Law Commons^™

A Partial Defense Of An Anti-Discrimination Principle, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Over a quarter century ago, Professor Fiss proposed that the constitutional principle of equal protection should be interpreted to prohibit laws or official practices that aggravate or perpetuate the subordination of specially disadvantaged groups. Fiss thought that the anti-subordination principle could more readily justify results he believed normatively attractive than could the rival, anti-discrimination principle. In particular, anti-subordination would enable the courts to invalidate facially neutral laws that have the effect of disadvantaging a subordinate group and also enable them to uphold facially race-based laws aimed at ameliorating the condition of a subordinate group. Since Fiss’s landmark article appeared, Supreme …

Plaintiphobia In The Appellate Courts: Civil Rights Really Do Differ From Negotiable Instruments, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Professors Clermont and Eisenberg conducted a systematic analysis of appellate court behavior and report that defendants have a substantial advantage over plaintiffs on appeal. Their analysis attempted to control for different variables that may affect the decision to appeal or the appellate outcome, including case complexity, case type, amount in controversy, and whether there had been a judge or a jury trial. Once they accounted for these variables and explored and discarded various alternate explanations, they came to the conclusion that a defendants' advantage exists probably because of appellate judges' misperceptions that trial level adjudicators are pro-plaintiff.

Judge Harry Edwards: A Case In Point!, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Judge Harry Edwards dislikes empirical work that is not flattering to federal appellate judges. A few years ago Dean Richard Revesz published an empirical study of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit providing further support for the rather tame proposition that judges’ political orientation has some effect on outcome in some politically charged cases. A year later Judge Edwards published a criticism phrased in extreme terms. Dean Revesz then wrote a devastating reply by which he demonstrated that Judge Edwards “is simply wrong with respect to each of the numerous criticisms that he levels.” We believe …

Twenty-Five Years Of Death: A Report Of The Cornell Death Penalty Project On The "Modern" Era Of Capital Punishment In South Carolina, John H. Blume

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court determined that the death penalty, as then administered in this country, violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Many states, including South Carolina, scurried to enact new, "improved" capital punishment statutes which would satisfy the Supreme Court's rather vague mandate. In 1976, the High Court approved some of the new laws, and the American death penalty was back in business. After a wrong turn or two, including a statutory scheme which did not pass constitutional muster, the South Carolina General Assembly passed the current death penalty statute in 1977. The …

Comparing The Two Legal Realisms—American And Scandinavian, Gregory S. Alexander

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Above The Rules: A Response To Epstein And King, Frank Cross, Michael Heise, Gregory C. Sisk

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Blackletter Statement Of Federal Administrative Law: Standing, Cynthia R. Farina

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Getting Beyond Cynicism: New Theories Of The Regulatory State. Foreword: Post-Public Choice?, Cynthia R. Farina, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Interaction Of Tax And Non-Tax Treaties, Robert A. Green

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This background note consists of two parts. Part one provides an overview of the extent to which tax matters are currently covered in non-tax treaties. This discussion focuses on the general agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement and the North American free trade agreement (NAFTA) (which cover direct tax measures only to a limited extent) and the European Community (EC) treaty (which covers direct tax measures more broadly). Part two outlines the issues raised when tax matters are covered in non-tax treaties.

Theaters Of Pardoning: Tragicomedy And The Gunpowder Plot, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article examines the dramatic character of King James I’s reaction to the 1605 Gunpowder Plot - the first act of terrorism in the West - and his attempts both to inscribe the unprecedented crime within the conventional structure of revenge tragedy and to interpret the event according to a model of tragicomedy indebted to John of Patmos' apocalyptic Revelation. On account of applying these cultural and religious paradigms, the King suggested that Parliament be entrusted with judging the conspirators, thus imaginatively displacing his sovereignty onto it.

The Scottsboro Trials: A Legal Lynching, Faust Rossi

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mixed Signals: Rational-Choice Theories Of Social Norms And The Pragmatics Of Explanation, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The question of how societies secure cooperation and order in the absence of state enforced sanctions has long vexed law and economics scholars. Recently the concept of social norms--informally enforced rules of behavior--has occupied the attention of a large number of these theorists, who are concerned with understanding why economically rational actors would bother to follow rules whose costs seem to outweigh their benefits. Because of the prestige (or at least trendiness) of law and economics, it seems that now everyone in the legal academy is talking about social norms. This burgeoning scholarship is closely related to a wider concern …

Clear And Convincing Evidence Of Testamentary Intent: The Search For A Compromise Between Formality And Adjudicative Justice, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Tribute To Paul Szasz, John J. Barceló Iii, David Wippman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lawyer Conduct In The "Tobacco Wars", Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

International Law And The Legal Curriculum, Jeffrey S. Lehman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Toward A History Of The Legalization Of American Legal Ethics -- Ii The Modern Era, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Globalization In Financial Services - What Role For Gats?, Chantal Thomas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ethics For Skeptics, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One of the themes of the 2002 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS") has been that we, as teachers, must do better at engaging our students "where they're at." A number of speakers on various panels addressed the consumerist mentality among students, the desire of a population raised on MTV for multimedia lectures that resemble rapidly paced entertainment with high production values, and the suspicion of students toward claims of authority by teachers that are not backed up by respect and hard work. In addition, I would add a further observation as a teacher of ethics …

Amici Curiae Brief Of New York Law School Professors In People V. Harris: Constitutionality Of The New York Death Penalty Statute Under The State Constitution's Cruel And Unusual Punishments And Antidiscrimination Clauses, Anthony G. Amsterdam, Ursula Bentele, Vivian Berger, John H. Blume, Peggy Davis, Deborah Denno, Markus Dubber, Stephen Ellmann, Deborah Fins, Eric M. Freedman, Stephen P. Garvey, Jack Greenberg, Randy Hertz, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Richard Klein, James Liebman, Peter Neufeld, Barry Scheck, Bryan Stevenson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Amici are teachers in New York law schools who have studied the operation of the death penalty for the purpose of teaching the subject, writing about it in scholarly journals, or representing persons accused or convicted of capital crimes. Most of us have worked in the field both as academics and as pro bono counsel for condemned inmates. Collectively, we have had first-hand experience in hundreds of death cases, in dozens of jurisdictions, extending over more than a third of a century.

Our experience has convinced us that capital punishment cannot be administered with the fairness, reliability, and freedom from …