Law Commons^™

Improving Law Enforcement’S Victim-Centric Responses To Sexual Assault: Global Best Practice Catalog, Ayesha Ashraf, Sebastián Galleguillos Agurto, Frederick Geyer, Kamela Gjoka, Jasmine Hwang, Stanley Montinat, Jessica Moor, Pierre Reyes, Tara Ventimiglia, Hongda Xu

Publications and Research

This catalog was compiled as part of a U.S. State Department Diplomacy Lab Project entitled “Improving Law Enforcement’s Victim-Centric Responses to Sexual Assault,” in fall semester of 2019, for American Citizens Services, US Embassy Bangkok. It is intended to cover best practices in law enforcement response to sexual assault across the globe, including laws, policies and programs.Ten multilingual graduate students in the capstone seminar of the Master of Arts Degree Program in International Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) established criteria for inclusion and standardized elements for each entry in this catalog. The ultimate aim …

A New Appellate Structure In The Supreme Court: Bigger, And Better, Paul Tan, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This is a commentary on the Appellate Division newly proposed to be created in the Supreme Court, pursuant to constitutional and legislative amendments passed in 2019.

Virtual Briefing At The Supreme Court, Jeffrey L. Fisher, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

The open secret of Supreme Court advocacy in a digital era is that there is a new way to argue to the Justices. Today's Supreme Court arguments are developed online: they are dissected and explored in blog posts, fleshed out in popular podcasts, and analyzed and re-analyzed by experts who do not represent the parties or have even filed a brief in the case at all. This "virtual briefing" (as we call it) is intended to influence the Justices and their law clerks but exists completely outside of traditional briefing rules. This article describes virtual briefing and makes a case …

The "Statutory Rape" Myth: A Case Law Study Of Sexual Assaults Against Adolescent Girls, Isabel Grant, Janine Benedet

All Faculty Publications

This article examines three years of Canadian case law involving sexual offences against adolescent girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen inclusive, with a view to identifying the types of cases that are making it to court, whether these cases are resulting in convictions, and what are the types of sentences being imposed on individuals convicted of these offences. A significant majority of cases under review involved men considerably older than the complainant. The average age difference between the accused and the complainant was nineteen years and, where family members were excluded, 15.6 years. The small number of cases …

Snapback, Version 2.0: The Best Solution To The Problem Of Snap Removal, Arthur D. Hellman

Testimony

The forum defendant rule, embodied in 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2), prohibits removal of civil actions based on diversity of citizenship jurisdiction “if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought.” Pointing to the phrase “properly joined and served,” defendants have argued that § 1441(b)(2) does not bar removal of a diversity action if a citizen of the forum state has been joined as a defendant but has not yet been served. The stratagem of removing before service to avoid the prohibition of § 1441(b)(2) …

Snapback! A Narrowly Tailored Legislative Solution To The Problem Of Snap Removal, Arthur D. Hellman

Testimony

“Snap removal” is a stratagem used by defendants in civil litigation as an end run around the forum defendant rule. That rule, embodied in 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2), prohibits removal of civil actions based on diversity of citizenship jurisdiction “if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought.” Focusing on the phrase “properly joined and served,” defendants have argued that § 1441(b)(2) allows removal of a diversity action when a citizen of the forum state has been joined as a defendant but has not …

Dean's Desk: Students Find Clerkships In Smaller Counties Rewarding, Austen L. Parrish

Austen Parrish (2014-2022)

The students at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law come to Bloomington from all over the nation. During their summers, the temptation is for them to work in the country’s largest cities, often with the majority working in Indianapolis, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York. Many others work in our innovative Stewart Fellows global internship program, where students are placed in countries throughout the world.

Fewer students, however, choose to work in Indiana’s smaller towns, and the hundreds of trial court judges working there often need help. Many trial courts have crowded dockets and limited staffing, particularly those in …

Enter At Your Own Risk: Criminalizing Asylum-Seekers, Thomas M. Mcdonnell, Vanessa H. Merton

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In nearly three years in office, President Donald J. Trump’s war against immigrants and the foreign-born seems only to have intensified. Through a series of Executive Branch actions and policies rather than legislation, the Trump Administration has targeted immigrants and visitors from Muslim-majority countries, imposed quotas on and drastically reduced the independence of Immigration Court Judges, cut the number of refugees admitted by more than 80%, cancelled DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and stationed Immigration Customs and Enforcement (“ICE”) agents at state courtrooms to arrest unauthorized immigrants, intimidating them from participating as witnesses and litigants. Although initially saying that …

Cryptocurrencies And Code Before The Courts, Vincent Ooi, Kian Peng Soh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the rapidly developing cyber sphere dominated by cryptocurrencies and code, it is perhaps not uncommon for firms to focus on cutting-edge technological developments leaving the law behind as an afterthought. B2C2 Ltd v Quoine Pte Ltd (‘B2C2’)1 may serve as a timely reminder of the importance of the legal principles supporting e-commerce and Fintech. In the first case of its kind, B2C2 raised several key questions before the Singapore International Commercial Court (‘SICC’), seeking clarification on how the established legal concepts of breach of trust, mistake and unjust enrichment might apply in the context where an automated contract-forming software …

Dimensions Of Delegation, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

How can the nondelegation doctrine still exist when the Supreme Court over decades has approved so many pieces of legislation that contain unintelligible principles? The answer to this puzzle emerges from recognition that the intelligibility of any principle dictating the basis for lawmaking is but one characteristic defining that authority. The Court has acknowledged five other characteristics that, taken together with the principle articulating the basis for executive decision-making, constitute the full dimensionality of any grant of lawmaking authority and hold the key to a more coherent rendering of the Court’s application of the nondelegation doctrine. When understood in dimensional …

Court Record In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence, Fredric I. Lederer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Inside Rwu Law's Small 'Admiralty Empire' 10-18-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Women In Robes October 16, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Using Court-Connected Adr To Increase Court Efficiency, Address Party Needs, And Deliver Justice In Massachusetts, Madhawa Palihapitiya, Susan Jeghelian, Kaila Eisenkraft

Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration Publications

This report presents research and findings from a study of court-connected ADR commissioned by the Executive Office of the Trial Court (EOTC). The study was conducted by the state office of dispute resolution also known as the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The office has been serving as a neutral forum and state-level resource for almost 30 years. Its mission is to establish programs and build capacity within public entities for enhanced conflict resolution and intergovernmental and cross-sector collaboration in order to save costs for the state and its citizens and enable effective problem-solving …

The Legitimacy Of Judicial Climate Engagement, Katrina Fischer Kuh

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Courts in key climate change cases have abdicated their constitutional responsibility to protect a prejudiced and disenfranchised group (nonvoting minors and future generations) and remedy an insidious pathology in public discourse and the political process: the industry-funded climate disinformation campaign. This Article posits that this abdication results from courts' uneasiness about displacing the prerogatives of democratically elected bodies. This uneasiness is misplaced. Court engagement with climate cases would strengthen democracy in accord with widely accepted justifications for countermajoritarian judicial review. This Article first describes in detail how courts exhibit a frustrating reticence to accept jurisdiction over cases that present questions …

Righting The Ship: What Courts Are Still Getting Wrong About Electronic Discovery, Tanya Pierce

Faculty Scholarship

What happens when law changes but courts and lawyers ignore the changes? On December 1, 2015, amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect. One of those amendments includes a sweeping change to Rule 37(e), dealing with the availability of sanctions in federal courts for lost or destroyed electronically stored information (ESI). In the last few years, however, a number of courts have interpreted the amended rule in ways at odds with its plain language and underlying policies, and a surprising number of courts continue to ignore the amended rule altogether. This article examines those trends and …

Out Of The Quandary: Personal Jurisdiction Over Absent Class Member Claims Explained, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

Since the Supreme Court's decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, litigants and lower courts have wrestled with the issue of whether a federal court must be able to exercise personal jurisdiction with respect to each of the claims asserted by absent class members in a class action and, if so, what standard governs that jurisdictional determination. This issue is rapidly coming to a head and is poised for inevitable resolution by the Supreme Court in the near future; multiple circuit courts have heard appeals from district courts that have reached varying conclusions on …

When The Courts Have To Rule On Government Decisions, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan cited examples in United Kingdom and Singapore as he discussed the legal limits of legal power and the constitutional role of the courts. He pointed out that the message from the courts for both cases is that “judicial deference notwithstanding, the judiciary will not shy away from limiting the boundaries of executive discretion where it is necessary to do so such as when a fundamental constitutional principle or fundamental liberties are at stake”.

Comparing The International Commercial Courts Of China With The Singapore International Commercial Court, Zhengxin Huo, Yip Man

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The article critically reviews the litigation framework of the Chinese International Commercial Court("CICC') using a comparative approach, taking as a benchmark the Singapore International Commercial Court ("SICC')--another Asian international commercial court situated within the Belt and Road Initiative ("BRI') geography. It argues that the CICC, despite being lauded as a visionary step toward an innovative, efficient and trustworthy dispute resolution system, does not live up to those grand claims on closer scrutiny. The discussion shows that the CICC is in many respects insular and conservative when compared with the SICC. The distinctions between the two litigation frameworks may be explained …

Dehumanization, Immigrants, And Equal Protection, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article is divided into three parts. Part I explores the concept of dehumanization and its central role in the subordination of marginalized groups. Part II discusses the equal protection doctrine of suspect classes by analyzing key decisions by the Court and its reasoning for whether or not to consider a particular group as a suspect class. Part II also argues that the decision in Brown v. Board of Education regards racial segregation in public schools as a form of racial dehumanization and provides the doctrinal basis to consider dehumanization a central factor in determining suspect class status. Part III …

Supreme Silence And Precedential Pragmatism: King V. Burwell And Statutory Interpretation In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Michael J. Cedrone

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article studies statutory interpretation as it is practiced in the federal courts of appeal. Much of the academic commentary in this field focuses on the Supreme Court, which skews the debate and unduly polarizes the field. This Article investigates more broadly by looking at the seventy-two federal appellate cases that cite King v. Burwell in the two years after the Court issued its decision. In deciding that the words “established by the State” encompass a federal program, the Court in King reached a pragmatic and practical result based on statutory scheme and purpose at a fairly high level of …

Learning From Feminist Judgments: Lessons In Language And Advocacy, Bridget J. Crawford, Linda L. Berger, Kathryn M. Stanchi

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This essay offers a perspective-shifting approach to meeting some of our pedagogical goals in law school: the study of re-imagined judicial decisions. Our thesis is that exposing students to “alternative judgments”—opinions that have been rewritten by authors who look at the law and the facts differently—will help students develop a more realistic and nuanced view of judicial decision-making: one that is aspirational and based in the real world, and one that allows them to envision their futures as successful advocates. The “alternative judgments” of the feminist judgments projects can enrich the law-school experience in multiple ways. First, seeing a written …

Notoriously Ruthless: The Idolization Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lucille Moran

Political Science Honors Projects

It is now a fixture of mainstream commentary in the United States that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become a popular idol on the political left. Yet, while Justice Ginsburg’s image and story has reached an unprecedented level of valorization and even commercialization, scholars have yet to give sustained attention to the phenomenon and to contextualize it: why has this idolization emerged within this context, and what is its impact? This paper situates her portrayal in the cultural imagination as the product of two political forces, namely partisanship and identity politics. Considering parallel scholarly discourses of reputation, celebrity, …

Cryptocurrencies And Code Before The Courts, Vincent Ooi, Kian Peng Soh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the rapidly developing cyber sphere of e-commerce and Fintech, dominated by cryptocurrencies and code, it is perhaps not uncommon for firms to focus on cutting-edge technological developments, leaving the law behind as an afterthought. However, the case of B2C2 Ltd v Quoine Pte Ltd (“B2C2”) may serve as a timely reminder of the importance of the legal principles supporting e-commerce and Fintech. In the first case of its kind, B2C2 raised several key questions before the Singapore International Commercial Court, seeking clarification on how the established legal concepts of breach of trust, mistake and unjust enrichment might apply in …

Assigned Counsel Mentoring Programs: Results And Lessons From Two Pilot Projects, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

Working with a team of three subject matter experts, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association implemented and evaluated two pilot mentoring projects aimed at helping lawyers who serve as assigned counsel. This report discusses the program design, evaluation outcomes, and offers guidance through lessons learned for other jurisdictions interested in introducing assigned counsel mentoring programs. The author of the report was the principal investigator who evaluated the programs.

This project was supported by grant number 2015-AJ-BX-K043 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs to the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. The opinions, findings, and …

A Functional Approach To Judicial Review Of Ptab Rulings On Mixed Questions Of Law And Fact, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) has long relied on active appellate review to bring uniformity and clarity to patent law. It initially treated the PTO the same as the federal district courts, reviewing its factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Following reversal by the Supreme Court in Dickinson v. Zurko, the Federal Circuit began giving greater deference to PTO factual findings. But it continued to review the PTO’s legal conclusions de novo, while coding an expansive list of disputed issues in patent cases as legal conclusions, even when they …

The Territorial Reach Of Federal Courts, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

Federal courts exercise the sovereign authority of the United States when they assert personal jurisdiction over a defendant. As components of the national sovereign, federal courts' maximum territorial reach is determined by the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, which permits jurisdiction over persons with sufficient minimum contacts with the United States and over property located therein. Why, then, are federal courts limited to the territorial reach of the states in which they sit when they exercise personal jurisdiction in most cases? There is no constitutional or statutory mandate that so constrains the federal judicial reach. Rather, it is by operation …

State Constitutionalism In The Age Of Party Polarization, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Judging During Crises: Can Judges Protect The Facts?, Lissa Griffin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

With the advent of instantaneous information and the trend toward shrinking adherence to the truth, the conversation surrounding the ability of judges to conduct outside research into the matters before them is gaining urgency. In a “post-truth” world, the role that the judiciary plays in our democracy must shift from trier of fact to guardian of factual integrity. And to do this, the professional ethics rules assigned to the judiciary may need re-evaluation.

This Essay argues that the judiciary's ambivalence to its role as fact finder must be overcome, and where appropriate, judges may be empowered to seek out supplemental …

Why Women: Judging Transnational Courts And Tribunals, Bridget J. Crawford, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Linda L. Berger

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Calls for greater representation of women on the bench are not new. Many people share the intuition that having more female judges would make a difference to the decisions that courts might reach or how courts arrive at those decisions. This hunch has only equivocal empirical support, however. Nevertheless legal scholars, consistent with traditional feminist legal methods, persist in asking how many women judges there are and what changes might bring more women to the bench. This essay argues that achieving diversity in international courts and tribunals – indeed on any bench – will not happen simply by having more …