Law Commons^™

Burdens Of Proof: Degrees Of Belief, Quanta Of Evidence, Or Constitutional Guarantees?, C.M.A. Mccauliff

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article analyzes the whole range of burdens of proof as well as their constitutional implications. Part H of the Article discusses the traditional burdens of proof and the use of probability theory in legal fact finding. Part HI of the Article studies the decision making processes of law enforcement officers, the judges that review their decisions, and the decision making processes in appellate and administrative review. Part IV of the Article returns to the trial process and analyzes burdens of proof, not as degrees of belief, but as reflections of constitutional due process that mandate a required degree of …

Criminal Liability Of Corporate Officers For Strict Liability Offenses - Another View, Kathleen F. Brickey

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article offers an alternative analysis of the doctrine articulated by the Supreme Court in Dotterweich and Park and its subsequent application by the Ninth Circuit. In the course of so doing, it suggests that Professor Abrams has lost sight of the public welfare offense model that provided the analytical framework within which the cases were decided and that his postulates may thus be faulted as lacking in context. The analysis in this Article demonstrates that the responsible share standard of liability has, from the outset, incorporated the requirement of an act or omission to act and that of causation …

Collateral Estoppel Without Mutuality: Accepting The Bernhard Doctrine, William S. Byassee

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note adopts a more moderate position: the Bernhard doctrine is but a minor alteration of collateral estoppel principles. It has not and will not generate the unfairness and injustice that its critics have predicted. After tracing the development of the principle of collateral estoppel from its origins in early English common law, this Note discusses some suggested justifications for the mutuality requirement and some generally accepted exceptions to its use. It then examines the growth of the Bernhard doctrine and compares how the courts have applied both the mutuality requirement and the Bernhard doctrine. Finally, the Note seeks to …

Rule 10b-5-The Equivalent Scope Of Liability Under Respondeat Superior And Section 20(A)-Imposing A Benefit Requirement On Apparent Authority, Carol M. Lynch

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note demonstrates that the scope of employer liability for employees' rule 10b-5 violations is no broader under a proper application of respondeat superior than under section 20(a). This Note does not address the question whether respondeat superior applies under rule 10b-5, but rather how courts should apply it.

Part II examines the majority, minority, and Third Circuit decisions on employer liability. Part III discusses the traditional analysis under both respondeat superior and section 20(a) and compares the scope of liability under each one. Part III concludes that except for an employer's liability for acts that are within an employee's …

Book Review: Federal Rulemaking, Jeffrey A. Parness

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the 1979 Annual Report on the State of the Judiciary'Chief Justice Burger called for a fresh look at the entire federal rule making process. Following the Chief Justice's lead, the Federal Judicial Center' responded with a report by Winifred R. Brown entitled Federal Rulemaking: Problems and Possibilities. In a foreward to that report Professor A. Leo Levin, the Federal Judicial Center's director, discouraged any attempt to intiate "a thorough review of the strengths and weaknesses of the process," and advised the author instead to focus "on those aspects of the process that had been singled out for criticism and …

Book Review: Unlikely Heroes By Jack Bass, David B. Filvaroff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Unlikely Heroes is designed for both the lawyer and the general reader. It does not purport to offer careful legal analysis of constitutional doctrine or to measure the Fifth Circuit's actions during this era against any articulated concept of the proper role of the judiciary in a federal system. To the extent that Bass raises any questions about the propriety of the judges' conduct or decisions, he appears to conclude that they were fully justified by the nature of the issues presented and by the demands of the times.Whatever its intended audience, however, the book would have benefited from a …

Baseball's Third Strike: The Triumph Of Collective Bargaining In Professional Baseball, Robert A. Mccormick

Vanderbilt Law Review

Since the inception of professional baseball, team owners have imposed limits on the freedom of players to negotiate contract terms. In this article Professor McCormick traces the history of attempts by professional baseball players to obtain contractual freedoms through the use of the antitrust and labor relations laws, attempts that culminated with the players' strike of 1981. Although players in other team sports successfully have utilized antitrust laws to increase player bargaining power, Professor McCormick argues that labor law has provided baseball players the only effective means to gain increased contractual freedoms. Professor McCormick concludes that player-owner disputes over the …

Defensive Responses To Tender Offers And The Williams Act's Prohibition Against Manipulation, Elliott J. Weiss

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article discusses whether arrangements designed to ensure the success of a favored bidder or simply to defeat an unwanted tender offer are "manipulative acts or practices" barred by section 14(e).' It argues that the critical issue is whether an arrangement significantly obstructs the operation of a fair auction market for a target company's shares. The Article maintains that recent Supreme Court decisions interpreting section 14(e) and other antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws provide substantial support for this approach to interpreting section 14(e). The Article first discusses the definition of section 14(e) manipulation. The recent Marathon decision provides …

Disclosure And Civil Use Of Immunized Testimony, Elizabeth J. Schwartz

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development examines the current conflict among the circuits. This study first explores the rationales under-lying use immunity and contrasts them with the guidelines formulated by the Supreme Court for controlling judicial disclosure of grand jury testimony. Second, this Recent Development examines the analyses used by the federal courts in determining whether to release immunized grand jury testimony for civil use's and the effect of disclosure on a witness' claim of fifth amendment privilege.This study submits that in their effort to promote civil discovery,several courts have misconstrued the scope and effect of the disclosure power and have usurped the …

Foreign Exchange Sales And The Law Of Contracts: A Case For Analogy To The Uniform Commercial Code, Michael L. Manire

Vanderbilt Law Review

The purpose of this Note is not only to benefit lawyers and judges who must confront these problems in litigation, but also to provide participants in the foreign exchange market with both an understanding of the legal significance of their procedures for making foreign exchange contracts and an appreciation of the possible legal consequences of the mistakes that inevitably result from fol-lowing these procedures.

Punishment And Juvenile Justice: A Conceptual Framework For Assessing Constitutional Rights Of Youthful Offenders, Martin R. Gardner

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article attempts to provide an analytical framework for identifying the punitive aspects of the juvenile justice system. The Article proposes a framework that is extrapolated from Supreme Court cases which define punishment in contexts outside the juvenile area. Several commentators have criticized the Court's definitional efforts, some because of perceived inadequacies in the developed definitions, others because of the belief that the very enterprise of defining constitutional rights in terms of the presence or absence of punishment is misguided . Although many of these criticisms of the Court's record are understandable, the alleged defects are less detrimental to an …

Municipalities And The Antitrust Laws: Home Rule Authority Is Insufficient To Ensure State Action Immunity, David J. White

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development first considers the evolution of the Parker doctrine in a variety of contexts-with special attention to the Supreme Court's decision in Lafayette and the Court's rationale in Boulder. After discussing the recent lower federal court decisions that based the availability of the Parker exemption upon the existence of general home rule authority under the respective state's constitution, this Recent Development examines the problems posed by the Boulder decision for cities and states contemplating economic regulation tailored to particular local concerns. This Recent Development then analyzes the competing policy interests in the question of a home rule municipality's …

Federal Limitations On State And Local Taxation, William R. Anderson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Federal Limitations on State and Local Taxation presents a central question about how usefully and how legitimately courts have dealt with the issues of state taxing powers. The United States Supreme Court has assumed a role as the principal architect of this component of federalism. State legislatures and tax officials have, of course, played roles, but they have always operated under the shadow of judicial doctrine. While Congress has not been wholly inactive, its role has been derivative, interstitial, and hesitant. Perhaps Congress' fact-finding role has been larger than its legislative role.'

"Legal History" Or The History Of Law: A Primer On Bringing The Law's Past Into The Present, Stephen B. Presser

Vanderbilt Law Review

The increasing opportunities to teach legal history in law schools and the lamentable decline of positions available to historians in undergraduate institutions have resulted in more historians either teaching in law schools or combining graduate training in history with graduate training in law. As a result, several methodologies or approaches to legal history have emerged. Although legal history has generated a great deal of comment, few have written about how this spate of scholarship and criticism might affect law school teaching. This Article attempts to categorize and to review,therefore, the kinds of insights that American legal history currently offers both …

Back Pay In Employment Discrimination Cases, James L. Hughes, David R. Jennings, Charles D. Maguire, Jr., Betsy G. Shain, Jay L. Tobin, Jay F. Whittle, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Special Project examines the back pay decisions and analyzes the problems that have confronted the courts dealing with this remedy for employment discrimination in the context of Title VII and section 1981. Because of the enormity of the issues that have arisen in Stage I of the proceedings, however, and the extensive coverage given those problems by the courts and commentators, the Special Project will deal only with the recovery stage, or Stage II, of the litigation. Consequently, the reader should assume that liability for employment discrimination has already been established in each of the cases discussed below. Before …

The Crime Controversy: Avoiding Realities, David L. Bazelon

Vanderbilt Law Review

Speaking before the nation's police chiefs last fall, President Reagan said, "The frightening reality is that for all the speeches by those of us in Government-for all the surveys, studies, and blue ribbon panels--for all the 14-point programs and the declarations of war on crime--crime has continued its steady, upward climb and our citizens have grown more and more frustrated, frightened,and angry."'I must concur with the President's depressing picture. In the thirty-two years that I have been on the bench, the "war against crime" has been a high national priority. Nevertheless, crime--and the fear of crime--seem worse today than ever …

The Acquisition Of Evidence For Criminal Prosecution: Some Constitutional Premises And Practices In Transition, H. Richard Uviller

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article isolates only two of the many aspects of the Court's labors affecting the acquisition of evidence for criminal prosecution. The first concerns the allocation of primacy among the values that the exclusionary response to the illegal acquisition of evidence serves: a theoretical choice that may carry some notable practical consequences. The second requires are examination of the role of the trial court in supervising the preaccusatory search for evidence in a way that suggests the possible obsolescence of the Supreme Court's ruling credo in the Stewart era.

The Limits Of Law Enforcement, Hans Zeisel

Vanderbilt Law Review

Society will not be able to solve the crime problem before it has solved the problems of the ghettos. Such an undertaking is a big task, on which society thus far has worked with little diligence.Even if efforts are increased beyond their present level, the task will take a long time. Nevertheless, the question must be ad-dressed, and the statistics point precisely to where the endeavor must begin. Crime typically starts early in life, therefore, radical efforts should be made to reach these crime-prone youths before their life style is fixed. One particular statistic illuminates the problem and suggests a …

Deterrence, Death, And The Victims Of Crime: A Common Sense Approach, Frank G. Carrington

Vanderbilt Law Review

The concept of deterrence is one of the most important in the formulations of the victim advocate, primarily because of two essential premises that underlie the entire field of victim advocacy.The first, but not necessarily the most important, of these premises concerns the policy that favors assuaging the plight of persons after they have been victimized. This relief can be provided in a number of different ways: compensation to innocent victims from the states; restitution to victims as a condition of granting probation to the criminal; victim counselling; and victim/witness assistance programs.' The second premise of victim advocacy, namely,preventing victimization …

Criminal Law: The Missing Element In Sentencing Reform, Michael H. Tonry

Vanderbilt Law Review

The thesis of this Article is that the substantive criminal law is the missing element in sentencing reform. If comprehensive sentencing reform strategies are to have lasting effect, legislatures must reintroduce the criminal law to the sentencing process. This step will require a rekindled interest in a moral analysis of the substantive criminal law and the enactment of greatly reduced statutory sentence maximums, along with more conventional institutional changes to structure discretion and increase official accountability.

Objections to American sentencing procedures range from the principled to the practical. Part II of this Article summarizes the basic objections that have influenced …

How Serious Is Serious Crime?, Albert J. Reiss, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article examines the information systems that are available to the American public. Part H of the Article discusses crime information sources and limitations arising from their excessive dependence upon the same sources of information. Parts III and IV of the Article focus on the information and methods that American society depends upon to determine the amount and seriousness of"serious" crime. These parts of the Article criticize society's present modes of crime assessment by evaluating public perceptions of crime under several standards for determining the amount of harm that results from different criminal acts. In part V, the Article examines …

Double Jeopardy And Prosecutorial Appeal Of Sentences: Di Francesco, Bullington, And The Criminal Code Reform Act Of 1981, Ronald P. O'Hanley, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development first traces the evolution of the double jeopardy doctrine. The Recent Development then focuses on the recent sentence modification cases as well as the proposed revisions to the Federal Criminal Code. Finally, this Recent Development attempts to develop a coherent double jeopardy rationale and concludes that, under this proposed rationale, unilateral government appeal of sentences is unconstitutional.

Colloquy, Mr. Wiseman, Professor Uviller, Ms. Rosen, Professor Zeisel, Professor Reiss, Mr. Washington, Mr/ Carrington, Ms. Collins, Professor Tonry, Mr. Hishta

Vanderbilt Law Review

At present, our system of criminal law administration has a considerable Rube Goldberg quality to it. Once the system decides to imprison a particular defendant--if we except from the generalization the couple of states that recently changed their laws in fundamental respects--the judge naturally asks himself what will happen when this man goes to prison. The answer is that the convicted offender will sit in prison for as long as the parole board wants him to. The judge must next consider whether any constraints exist on the parole board's decisions on when to release people from prison. In a third …

Federal Rule Of Evidence 803(3) And The Criminal Defendant: The Limits Of The Hillmon Doctrine, Thomas A. Wiseman, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note has examined the use of the common-law Hillmon doctrine and rule 803(3) in a limited context. Several approaches are available to a court that considers whether to admit a Hillmon statement. A court in a jurisdiction that still applies the common-law hearsay rule may adhere to the status quo. Ample authority exists to permit this approach. Nevertheless, because admission of a Hillmon statement risks certain inherent dangers, a common-law court should avoid a perfunctory application of the exception. Instead, the court must examine carefully each Hillmon statement to ensure that it does not prejudice the defendant's right to …

The Decline Of The Rehabilitative Ideal: Penal Policy And Social Idea, Louis A. Jacobs

Vanderbilt Law Review

In his most recent contribution Professor Francis Allen suggests that the rehabilitative ideal can flourish only in a particular kind of society. He observes that today's American society lacks the nourishing characteristics that once fed that ideal; consequently, the ideal has withered. This argument is concisely and precisely constructed in The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal, a book derived from the 1979 Starrs Lectures on Jurisprudence at Yale Law School. Rather than describe the extent of the decline, Professor Allen focuses on the nexus raised in the book's subtitle--penal policy and social purpose. As social purpose evolved (perhaps "devolved"is more …

Youth Crime And Urban Policy: A View From The Inner City, Diana R. Gordon

Vanderbilt Law Review

One does not expect to be mesmerized by a book entitled Youth Crime and Urban Policy: A View from the Inner City. Yet this volume, compiled from the proceedings of a May 1980 conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) proves to be a powerful testament to the plight of the dweller in America's crime-plagued inner-city neighborhoods. Because Robert Woodson has edited the comments of the conference's participants with a light hand, the book gives the reader the power of voices from the street-voices of people who are trying daily to stem the tide of …

The Expert As Educator: A Proposed Approach To The Use Of Battered Woman Syndrome Expert Testimony, Meredith B. Cross

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development proposes that courts should permit the use of battered woman syndrome expert testimony, but restrict its use to informing juries of the peculiar mental and emotional state of battered women. This role of the expert as educator would serve to dispel a jury's misconceptions about battered women and, at the same time, draw the focus of the testimony away from the implication which troubled the Buhrle court--that the battered woman syndrome represents a new defense to murder.The Advisory Committee explains in a note that rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence suggests the use of expert …

Foreword, G. Michael Mccrossin, Editor

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the primary goals of the American criminal justice system is to protect the civil liberties of accused persons while at the same time ensuring the security of citizens' persons and property. Recently, some people have begun to argue that the pursuit of these dual purposes has resulted in a dangerous imbalance, and that our criminal justice system now focuses far too heavily on the rights of the accused. These people have perceived an alarming upswing in the incidence of violent crime and have attributed that upswing to a breakdown in the legal profession's administration of the criminal law.

Constitutional Limitations On Governmental Participation In Downtown Development Projects, David M. Lawrence

Vanderbilt Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to investigate the constitutional boundaries that surround the most common forms of governmental participation. Part II of the Article discusses the constitutional limitations on property transactions in which the government either uses its power of eminent domain to condemn land for private downtown development, acquires land for the same purpose through a voluntary sale by the owner of the land, or subsidizes private development by its method of conveying property to the developer. Part III of the Article then discusses the problems that arise when a downtown project includes both public and private facilities, …

The Andragogical Basis Of Clinical Legal Education, Frank S. Bloch

Vanderbilt Law Review

Clinical legal education offers law students the opportunity to work together with faculty on cases that present the types of problems which law students want to learn how to solve. Andragogical theory holds that adult learners such as law students should be taught through mutual inquiry between teacher and student, through the use of actual experience, and with the recognition that students are ready and oriented to learn about that which they perceive to be relevant to their current social roles and professional goals. The clinical method of law teaching adds an important andragogical component to professional legal education; at …