Law Commons^™

When Balance And Fairness Collide: An Argument For Execution Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A central precept of death penalty jurisprudence is that only the "death worthy" should be condemned, based on a "reasoned moral response" by the sentencing authority. Over the past decade, however, the Supreme Court has distanced itself from its painstaking efforts in the 1970s to calibrate death decision making in the name of fairness. Compelling proof of this shift is manifest in the Court's decisions to permit victim impact evidence in capital trials, and to allow jurors to be instructed that sympathy for capital defendants is not to influence capital decisions. This Article examines a novel strategy now being employed …

Life After Adarand: What Happened To The Metro Broadcasting Diversity Rationale For Affirmative Action In Telecommunications Ownership?, Leonard M. Baynes

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The United States Supreme Court severely restricted affirmative action policies in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena. In this opinion, a majority of the Court held that all state or federally mandated affirmative action programs are to be analyzed under strict scrutiny. This test requires affirmative action programs to meet a compelling governmental interest and be narrowly tailored.

Adarand raised issues concerning the validity of the Federal Communications Commission's affirmative action ownership policies. Previously, the Court in Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC found the FCC minority ownership policies constitutional under a lower (intermediate) standard of review. In Adarand, the Court …

Section 10: Justice Blackmun, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 1: Mitchell V. Helms, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 3: Business And Commerce, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 7: Criminal Law And Procedure, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 8: Upcoming Issues Before The Court, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 4: Federalism, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 11: Toni House, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 2: The Direction Of The Court, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 9: The Court And The 2000 Election, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 5: First Amendment, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 6: Civil Rights, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

The Democracy-Forcing Constitution, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Is There An Obligation To Listen?, Leslie Gielow Jacobs

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article thoroughly considers the question whether the constitutional guarantee of "freedom of speech" includes an obligation to listen. It first reviews the scopes of the right to speak, the right to listen, and the right to be left alone from things other than unwanted speech, and the relevance to each of physical location. It concludes that, consistent with constitutional doctrine and the Court's articulations, the government's ability to protect individuals from unwanted speech should not vary according to the listener's location. After noting that the actual protection of unwilling listeners may differ because of the different physical realities of …

The Constitutional Right Of Poor People To Appeal Without Payment Of Fees: Convergence Of Due Process And Equal Protection In M.L.B. V. S.L.J, Lloyd C. Anderson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In this Article, Professor Lloyd Anderson examines the recent decision M.L.B. v. S.L.J., in which the United States Supreme Court held that due process and equal protection converge to require that states cannot require indigent parents who seek to appeal decisions terminating their parental rights to pay court costs they cannot afford. Noting that this decision expands the constitutional right of cost-free appeal from criminal to civil cases for the first time, Professor Anderson discusses the characteristics a civil case should have in order to qualify for such a right. Professor Anderson proposes a number of other civil cases, …

Advice--Consent--Senatorial Immaturity And The Judicial Selection Process, Richard D. Freer

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights Act Of 1991 -- Employer Liability For Punitive Damages In Title Vii Claims, Angela M. Banks

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sense And Nonsense: Standing In The Racial Districting Cases As A Window On The Supreme Court's View Of The Right To Vote, Judith Reed

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Congressional redistricting draws the lines within which battles for political power will be fought. It is no surprise, therefore, that the redistricting process has long been the subject of social debate and legal dispute. The Supreme Court has not been able to resolve this dispute, in part, because the Justices have conflicting interpretations of the right to vote. While some Justices view voting as an individual right, others maintain that voting is correctly perceived as group right. This lack of consensus regarding the definition of the right to vote has led to a confusing articulation of the harm implicated by …

The Supreme Court And Patent Law: Does Shallow Reasoning Lead To Thin Law, Donald S. Chisum

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Professor Chisum explains that the role of the Federal Circuit Court as the "Supreme Court" of patent law may be changing. He notes the significance of recent United States Supreme Court cases addressing patent law issues. In addition, Professor Chisum evaluates the quality of recent landmark decisions in which the Court has examined patent issues. Chisum first notes that the general attitude of the Court reflects skepticism and hostility toward the patent system. In addition, Chisum considers the quality of reasoning undertaken by the Supreme Court and argues that, as opposed to the Federal Circuit, it is often weak, illogical, …

In Memoriam: Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Christina B. Whitman

Articles

At the time of his resignation, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. was justly praised as a moderate, flexible jurist - open-minded, suspicious of ideology, most often found at the center of a divided Supreme Court. Yet Justice Powell was a man of deeply conservative instincts. Suspicious of invitations to expand the scope of individual constitutional rights, he was a participant and even a leader in the Court's reassertion of a federalism that emphasized deference to states and in its reinvigoration of restrictions on access to federal courts. His jurisprudence was all of a piece. Justice Powell's reluctance to expand federal …

Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Law Of Takings And Phillips V. Washington Legal Foundation, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier

Articles

Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation held that interest on principal amounts deposited into IOLTA accounts is the property of the various clients who handed over the money but expressed no view as to whether the Texas IOLTA program worked a taking, or, if it did, whether any compensation was due. The debates among the justices about the meaning of private property, argued in terms of contextual and conceptual severance, are unlikely to prove fruitful. We elaborate a better approach in terms of the underlying purposes of just compensation. We conclude that efficiency and justice are best served by uncoupling matters …

Customary International Law And Human Rights Treaties Are Law Of The United States, Jordan J. Paust

Michigan Journal of International Law

The Founders clearly expected that the customary law of nations was binding, was supreme law, created (among others) private rights and duties, and would be applicable in United States federal courts. For example, at the time of the formation of the Constitution John Jay had written: "Under the national government… the laws of nations, will always be expounded in one sense… [and there is] wisdom… in committing such questions to the jurisdiction and judgment of courts appointed by and responsible only to one national government...” In 1792, the supremacy of the customary law of nations within the United States was …

Sovereignty, Compliance, And The World Trade Organization: Lessons From The History Of Supreme Court Review, Mark L. Movsesian

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article explores the nineteenth-century conflict over Supreme Court review and discusses its implications for today's debate on the WTO. Congress granted the Court appellate jurisdiction over state courts in one of its earliest pieces of legislation, the Judiciary Act of 1789. The first serious challenge to that jurisdiction occurred about a quarter-century later, however, in connection with the Court's famous opinion in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee. The conflict continued episodically for the next four decades, with several states refusing to acknowledge the Court's jurisdiction in particular cases, and ended only with the Civil War, which resolved this and …

Lilly V. Virginia: A Chance To Reconceptualize The Confrontation Right, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In Lilly v. Virginia, the Supreme Court once again has the opportunity to grapple with the meaning of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendmel).t. The basic facts of Lilly are simple, for they present the ageold problem of accomplice confessions. Three men, Gary Barker and Ben and Mark Lilly, went on a crime spree, during which one of them shot to death a young man they had robbed and kidnaped. Ben Lilly was charged with being the triggerman, and Barker testified to that effect at Ben's trial. Mark did not testify. But Mark had made a statement to the …

Confessions, Search And Seizure And The Rehnquist Court, Yale Kamisar

Articles

About the time William Rehnquist ascended to the Chief Justiceship of the United States, two events occurred that increased the likelihood that Miranda would enjoy a long life. In Moran v. Burbine,' a 6-3 majority held that a confession preceded by an otherwise valid waiver of a suspect's Miranda rights should not be excluded either (a) because the police misled an inquiring attorney when they told her they were not going to question the suspect she called about or (b) because the police failed to inform the suspect of the attorney's efforts to reach him.

The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller

Articles

If your house and fields are worth more separately, divide them; if you want to leave a ring to your child now and grandchild later, split the ownership in a trust. The American law of property encourages owners to subdivide resources freely. Hidden within the law, however, is a boundary principle that limits the right to subdivide private property into wasteful fragments. While people often create wealth when they break up and recombine property in novel ways, owners may make mistakes, or their self-interest may clash with social welfare. Property law responds with diverse doctrines that prevent and abolish excessive …

Taking Decisions Seriously, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

The New Deal era is one of the great turning points of American constitutional history. The receptivity of the Supreme Court to regulation by state and federal governments increased dra- matically during that period. The constitutionalism that prevailed before Charles Evans Hughes became Chief Justice in 1930 was similar in most respects to that of the beginning of the twen- tieth century. The constitutionalism that prevailed by the time Hughes’ successor Harlan Fiske Stone died in 1946 is far more related to that of the end of the century. How this transformation occurred is a crucial and enduring issue in …

Confrontation Confronted, Richard D. Friedman, Margaret A. Berger, Steven R. Shapiro

Articles

The following article is an edited version of the amicus curiae brief filed with the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1998, in the case of Benjamin Lee Lilly v. Commonwealth of Virginia (No. 98-5881). "This case raises important questions about the meaning of the confrontation clause, which has been a vital ingredient of the fair trial right for hundreds of years," Professor Richard Friedman and his co-authors say. "In particular, this case presents the Court with an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between the confrontation clause and the law of hearsay." On June 10 the …

Sincere And Strategic Voting Norms On Multimember Courts, Evan H. Caminker

Articles

In appellate adjudication, decisions are rendered by a multimember court as a collective entity, not by individual judges. Yet legal scholars have only just begun to explore the formal and informal processes by which individual votes are transformed into a collective judgment.' In particular, they have paid insufficient attention to the ways in which the vote of each individual judge is influenced by the views of her colleagues on a multimember court.