Law Commons^™

The Slip And Fall Of The California Legislature In The Classification Of Personal Injury Damages At Divorce And Death, Helen Y. Chang

Publications

Part I of this Article provides an overview of California's no-fault divorce reform, its haphazard development of community property laws, and the problems with the current statute classifying personal injury damages as community property during marriage and assigning those damages to the injured spouse at divorce, unless the interests of justice require an alternate disposition. Part II discusses the treatment and classification of personal injury damages in the eight other community property states and also offers a brief historical explanation of each state's community property origins. Part III concludes that the California legislature should amend the statute to classify personal …

Book Review, Richard B. Collins

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No abstract provided.

Social Factoring The Numbers With Assisted Reproduction, Bridget J. Crawford, Lolita Buckner Inniss

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In early 2009 the airwaves came alive with sensational stories about Nadya Suleman, the California mother who gave birth to octuplets conceived via assisted reproductive technology. Nadya Suleman and her octuplets are vehicles through which Americans express their anxiety about race, class and gender. Expressions of concern for the health of children, the mother's well-being, the future of reproductive medicine or the financial drain on taxpayers barely conceal deep impulses towards racism, sexism and classism. It is true that the public has had a longstanding fascination with multiple births and with large families. This is evidenced by a long history …

The Double Weakness Of Girls: Discrimination And Sexual Violence In Haiti, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

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This Note is about poverty, inequality, and sexual violence. Using empirical research, it explores cultural beliefs, practices of abuse, and criminal justice responses to the widespread and systematic rape affecting girls in the shantytowns of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Dominated by the vestiges of the French colonization and plagued by destitution and political instability, Haiti faces rampant violence and disarray leaving the majority of its population in unbearable conditions of despair. Often regarded as a pariah state by the international community and erratically supported or invaded by foreign players, Haiti remains a forgotten country despoiled by human rights violations, decadence, and turmoil.

The Ethics Of Collaborative Law, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

The practice of Collaborative Law - in which both parties agree that should their case fail to settle, both lawyers will be disqualified from proceeding to court - has grown rapidly in the family bar over the last decade. At the same time, the ethics of this practice have been called into question. Competing ethics opinions in 2007 - from the Colorado Bar Association and the American Bar Association - alternately ban and permit the practice. This Article tries to clarify the underlying ethical issues in Collaborative Law, arguing that much confusion has resulted from imprecise understandings of what the …

The Intriguing Federalist Future Of Reproductive Rights, Scott A. Moss, Douglas M. Raines

Publications

As the decline of Roe v. Wade inspires renewed efforts to restrict federal constitutional abortion rights, the serious shortcomings of abortion rights advocates' strategies for preserving such rights will become increasingly apparent. Continued reliance on Roe is likely to fail with an increasingly unsympathetic Supreme Court. Even abortion rights supporters have begun to criticize the decision for weak reasoning, which is difficult to remedy at this late stage of federal abortion jurisprudence. Moreover, although autonomy and gender equality arguments for abortion rights would improve upon Roe's privacy rationale, such arguments would require abrogating substantial precedent and are, therefore, of limited …

Marriage And Practical Knowledge, Robert F. Nagel

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No abstract provided.

Essentially A Mother, Jennifer S. Hendricks

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This article connects the constitutional jurisprudence of the family to debates over reproductive technology and surrogacy. Despite the outpouring of literature on reproductive technologies, courts and scholars have paid little attention to the constitutional foundation of parental rights. Focusing on the structural/political function of parental rights, this article argues that a gestational mother has a constitutional claim to be recognized as a legal parent.

The article first discusses the "unwed father cases." Despite believing that natural sex differences justified distinctions in parental rights, the Supreme Court crafted a test giving men parental rights if they established relationships with their biological …

Colorado Ethics Opinion 115: Next Steps For Colorado's Collaborative Lawyers, Scott R. Peppet

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No abstract provided.

Professor Homer Clark: "Just Do It!", David H. Getches

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No abstract provided.

Intimate Homicide: Gender And Crime Control, 1880-1920, Carolyn B. Ramsey

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The received wisdom, among feminists and others, is that historically the criminal justice system tolerated male violence against women. This article dramatically revises feminist understanding of the legal history of public responses to intimate homicide by showing that, in both the eastern and the western United States, men accused of killing their intimates often received stern punishment, including the death penalty, whereas women charged with similar crimes were treated leniently. Although no formal "battered woman's defense" existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, courts and juries implicitly recognized one--and even extended it to abandoned women who killed their unfaithful …

Sex, Lies, And Honor In Italian Rape Law, Rachel A. Van Cleave

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No abstract provided.

A Response To Professor Bix, Robert F. Nagel

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No abstract provided.

My Father Is A Woman, Oh No!: The Failure Of The Courts To Uphold Individual Substantive Due Process Rights For Transgender Parents Under The Guise Of The Best Interests Of The Child, Helen Chang

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Under the guise of the "best interest of the child," courts have denied biological and legal parents both custody and visitation rights over their children because these parents were either in the process of changing, or had completed a change, in their sexual and/or gender identity. One court has even terminated the parent-child relationship because of a parent's transgender status. This article proposes that a parent's transgender status does not render that parent per se unfit for custody and/or visitation. Rather, a parent's gender change should be used as merely one factor within the nexus test used by the court …

The Non-Discrimination Principle And Its Effect On The Education Of Roma Children In The Czech Republic, Leslie Burton

Publications

All states ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) are bound to comply with Article 2, which requires States Parties to respect the rights of all children, without discrimination of any kind. In the Czech Republic, however, there is systematic discrimination against the Roma (also referred to as Gypsies). As a result, Roma children are not getting the education they are ensured under Article 28 of the CRe. The Czech Republic has tried, and continues to try, different methods to resolve the problem and to comply with the CRe. This essay will explore the nature of the …

Indian Child Welfare Act: Keeping Families Together And Minimizing Litigation, Sarah Krakoff

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No abstract provided.

Herd Behavior In Designer Genes, Peter H. Huang

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The ability of individuals to choose their children's genes has increased over time and may ultimately culminate in a world involving free market reprogenetic technologies. Reprogenetic technologies combine advances in reproductive biology and genetics to provide humans increased control over their children's genes. This Article offers economic perspectives that are helpful in understanding the possibly unexpected ethical, legal, and social issues at stake in using reprogenetic technologies for trait enhancement selection. The Appendix analyzes two competitive games that might arise in such a biotechnological society. Specifically, the Article focuses on herd behavior, caused by either a popularity contest or positional …

Sex And The Social Order: The Selective Enforcement Of Colonial American Adultery Laws In The English Context, Carolyn B. Ramsey

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No abstract provided.

Dutch Uncle Sam: Immigration Reform And Notions Of Family, Lolita Buckner Inniss

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No abstract provided.

A Case Of Clothing And Smell Obsession In A Bisexual Adult Woman, Marianne Wesson

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No abstract provided.

Matrimonial Bonds: Slavery And Divorce In Nineteenth-Century America, Elizabeth B. Clark

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In the covenant of marriage, woman is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master -- the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement. He has so framed the law of divorce . . . as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women -- the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

The Politics Of God And The Woman's Vote: Religion In The American Suffrage Movement, 1848-1895, Elizabeth B. Clark

Publications

This thesis examines the role of religion— both liberal and evangelical Protestantism— in the development of a feminist political theory in America during the nineteenth century and how that feminist theory in turn helped to transform American liberalism. Chapter 1 looks for the genesis of women's rights language, not in the republican rhetoric of the Founding Fathers, but in the teachings of liberal Protestantism and its links with laissez-faire economic theory. The antebellum understanding of rights is shown to have encompassed social and civil rights alike, and to have arisen from a vision of the mutual benefits that derived from …