Law Commons^™

Separate And Obedient: The Judicial Qualification Missing From The Job Description, J. Amy Dillard

All Faculty Scholarship

The national debate about the role of judges, their qualifications and ideologies consumes news coverage, as evidenced by the recent appointment hearings of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito and the aborted nomination of Harriet Miers. The American Bar Association is in the process of re-evaluating and updating its Model Code of Judicial Conduct. The poverty of the quality of the debate, with legislators on both sides of the aisle discussing a few political issues and largely ignoring issues of ethics and temperament, leaves the public with little helpful information about whether judicial candidates will abide by the …

Objecting To Court Ordered Mediation, Jane C. Murphy

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Maryland judges have wide discretion to refer parties to mediate a variety of civil matters. Title 17 of the Maryland Rules, enacted in 1998, governs mediation of civil cases in the circuit courts. These rules are supplemented by Maryland Rule 9-205, which addresses mediation of child custody and visitation disputes. Although these rules define mediation and address mediator qualifications in some detail, they say very little about either a party's right to object to mediation or the court's authority to compel participation in mediation.

Given that the mediation rules are relatively new and mediation orders would generally be considered interlocutory, …

The Judiciary In The United States: A Search For Fairness, Independence And Competence, Stephen J. Shapiro

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Alexander Hamilton referred to the judiciary as “the least dangerous branch” because it could neither make nor enforce the law without help from the other two branches of government. In the years since then, however, courts and judges in the United States have assumed a much more prominent role in society. American judges preside over criminal trials and sentence those convicted, decide all kinds of civil disputes, both large and small, and make important decisions involving families, such as child custody. They have also become the primary guarantors of the civil and constitutional rights of American citizens.

The case of …