Law Commons^™

The Great Recession And The Rhetorical Canons Of Law And Economics, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Great Recession of 2008 and onward has drawn attention to the American economic and financial system and has cast a critical spotlight on the theories, policies, and assumptions of the modern, neoclassical school of law and economics-often labeled the "Chicago School"-because this school of legal economic thought has had great influence on the American economy and financial system. The Chicago School's positions on deregulation and the limitation or elimination of oversight and government restraints on stock markets, derivative markets, and other financial practices are the result of decades of neoclassical economic assumptions regarding the efficiency of unregulated markets, the …

Social Security In An Era Of Retrenchment: What Would Happen If The Social Security Trust Funds Were Exhausted?, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Social Security's income, including interest income on the Social Security trust funds' reserves, currently exceeds costs. The system, however, is facing a long-term deficit. Specifically, the Social Security Trustees project that, unless the Social Security Act is amended, by 2033 the system's reserves will be depleted, and its income will only be sufficient to cover about 75 percent of scheduled benefits.

This article addresses two questions related to the funding of Social Security. Part I discusses what would happen if the Social Security trust funds were exhausted. Part II discusses whether Congress could amend the Social Security Act to reduce …

Toward A Situational Model For Regulating International Crimes, Andrew K. Woods

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The international criminal regime, as currently conceived, relies almost exclusively on the power of backward-looking criminal sanctions to deter future international crimes. This model reflects the dominant mid-century approach to crime control, which was essentially reactive. Since then, domestic criminal scholars and practitioners have developed and implemented new theories of crime control—theories notable for their promise of crime prevention through ex ante attention to community and environmental factors. Community policing crime prevention through environmental design, and related "situational" approaches to crime control have had a significant impact on the administration of domestic criminal law.

This Article evaluates the implications of …

Friction In Reconciling Criminal Forfeiture And Bankruptcy: The Criminal Forfeiture Part, Sarah N. Welling, Jane Lyle Hord

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The federal government uses two general types of asset forfeiture, criminal and civil. This Article addresses criminal forfeiture, which allows the government to take property from defendants when they are convicted of crimes. It is “an aspect of punishment imposed following conviction of a substantive criminal offense.” The goal of this Article is to give an overview of the forfeiture process, specifically in relation to claims victims and creditors might assert as third-party claimants.

The Letter Of Richard Wyche: An Interrogation Narrative, Christopher G. Bradley

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This is a translation, with introduction, of the Letter of Richard Wyche—one of only two heresy interrogation narratives from medieval England written from the perspective of the accused heretic.

The Letter is an autobiographical account of Richard Wyche’s interrogation, in 1402-1403, at the hands of church officials. Wyche originally composed the Letter in (Middle) English but it survives only in a Latin translation, alongside other forbidden texts in a manuscript now in Prague. Wyche wrote and covertly sent away this Letter to an audience of intimates sympathetic to the cause (the so-called Wycliffite or Lollard heresy) before his interrogations ended. …

Moral Judgments & International Crimes: The Disutility Of Desert, Andrew K. Woods

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The international criminal regime exhibits many retributive features, but scholars and practitioners rarely defend the regime in purely retributive terms—that is, by reference to the inherent value of punishing the guilty. Instead, they defend it on the consequentialist grounds that it produces the best policy outcomes, such as deterrence, conflict resolution, and reconciliation. These scholars and practitioners implicitly adopt a behavioral theory known as the "utility of desert," a theory about the usefulness of appealing to people's retributive intuitions. That theory has been critically examined in domestic criminal scholarship but practically ignored in international criminal law.

This Article fills this …

Following The Rules: Exclusion Of Witness, Sequestration, And No-Consultation Orders, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this Article, Professor Underwood discusses the varying application of Rule 615 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which provides for the exclusion of witnesses. He explains that varying application of Rule 615 and state evidence rules following Rule 615's language creates misunderstandings at trial. Thus, it is important to know not only the federal and local rules but also the "way things are done" in a particular court.

Will An Institutional Repository Hurt My Ssrn Ranking? Calming The Faculty Fear, James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Faculty members should not view the institutional repository as a drain on their SSRN rankings. While SSRN excels at delivering their work to the cadre of legal specialists, IRs typically do a better job of presenting it to a broader readership. This expanded exposure should be judged a

positive benefit of participation in the IR, helping to mitigate criticisms of law faculty as sequestered, insular, and writing only for themselves. Anyone interested in giving their ideas the widest possible hearing should deposit their intellectual work in as many venues as possible. For law professors, this means they should have both …

Enlivening Election Law, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Election law cases are often lengthy and include complex discussion of constitutional doctrines. Moreover, there is rarely a clear-cut answer to a tricky election law question. The field is full of balancing tests, competing interests to weigh, and ever-shifting standards. A challenge for Election Law teachers, then, is to ensure that the long judicial opinions and difficult constitutional doctrines undergirding the field of election law do not bury the vibrancy of the topic. One way to keep an Election Law course student-friendly is to make frequent use of electronic media. Election law is well-suited to the adoption of images, videos, …

Americans' Unwillingness To Pay Taxes Before The American Revolution: An Uncomfortable Legacy, Richard A. Westin

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

When one reflects on the sorry condition of America’s finances one has to wonder why there is such resistance to fiscal discipline. Is it merely because there is an obstreperous group in the US Congress who cannot abide any tax? Has the public been subtly lobbied into believing that American taxes are high, pointless and intolerable or is there some gene in the America’s body politic that has always been there that expresses itself from time to time in a pernicious cheapness? Perhaps all those things are true, or perhaps none. Nevertheless, a glance backward at Colonial days can stimulate …

Tenure And The Law Library Director, James M. Donovan, Kevin B. Shelton

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This essay offers a response to the current discussion concerning the possible rescission of ABA Accreditation Standard 603 governing tenure-track appointment of the law library director.

Part I reviews this discussion, highlighting the terms and arguments on all sides of the debate. Part II offers a defense of the current standard, based upon the need for the director both to receive the protections of academic freedom and to participate in faculty governance of the law school. The need for tenure to perform a director's professional duties, however, does not make one automatically tenureable. Part III examines the skeptical attitude that …

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Board Of Adjustment: Fifty Years Later, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Fifty years ago, Jesse Dukeminier, Jr. and Clyde Stapleton published a case study of the practice of law before the Lexington-Fayette Urban County (LFUC) Board of Adjustment. This Article presents a new empirical study of the LFUC Board of Adjustment. Specifically, the study covers the eighteen month period from the Board’s July 2007 meeting through its December 2008 meeting. This Article discusses how the practice has changed and improved in the years since the Dukeminier-Stapleton study and the problems and difficulties that still remain.

The Article begins by describing the current procedure before the LFUC Board of Adjustment and how …

The Dialectic Of Obscenity, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Until the 1960s, pornography was obscene, and obscenity prosecutions were relatively common. And until the 1970s, obscenity prosecutions targeted art, as well as pornography. But today, obscenity prosecutions are rare and limited to the most extreme forms of pornography.

So why did obscenity largely disappear? The conventional history of obscenity is doctrinal, holding that the Supreme Court’s redefinition of obscenity in order to protect art inevitably required the protection of pornography as well. In other words, art and literature were the vanguard of pornography.

But the conventional history of obscenity is incomplete. While it accounts for the development of obscenity …

After The Great Recession: Law And Economics' Topics Of Invention And Arrangement And Tropes Of Style, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the work, The Great Recession and the Rhetorical Canons of Law and Economics,' the Author examined the role of law and economics in the Great Recession of 2008 and onward by examining neoclassical and contemporary law and economics from the perspective of legal rhetoric. The modern, neoclassical school of law and economics-often labeled the "Chicago School"-has had great influence on the American economy and financial system because of its rhetorical canons: mathematical and scientific methods of analysis and demonstration; the characterization of legal phenomena as incentives and costs; the rhetorical economic concept of efficiency; and rational choice theory as …

Overcoming Structural Barriers To Integrated Housing: A Back-To-The-Future Reflection On The Fair Housing Act's "Affirmatively Further" Mandate, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A key goal of the 1968 Fair Housing Act (“FHA”), which was passed as an immediate response to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, was to replace the ghettos with “truly integrated and balanced living patterns.” It hasn’t happened. Today, more than four decades after the FHA’s passage, “residential segregation remains a key feature of America’s urban landscape,” continuing to condemn new generations of minorities to a second–class set of opportunities and undercutting a variety of national goals for all citizens.

But recent developments dealing with an underutilized provision of the FHA – § 3608’s mandate that federal housing funds …

Book Review | The Politics Of Medicaid By Laura Katz Olson, Nicole Huberfeld

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this book review, Professor Nicole Huberfeld examines The Politics of Medicaid, by Laura Katz Olson, which was published in 2010 by Columbia University Press.

Two And A Half Ethical Theories: Re-Examining The Foundations Of The Carnegie Report, Mark F. Kightlinger

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the past three years, the American Bar Association, several major state bar associations, the Association of American Law Schools, the New York Times, law students, and many legal educators have called for fundamental changes in the way we educate new lawyers. Some critics have suggested that legal education faces a crisis that will be exacerbated by rising tuitions, declining enrollments, and a precipitous drop in the demand for new lawyers. Most of those calling for change have relied on the critical analysis of modem legal education presented in a 2007 report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement …

Regulation A And The Jobs Act: A Failure To Resuscitate, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Regulation A offers small businesses an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933. The exemption is generally consistent with the obligation of the Securities and Exchange Commission to fashion exemptions that balance investor protection and capital formation. From the perspective of small businesses, the exemption may appear to provide an efficient access to external capital.

Regulation A, however, has fallen into nearly complete disuse. The millions of small businesses in this country, all of which at some point need external capital to survive and grow, simply do not use Regulation A.

Two reasons account for small …

"Fasten Your Seat Belt, Orville!": Exploring The Relationship Between State-Of-The-Art, Technological And Commercial Feasibility, And The Restatement'S Reasonable Alternative Design Requirement, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article begins by examining some of the case law involving the state-of-the-art concept and finds that it is principally concerned with technological feasibility. It also concludes that most cases do not treat state-of-the-art as conclusive on the design defect issue; rather, they merely consider it one of several factors that the fact finder may take into account when deciding whether a product's design is defective or not. Part II is concerned with technological development. This part examines two basic patterns of technological development and provides a number of historical examples for each. The first is a linear pattern, exemplified …

American School Finance Litigation And The Right To Education In South Africa, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This paper addresses the South African Constitution's invitation to the Constitutional Court to 'consider foreign law' when interpreting its provisions. Focusing on the education provisions found in section 29 of the Constitution, I make two claims. Firstly, contrary to the developing consensus, American state supreme court jurisprudence in school funding cases makes a poor resource to aid the interpretation of the basic South African right to education, regardless of the quantum of education that the Constitutional Court decides is encompassed by the word 'basic'. Secondly, however, certain aspects of these same American decisions, particularly the space they provide for a …

“Testing” Fuller’S Forms And Limits: A Brief Response To Oldfather, Bockhorst, & Dimmer, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In Triangulating Judicial Responsiveness, Chad Oldfather, Joseph Bockhorst, and Brian Dimmer give us a methodology by which we can empirically assess (among other things) the effects that argumentation has on judicial decision making. Unlike the vast majority of empirical legal scholarship of judging, the authors do not use this methodology in their current study to compare “legalist” explanations of judging with “realist” explanations of judging. Rather, the study operates almost entirely within the “legalist” frame. This is a welcome development for many reasons, one on which this Response focuses—the authors’ methodology illustrates a way of scientifically “testing” descriptive legal …

Election Law And Civil Discourse: The Promise Of Adr, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article was the result of a Symposium that explored the potential promises of alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) for resolving election law disputes. Both election law and ADR scholars opined on how ADR can help to achieve various goals for deciding contentious election law cases. My focus in this essay is narrower: I suggest that employing some features of ADR to resolve election disputes can help to improve the civil discourse of our elections and our political culture. That is, certain aspects of ADR can assist in reducing caustic language in election law judicial decisions, in the media’s reporting of …

Post-Reform Medicaid Before The Court: Discordant Advocacy Reflects Conflicting Attitudes, Nicole Huberfeld

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The United States Supreme Court heard two Medicaid cases this term that raise major questions about the program and the tensions it creates between the federal and state governments. On October 3, 2011, the Court heard oral arguments in Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California, a dispute between California and its Medicaid providers regarding reimbursement cuts resulting from California's budget crisis. The Medicaid providers argued that the proposed cuts are so extreme as to violate federal law and thus the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. Their contention hinged on the Equal Access Provision of the Medicaid …

The Unjustified Subsidy: Sovereign Wealth Funds And The Foreign Sovereign Tax Exemption, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The taxation of Sovereign Wealth Funds in the United States is outmoded and due for reconsideration. Offering a tax exemption to the billion dollar investment funds owned by foreign governments is both unfair and ineffective. Founded in the principles of sovereign immunity, the foreign sovereign tax exemption, codified in I.R.C. § 892, fails to satisfy the Congressional goals that motivated its creation. This Article explains the current taxation of foreign sovereigns and, by extension, Sovereign Wealth Funds. It then illustrates that the current exemption is simultaneously too broad, providing a tax exemption for activities that are clearly nongovernmental activities, and …

The Education Duty, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A constitution is an instrument of entrustment. By adopting a democratic constitution, a polity places in the hands of its elected representatives its trust that those representatives will act to pursue the ends of the polity, rather than their own ends, and that they will do so with an eye toward the effects of adopted policies. In effect, the polity entrusts lawmaking power to its legislature with the expectation that such power will be exercised with loyalty to the public and with due care for its interests. Simply put, legislatures are fiduciaries.

In this Article, I examine the nature of …

The New Progressive Property And The Low-Income Housing Conflict, Zachary A. Bray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The foundation of property law has been much debated in recent years, as several scholars have sought to provide a theoretical alternative to what they call the dominant, “law-and-economics” approach to property. In place of the law-and-economics approach, these scholars advance a new theoretical approach, which I call “the new progressive property.” At its core, this new approach favors rules thought to promote the collective well-being of the larger community while ensuring that relatively disadvantaged members of society have access to certain basic resources. This Article explores the boundaries and practical implications of the new progressive property. To do so, …

For The Love Of Parentheticals: The Story Of Parenthetical Usage In Synthesis, Rhetoric, Economics, And Narrative Reasoning, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

What follows is a substantive discussion of the reasons why parentheticals are rhetorically advantageous-in other words, why they are so beloved and often employed in appellate briefs and cases. I will examine the use of parentheticals in citation forms, synthesis, rhetoric, economics, and narrative reasoning in an effort to trace the attraction.

What Is Transformative? An Explanatory Synthesis Of The Convergence Of Transformation And Predominant Purpose In Copyright Fair Use Law, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Two recent statistical studies confirm that a court finding of “transformation” in a copyright fair use claim virtually assures a finding that the use is fair. This Article analyzes the entire body of United States Supreme Court and United States Courts of Appeals case law applying the transformative test in copyright fair use cases to present two points: first, that the transformative test modifies the first sentence of 17 U.S.C. § 107 — in particular, the terms, “the fair use of a copyrighted work” — rather than simply factor one of the four-factor test; second, in implementing the transformative test, …