Law Commons^™

A Government Of Laws Not Of Precedents 1776-1876: The Google Challenge To Common Law Myth, James Maxeiner

James R Maxeiner

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is a common law country of precedents where, until the 20th century (the “Age of Statutes”), statutes had little role. Digitization by Google and others of previously hard to find legal works of the 19th century challenges this common law myth. At the Centennial in 1876 Americans celebrated that “The great fact in the progress of American jurisprudence … is its tendency towards organic statute law and towards the systematizing of law; in other words, towards written constitutions and codification.” This article tests the claim of the Centennial Writers of 1876 and finds …

What's Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax system, but there are serious flaws with that idea. Those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses; and (4) significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs inherent in a system that taxes transferees on transactions that may be largely unmonitored.

This article reviews common characteristics of existing inheritance …

What’S Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax system, but there are serious flaws with that idea. Those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses; and (4) significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs inherent in a system that taxes transferees on transactions that may be largely unmonitored. This article reviews common characteristics of existing inheritance …

Not All Defined Value Clauses Are Equal, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Defined value clauses used to value nonmarketable family limited partnership (FLP) interests create valuation distortions and other public policy issues. This paper describes these abuses and proposes the employment of restrictions similar to those applied to pecuniary formula marital deduction clauses.

The article explains how pecuniary formula marital deduction provisions created valuation distortions by allowing for undervaluation of the marital share that were remedied by the IRS’s Rev. Proc. 64-19 and the enactment of section 2056(b)(10). The article analyzes recent case law expanding the use of defined value clauses into the FLP area and criticizes the courts for not applying …

Not All Defined Value Clauses Are Equal, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Defined value clauses used to value nonmarketable family limited partnership (FLP) interests create valuation distortions and other public policy issues. This paper describes these abuses and proposes the employment of restrictions similar to those applied to pecuniary formula marital deduction clauses.

The article explains how pecuniary formula marital deduction provisions created valuation distortions by allowing for undervaluation of the marital share that were remedied by the IRS’s Rev. Proc. 64-19 and the enactment of section 2056(b)(10). The article analyzes recent case law expanding the use of defined value clauses into the FLP area and criticizes the courts for not applying …

Not All Defined Value Clauses Are Equal, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Defined value clauses used to value nonmarketable family limited partnership (FLP) interests create valuation distortions and other public policy issues. This paper describes these abuses and proposes the employment of restrictions similar to those applied to pecuniary formula marital deduction clauses. The article explains how pecuniary formula marital deduction provisions created valuation distortions by allowing for undervaluation of the marital share that were remedied by the IRS’s Rev. Proc. 64-19 and the enactment of section 2056(b)(10). The article analyzes recent case law expanding the use of defined value clauses into the FLP area and criticizes the courts for not applying …

Bloodstains On A "Code Of Honor", Kenneth Lasson

Kenneth Lasson

Abstract In the real world of the Twenty-first Century, deep biases against women are prevalent in much of Muslim society. Although there is no explicit approval of honor killing in Islamic law (Sharia), its culture remains fundamentally patriarchal. As unfathomable as it is to Western minds, “honor killing” is a facet of traditional patriarchy, and its condonation can be traced largely to ancient tribal practices. Justifications for it can be found in the codes of Hammurabi and in the family law of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, honor killings in the Twenty-first Century are not isolated incidents, nor can they be …

Leave Film Tax Credits On Cutting-Room Floor, Sheldon H. Laskin

Sheldon H. Laskin

No abstract provided.

The Whim Of Twelve Is Cloaked In Racial Prejudice: Why Inherent Racial Discrimination In The Capital Punishment System Requires That Maryland's Legislature Enact A Fairness In Death Sentencing Act, Matthew E. Feinberg

Matthew E Feinberg

At sentencing in a capital case, “[p]eople live or die, dependent on the whim of one man or of [twelve,]” and “where responsibility is divided by twelve, it is easy to say: ‘Away with him.’" Although judges, practitioners, and academics hope for a fair and reliable penalty, since the 1970s, the prospect of racial discrimination in capital punishment has had a very real impact on the criminal justice system. Throughout the country, Caucasian and African American criminals are being treated differently in death sentencing simply because of the color of their skin. “[I]n the face of science, in the face …

The Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments: A Government Service Designed To Benefit Nonresidents, 47 State Tax Notes 41, Sheldon H. Laskin

Sheldon H. Laskin

No abstract provided.

The Colonel's Finest Campaign: Robert R. Mccormick And Near V. Minnesota, Eric B. Easton

Eric B Easton

This paper documents the collaboration between The Chicago Tribune’s Robert McCormick and attorney Weymouth Kirkland to mobilize the press to carry Near v. Minnesota to the Supreme Court. In an earlier paper, I demonstrated how the press acts as “strategic litigator” to shape the legal environment in which reporters and editors practice their craft. The collaboration discussed in this article established the precedent for monitoring litigation that implicates First Amendment values and deciding whether, when, and how to intervene.

Defending Truth: Legal And Psychological Aspects Of Holocaust Denial, Kenneth Lasson

Kenneth Lasson

Today that form of historical revisionism popularly called “Holocaust denial” abounds worldwide in all its full foul flourish – disseminated not only on Arab streets but in American university newspapers, not only in books, articles, and speeches but in mosques and over the Internet. Can we reject spurious revisionism, or punish purposeful expressions of hatred, and still pay homage to the liberty of thought ennobled by the First Amendment? Are some conflicts between freedom of expression and civility as insoluble as they are inevitable? Can history ever be proven as Truth? This article attempts to answer those questions. Part I …

Only A Name? Trademark Royalties, Nexus And Taxing That Which Enriches, 22 Akron Tax J. 1 , Sheldon H. Laskin

Sheldon H. Laskin

No abstract provided.

“Love Don’T Live Here Anymore”: Economic Incentives For A More Equitable Model Of Urban Redevelopment , Michele Alexandre

Michele Alexandre

John Rawls once stated that “the basic [social] structure is just throughout when the advantages of the more fortunate promote the well-being of the least fortunate, that is, when a decrease in their advantages would make the least fortunate even worse off than they are. The basic structure is perfectly just when the prospects of the least fortunate are as great as they can be.” This statement can be applied to the urban renewal context. While the definition of urban renewal changed during the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the effects of urban renewal have been the same for …