Law Commons^™

Reconsidering Judicial Independence: Forty-Five Years In The Trenches And In The Tower, Stephen B. Burbank

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Trusting in the integrity of our institutions when they are not under stress, we focus attention on them both when they are under stress or when we need them to protect us against other institutions. In the case of the federal judiciary, the two conditions often coincide. In this essay, I use personal experience to provide practical context for some of the important lessons about judicial independence to be learned from the periods of stress for the federal judiciary I have observed as a lawyer and concerned citizen, and to provide theoretical context for lessons I have deemed significant as …

Rights And Retrenchment In The Trump Era, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

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Our aim in this essay is to leverage archival research, data and theoretical perspectives presented in our book, Rights and Retrenchment: The Counterrevolution against Federal Litigation, as a means to illuminate the prospects for retrenchment in the current political landscape. We follow the scheme of the book by separately considering the prospects for federal litigation retrenchment in three lawmaking sites: Congress, federal court rulemaking under the Rules Enabling Act, and the Supreme Court. Although pertinent data on current retrenchment initiatives are limited, our historical data and comparative institutional perspectives should afford a basis for informed prediction. Of course, little in …

Judge Posner’S Simple Law, Mitchell N. Berman

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The world is complex, Richard Posner observes in his most recent book, Reflections on Judging. It follows that, to resolve real-world disputes sensibly, judges must be astute students of the world’s complexity. The problem, he says, is that, thanks to disposition, training, and professional incentives, they aren’t. Worse than that, the legal system generates its own complexity precisely to enable judges “to avoid rather than meet and overcome the challenge of complexity” that the world delivers. Reflections concerns how judges needlessly complexify inherently simple law, and how this complexification can be corrected.

Posner’s diagnoses and prescriptions range widely—from the Bluebook …

New Technologies And Constitutional Law, Thomas Fetzer, Christopher S. Yoo

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No abstract provided.

On The Study Of Judicial Behaviors: Of Law, Politics, Science And Humility, Stephen B. Burbank

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In this paper, which was prepared to help set the stage at an interdisciplinary conference held at the University of Indiana (Bloomington) in March, I first briefly review what I take to be the key events and developments in the history of the study of judicial behavior in legal scholarship, with attention to corresponding developments in political science. I identify obstacles to cooperation in the past – such as indifference, professional self-interest and methodological imperialism -- as well as precedents for cross-fertilization in the future. Second, drawing on extensive reading in the political science and legal literatures concerning judicial behavior, …

Toward A Revised 4.2 No-Contact Rule, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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No abstract provided.

Time Out, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

Straw, Sand, And Sophistry, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

Rhetoric Of Disputes In The Courts, The Media, And The Legislature, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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No abstract provided.

Judicial Accountability To The Past, Present, And Future: Precedent, Politics And Power, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

Jurisdictional Conflict And Jurisdictional Equilibration: Paths To A Via Media, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

The Feeney Amendment And The Continuing Rise Of Prosecutorial Power To Plea Bargain, Stephanos Bibas

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No abstract provided.

Lawyer For The Situation, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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No abstract provided.

The Implications Of Transition Theory For Stare Decisis, Jill E. Fisch

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No abstract provided.

What Do We Mean By "Judicial Independence"?, Stephen B. Burbank

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In this article, the author argues that the concept of "judicial independence" has served more as an object of rhetoric than it has of sustained study. He views the scholarly literatures that treat it as ships passing in the night, each subject to weaknesses that reflect the needs and fashions of the discipline, but all tending to ignore courts other than the Supreme Court of the United States. Seeking both greater rigor and greater flexibility than one usually finds in public policy debates about, and in the legal and political science literatures on, judicial independence, the author attributes much of …

The Complicated Ingredients Of Wisdom And Leadership, Michael A. Fitts

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No abstract provided.

The Architecture Of Judicial Independence, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

Exploring The Dark Matter Of Judicial Review: A Constitutional Census Of The 1990s, Seth F. Kreimer

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Most debate about the power of judicial review proceeds as if courts primarily invoke the Constitution against the considered judgment of elected legislatures; most constitutional commentary focuses on confrontations between the United States Supreme Court and state or federal legislatures. In fact, the federal courts most often enforce constitutional norms against administrative agencies and street-level bureaucrats, and the norms are enforced not by the Supreme Court but by the federal trial courts. In this Article, Professor Kreimer surveys this "dark matter" of our constitutional universe.

The Article compares the 292 cases involving constitutional claims decided by the Supreme Court during …

Judicial Review Of Federal Administrative Action: Quest For The Optimum Forum, David P. Currie, Frank I. Goodman

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Professors Currie and Goodman present a comprehensive analysis of the variables that must be isolated and weighed in determining the optimum forum for judicial review of administrative action. While the backdrop for this study is the caseload crisis presently confronting the federal courts of appeals, their discussion illuminates the requsites for optimum judicial review generally.

Failing to perceive any compelling reason to single out administrative cases for review (in separate courts, the authors argue against the creation of special administrative appeals courts. Even if such courts were to enjoy broad subject matter jurisdiction over the most demanding aspects of the …

Insanity As A Defense: The Bifurcated Trial, David W. Louisell, Geoffrey Hazard

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No abstract provided.