Law Commons^™

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Adjusting Unconscionability As An Alternative To The "'Fair Contracts' Approval Mechanism", Daniel J. Cohn

Daniel J. Cohn

Courts are in the habit of enforcing contracts. Courts enforce contracts governing consumer transactions even though empirical data show consumers do not read those terms. The big question is, “Should they?” One legal scholar, Shmuel I. Becher, has answered that question with a resounding “yes, but differently.” Becher proposes a creative and comprehensive third-party approval system for consumer contracts, known as the “‘Fair Contracts’ Approval Mechanism.” In this Paper, I identify several fatal problems associated with Becher’s proposed system, and—given those problems—propose an alternative method of protecting consumers. Specifically, I suggest adjusting the unconscionability doctrine to include a sliding-scale analysis …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

How Legislative Bans On Foreign And International Law Obstruct The Practice And Regulation Of American Lawyers, David Nersessian

David Nersessian

Thirty-two state legislatures have introduced (and five have enacted) “blocking” initiatives that prohibit foreign or international law in state judicial decisions. Some states, such as Oklahoma, extend this ban to religious tenets, notably Sharia law. Scholarly discourse to date has focused principally upon how such legislation discriminates against minority religious groups. The academic community has yet to consider the serious collateral (and apparently unintended) impact of such laws on American lawyers, which is the subject of this article.

Blocking laws make it all but impossible for practicing lawyers to fulfill their ethical obligations in legal matters abroad, which forces them …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. This article examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. As an Associate …

Race, Prediction & Discretion, Shima Baradaran

Shima Baradaran

Many scholars and political leaders denounce racism as the cause of disproportionate incarceration of black Americans. All players in this system have been blamed including the legislators who enact laws that disproportionately harm blacks, police who unevenly arrest blacks, prosecutors who overcharge blacks, and judges that fail to release and oversentence black Americans. Some scholars have blamed the police and judges who make arrest and release decisions based on predictions of whether defendants will commit future crimes. They claim that prediction leads to minorities being treated unfairly. Others complain that racism results from misused discretion. This article explores where racial …

The Dimensions Of Judicial Impartiality, Charles G. Geyh

Charles G. Geyh

Abstract: Scholars have traditionally analyzed judicial impartiality piecemeal, in disconnected debates on discrete topics. As a consequence, current understandings of judicial impartiality are balkanized and muddled. This article seeks to reconceptualize judicial impartiality comprehensively, across contexts. In an era when “we are all legal realists now,” perfect impartiality—the complete absence of bias or prejudice—is at most an ideal, with “impartial enough” becoming, of necessity, the realistic goal. Understanding when imperfectly impartial is nonetheless impartial enough is aided by conceptualizing judicial impartiality in three distinct dimensions: A procedural dimension in which impartiality affords parties a fair hearing; a political dimension in …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

This article argues that Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. It examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. …

Cooperation And Division: An Empirical Analysis Of Voting Similarities And Differences During The Stable Rehnquist Court Era—1994 To 200, Mark S. Klock

Mark S Klock

The Stable Rehnquist Court Era (SRCE) covers the period from the appointment of Justice Breyer to the passing of Chief Justice Rehnquist. There has been only one longer period of stability in the Court’s history, and that was in the early nineteenth century when far fewer cases were decided. Thus the SRCE presents a unique opportunity with a large number of observations to conduct statistical analysis of the Justices’ votes while the composition of the Court is held constant. I present a statistical empirical analysis of voting for this period both for the potentially interesting results that can be learned, …

Indecisive Reasons For Decision, Eric J. Miller

Eric J. Miller

This paper provides a radical, new critique of Ronald Dworkin’s theory of law and politics. Dworkin's theory of law as integrity purports to show how judges can avoid indecision when deciding cases and select one right answer to every legal problem. The integrity thesis must avoid two sources of indecision. Competing justifications could be equally good or incommensurably good: in either case, there will be multiple answers to the legal problem, so no unique right answer. Dworkin’s solution is to say that, in either case, the judge can just choose. Having chosen, the judge is supposed to stand by his …

Breakthrough Science And The New Rehabilitation, Meghan J. Ryan

Meghan J. Ryan

Breakthroughs in pharmacology, genetics, and neuroscience are transforming how society views criminals and thus how society should respond to criminal behavior. Although the criminal law has long been based on notions of culpability, science is undercutting the assumption that offenders are actually responsible for their criminal actions. Further, scientific advances have suggested that criminals can be changed at the biochemical level. The public has become well aware of these advances largely due to pervasive media reporting on these issues and also as a result of the pharmaceutical industry’s incessant advertising of products designed to transform individuals by treating everything from …

Conflict In The Court? Supreme Court Recusal From Marbury To The Modern Day, James Sample

James Sample

For justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, controversies pitting personal conflicts ¬¬— whether actual or merely alleged — against the constitutional commitment to the rule of law increasingly form the basis of a caustic and circular national dialogue that generates substantially more heat than light. While the profile of these controversies is undoubtedly waxing, the underlying tensions stretch back at least to Marbury v. Madison. For all its seminal import, in Marbury, Chief Justice John Marshall adjudicated a case involving, inter alia, the validity of judicial commissions Marshall had himself signed and sealed while serving simultaneously as the outgoing Secretary …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

This article argues that Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. It examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

This article argues that Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. It examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

This article argues that Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. It examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

This article argues that Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. It examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

This article argues that Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. It examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

This article argues that Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. It examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. …

The Skeptic's Guide To Information Sharing At Sentencing, Ryan W. Scott

Ryan W. Scott

The “information sharing” model, a leading method of structuring judicial discretion at the sentencing stage of criminal cases, has attracted broad support from scholars and judges. Under this approach, sentencing judges should have access to a robust body of information, including written opinions and statistics, about previous sentences in similar cases. Armed with that information, judges can conform their sentences to those of their colleagues or identify principled reasons for distinguishing them, reducing inter-judge disparity and promoting rationality in sentencing law. This Article takes a skeptical view, arguing that information sharing suffers from three fundamental weaknesses as an alternative to …

Why Harlan Fiske Stone (Also) Matters, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

This article argues that Harlan Fiske Stone has been largely overlooked in the recent legal literature even though his legacy should influence how we resolve contemporary legal problems. It examines Stone’s archived correspondence, his speeches and opinions, and numerous secondary sources to demonstrate why he is more important now than at any time since his death in 1946. As Attorney General from 1924-25, Stone’s decision to prohibit the Bureau of Investigation (BI, today’s FBI) from spying on domestic radicals established a framework that should guide the troublesome relationship between domestic intelligence and law enforcement that reemerged after September 11, 2001. …

Competing Conceptions Of Legal Objectivity: An Ignored Publicity Versus A Surprisingly Unhelpful Naturalism, Kenneth K. Ching

Kenneth K Ching

Law’s legitimacy depends on law’s objectivity. But before we can ask whether law is objective, we need to define legal objectivity. This article argues for a reason-based conception of legal objectivity that is probative of law’s legitimacy.

Judge Richard Posner and Dr. Brian Leiter claim that legal objectivity cannot be reason-based. They say legal objectivity should be based on empirical science. They argue law should be naturalistic. This article argues that naturalism is the wrong approach to legal objectivity for at least four reasons: (1) the lack of good reason to privilege scientific epistemology over a reason-based epistemology, (2) naturalism’s …

The Supreme Court's Understanding Of The Sex-Gender Distinction, Brett Hammon

Brett Hammon

No abstract provided.

Is This The End Of The Second Reconstruction?, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

No abstract provided.