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This Article examines restitution as an autonomous human right for refugees displaced in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and assesses the implications of taking such a rights-based approach. The author concludes that the refugees have a strong legal claim to restitution. In international law, compensation is relevant only when restitution is materially impossible, where property has been damaged or declined in value so that restitution is not a complete remedy for the victim's loss or where a refugee chooses not to seek restitution. Current empirical research about land usage in Israel indicates that a great deal, and possibly the majority, of lost …

Destructive Ambiguity: Enemy Nationals And The Legal Enabling Of Ethnic Conflict In The Middle East, Michael Kagan

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In the course of the Middle East conflict since 1948, both the Arab states and Israel have tended to take harsh measures against civilians based on their national, ethnic, and religious origins. This practice has been partially legitimized by a norm in international law that permits states to infringe the liberty and property interests of enemy nationals during armed conflict. Middle Eastern governments have misused the logic behind this theoretically exceptional rule to justify far-reaching measures that undermine the “principle of distinction” between civilians and combatants and erode the principle of non-discrimination that lies at the center of human rights …

Of Metaphor, Metonymy, And Corporate Money: Rhetorical Choices In Supreme Court Decisions On Campaign Finance Regulation, Linda L. Berger

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This Article examines the metaphorical and metonymical framing of corporate money in Supreme Court decisions about campaign finance regulation. Metaphorical influences (corporation as a person, spending money as speech, marketplace of ideas as the model for First Amendment analysis) affected early decisions about the regulation of corporate spending in election campaigns. Later, a metonymical move to isolate corporate money and then to focus on its malevolent tendencies displaced the earlier view of corporate money as speech. This movement was best depicted in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93 (2003), the Supreme Court's 2003 decision on the Bipartisan Campaign …

Political Reason, Leslie C. Griffin

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No abstract provided.

Reconsidering Procedural Conformity Statutes, Thomas O. Main

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No abstract provided.