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Full-Text Articles in Law
Judicial Choice Among Cases For Certiorari, Tonja Jacobi, Álvaro Bustos
Judicial Choice Among Cases For Certiorari, Tonja Jacobi, Álvaro Bustos
Faculty Articles
How does the Supreme Court choose among cases to grant cert? In a model with a strategic Supreme Court, a continuum of rule-following lower courts, a set of potential cases for revision, and a distribution of future lower court cases, we show that the Court takes the case that will most significantly shape future lower court case outcomes in the direction that the Court prefers. That is, the Court grants cert to the case with maximum salience. If the Court is rather liberal (or conservative), then the most salient case is that which moves the discretionary range of the legal …
Taking Laughter Seriously At The Supreme Court, Tonja Jacobi, Matthew Sag
Taking Laughter Seriously At The Supreme Court, Tonja Jacobi, Matthew Sag
Faculty Articles
Laughter in Supreme Court oral arguments has been misunderstood, treated as either a lighthearted distraction from the Court’s serious work, or interpreted as an equalizing force in an otherwise hierarchical environment. Examining the more than nine thousand instances of laughter witnessed at the Court since 1955, this Article shows that the Justices of the Supreme Court use courtroom humor as a tool of advocacy and a signal of their power and status. As the Justices have taken on a greater advocacy role in the modern era, they have also provoked more laughter.
The performative nature of courtroom humor is apparent …
State Standing For Nationwide Injunctions Against The Federal Government, Jonathan R. Nash
State Standing For Nationwide Injunctions Against The Federal Government, Jonathan R. Nash
Faculty Articles
Recent years have seen a substantial increase of cases in which states seek, and indeed obtain, nationwide injunctions against the federal government. These cases implicate two complicated questions: first, when a state has standing to sue the federal government, and second, when a nationwide injunction is a proper form of relief. For their part, scholars have mostly addressed these questions separately. In this Essay, I analyze the two questions together. Along the way, I identify drawbacks and benefits of nationwide injunctions, as well as settings where nationwide injunctions may be desirable and undesirable. I present arguments that, although I do …