Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Pathological Politics Of Criminal Law, William J. Stuntz Dec 2001

The Pathological Politics Of Criminal Law, William J. Stuntz

Michigan Law Review

Substantive criminal law defines the conduct that the state punishes. Or does it? If the answer is yes, it should be possible, by reading criminal codes (perhaps with a few case annotations thrown in), to tell what conduct will land you in prison. Most discussions of criminal law, whether in law reviews, law school classrooms, or the popular press, proceed on the premise that the answer is yes. Law reform movements regularly seek to broaden or narrow the scope of some set of criminal liability rules, always on the assumption that by doing so they will broaden or narrow the …


Swallowing The Apple Whole: Improper Patent Use By Local Rule, Ellisen S. Turner Dec 2001

Swallowing The Apple Whole: Improper Patent Use By Local Rule, Ellisen S. Turner

Michigan Law Review

During patent infringement litigation, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("FRCP") and the federal district court's local rules govern the parties' pretrial discovery and motion practice. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has adopted the most comprehensive local rules to date covering pretrial procedures in the patent litigation context. The Northern District of California Patent Local Rules ("Local Rules") may come to have a significant impact throughout the federal courts, as it appears that other jurisdictions and commentators are looking to the Local Rules for guidance. For instance, the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property …


A Hybrid Approach To The Use Of Deliberate Ignorance In Conspiracy Cases, Jessica A. Kozlov-Davis Nov 2001

A Hybrid Approach To The Use Of Deliberate Ignorance In Conspiracy Cases, Jessica A. Kozlov-Davis

Michigan Law Review

When hunted, the ostrich is said to run a certain distance and then thrust its head into the sand, thinking, because it cannot see, that it cannot be seen by the hunters. Legal parlance therefore refers to the "ostrich instruction," used when a defendant acts with the awareness of a high probability of the existence of an incriminating fact, but remains deliberately ignorant as to whether the fact actually exists, hoping his ignorance will maintain his innocence. The defendant is like the ostrich - he thinks that if he does not actually see the facts, even though he knows they …


Daubert's Backwash: Litigation-Generated Science, William L. Anderson, Barry M. Parsons, Drummond Rennie Jun 2001

Daubert's Backwash: Litigation-Generated Science, William L. Anderson, Barry M. Parsons, Drummond Rennie

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the 1993 landmark case Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the United States Supreme Court articulated its position on the admissibility of scientific evidence. The Court reasoned that federal judges should rely on the processes scientists use to identify unreliable research, including the process of peer review, to determine when scientific evidence should be inadmissible. In response, lawyers and their clients, seeking to rely on such evidence, have begun funding and publishing their own research with the primary intention of providing support to cases they are litigating. This Article examines the phenomenon of litigation-generated science, how it potentially undermines …


E-Obviousness, Glynn S. Lunney Jr. Jan 2001

E-Obviousness, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

As patents expand into e-commerce and methods of doing business more generally, both the uncertainty and the risk of unjustified market power that the present approach generates suggest a need to rethink our approach to nonobviousness. If courts fail to enforce the nonobviousness requirement and allow an individual to obtain a patent for simply implementing existing methods of doing business through a computer, even where only trivial technical difficulties are presented, entire e-markets might be handed over to patent holders with no concomitant public benefit. If courts attempt to enforce the nonobviousness requirement, but leave undefined the extent of the …


Interpreting Urugual Round Agreements Act Section 102(B)'S Safeguards For State Sovereignty: Reconciling Judicial Independence With The United States Trade Representative's Policy Expertise, Brandon Johnson Jan 2001

Interpreting Urugual Round Agreements Act Section 102(B)'S Safeguards For State Sovereignty: Reconciling Judicial Independence With The United States Trade Representative's Policy Expertise, Brandon Johnson

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this Note, I address the concerns of one aspect of this academic commentary-the claim that the WTO Agreement may cause a tectonic shift in domestic regulatory power, away from the states and toward the federal government and/or the WTO. I argue that while the concerns about the loss of national sovereignty are exaggerated, there is a very real threat to the sovereignty of the States. Congress was aware of this danger and included a variety of provisions designed specifically to protect state sovereignty from federal encroachment in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), the federal legislation incorporating the WTO …


How International Is 'International' Law?, Kurt Taylor Gaubatz, Matthew Macarthur Jan 2001

How International Is 'International' Law?, Kurt Taylor Gaubatz, Matthew Macarthur

Michigan Journal of International Law

The international legal community posits universality as a central characteristic of modern international law. But there has been little work to assess the degree to which international legal norms are widely shared and incorporated into the foreign policy-making of states. Previous work in this area has attempted to describe the distribution of legal values across cultures. This work has proven contradictory and inconclusive. The epistemic communities literature suggests looking at the distribution of practitioners as an alternative approach for assessing the diffusion of norms and practices. In fact, the community of litigators who practice before the International Court of Justice …


The Effectiveness Of European Community Law With Specific Regard To Directives: The Critical Step Not Taken By The European Court Of Justice, Carla A. Varner Jan 2001

The Effectiveness Of European Community Law With Specific Regard To Directives: The Critical Step Not Taken By The European Court Of Justice, Carla A. Varner

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this Note is to investigate the European Court of Justice's less expansive treatment of directives as compared to other forms of EC law through its failure to apply horizontal direct effect to directives. More specifically, this Note attempts to answer two questions which arise from the current status of ECJ jurisprudence: First, why has the Court been reluctant to implement horizontal direct effect for directives, especially in light of other actions it has taken to increase the potency of EC law? Second, given the alternative steps taken by the ECJ, is it still necessary to establish horizontal …


The Post-Conflict Transitional Administration Of Kosovo And The Lessons-Learned In Efforts To Establish A Judiciary And Rule Of Law, Wendy S. Betts, Scott N. Carlson, Gregory Grisvold Jan 2001

The Post-Conflict Transitional Administration Of Kosovo And The Lessons-Learned In Efforts To Establish A Judiciary And Rule Of Law, Wendy S. Betts, Scott N. Carlson, Gregory Grisvold

Michigan Journal of International Law

The study of post-conflict Kosovo presents an important opportunity to distill lessons that can provide guidance for future post-conflict, transitional administrations. The lessons-learned from an analysis of any post-conflict setting are many and varied. The goal of this short paper is limited to the identification of key lessons-learned in the effort to reestablish the judiciary and rule of law in post-conflict Kosovo. Even within this limited setting, this paper is not intended to provide exhaustive coverage of the issue. Rather, it is intended to provide the reader with basic information and central themes that are essential to a discussion of …


The Role Of The Presiding Judge In Garnering Respect For Decisions Of International Courts, Jean Allain Jan 2001

The Role Of The Presiding Judge In Garnering Respect For Decisions Of International Courts, Jean Allain

Michigan Journal of International Law

The following study considers the role that should be assumed by a presiding judge to ensure full respect for the rule of law internationally. The foundation for this study lies in an examination of the dispute settlement provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention as well as its mechanism for the settlement of disputes-the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. The Tribunal was called upon to deliver judgment in the MIV Saiga case. The judgment, along with the primary dissenting opinion, are considered, compared, and analyzed in order to demonstrate the extent to which the judgment is, …


Setting The Record Straight: A Proposal For Handling Prosecutorial Appeals To Racial, Ethnic Or Gender Prejudice During Trial, Andrea D. Lyon Jan 2001

Setting The Record Straight: A Proposal For Handling Prosecutorial Appeals To Racial, Ethnic Or Gender Prejudice During Trial, Andrea D. Lyon

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article proposes that direct or indirect references to the protected classes of race and/or gender should always be subject to the Chapman v. California "harmless beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. Once the defendant has shown appeals to racial or gender bias in prosecutorial argument or other conduct during his trial, the burden must shift to the prosecution to show at an immediate hearing outside the presence of the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this impermissible appeal to bias did not affect the fairness of the defendant's trial. Furthermore, courts must take the examination of the prosecution's proof seriously, …