Law Commons^™

From Odious Debt To Odious Finance: Avoiding The Externalities Of A Functional Odious Debt Doctrine, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article looks at the generally agreed upon characteristics of the odious debt doctrine and considers the unintended consequences and externalities that would ensue if this doctrine were ever made regularly operative. The enlivened scholarly debate surrounding the odious debt doctrine assumes that debt is the sole finance vehicle for despotic governments. This is simply not the case.

Debt is not the sole finance vehicle; despots are able to raise funds through a wide variety of other methods. These include the pillaging of the nation's natural resources, property, and other valuable asset as well as the exploitation of the nation's …

Bringing Democracy To Puerto Rico: A Rejoinder, Luis E. Fuentes-Rohwer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Still Waiting For The Dream: The Justice Of Punishing Undocumented Immigrant Students, Katie Annand

UC Law Journal

An estimated 50,000 to 65,000 undocumented immigrant students graduate from high schools in the United States each year. Yet, upon reaching graduation, undocumented immigrant students, who oftentimes grew up in the United States and consider this country their home, face significant obstacles: current federal laws effectively bar access to higher education for many of these students by imposing substantial financial barriers and by preventing these students from obtaining legal residency, foreclosing federal financial aid and many career options requiring work authorization.

Legislators have responded to student efforts to seek equal access to higher education by proposing the DREAM Act. This …

The Supreme Court's Indian Problem, Matthew L. M. Fletcher

UC Law Journal

This Article asserts a new theory about why and how the Supreme Court accepts and decides its Indian law docket: the Court identifies an important constitutional concern embedded in a petition for certiorari, grants certiorari, and then applies its decision- making discretion to decide the "important" constitutional concern. Once that portion of the Indian law case is decided, the Court decides any remaining federal Indian law questions in order to reach a result consistent with its decision on the important constitutional concern. Indian law disputes are often mere vessels for the Court to tackle larger questions; often these questions have …

Killing Globally, Punishing Locally?: The Still-Unmapped Ecology Of Atrocity, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Unifying Disparate Treatment (Really), Martin J. Katz

UC Law Journal

At first glance disparate treatment law seems simple: an adverse employment action (such as a firing) is illegal where that action occurs "because of" a characteristic that is statutorily protected (such as race or sex). Despite this apparent simplicity, this Article points out that there are currently three distinct frameworks for proving disparate treatment. The difficulties are compounded by the fact that each framework places different burdens of proof on the plaintiff and defendant. So which framework applies in given situations? This Article first discusses the different frameworks and how they are applied, then proceeds to explain why the fragmented …

Formalism: From Racial Integration To Same-Sex Marriage, Holning Lau

UC Law Journal

Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, No. i concerned racial integration in public schools; however, the case has a doctrinal impact that extends beyond the context of race, extending specifically to same-sex marriage. Ironically, the five Supreme Court Justices who formed a majority in the casefour of whom are commonly labeled social conservatives - bolstered the case for same-sex marriage. They did so by introducing a new exercise of formalism to equal protection analysis. Specifically, they created doctrine that supports the argument that same-sex marriage bans warrant heightened scrutiny because such bans discriminate on the basis of …

Preserving Power Without Sacrificing Justice: Creating An Effective Reciprocity Regime For The Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments, Vishali Singal

UC Law Journal

Globalization has transformed the world's legal systems into interconnected regimes. The strength of a nation's legal system is predicated, in part, on whether foreign nations will recognize and enforce its judgments. While nations have accorded respect to one another's judgments in the spirit of comity by recognizing and enforcing them, none are obligated to do so. Given these delicate relationships between nations, a debate has arisen in the United States' legal community as to whether the United States should require foreign nations to recognize and enforce its own judgments before its courts will reciprocate this treatment towards foreign judgments. In …

Book Review. Einhorn, Robin L., American Taxation, American Slavery, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Personal Jurisdiction In The Ninth Circuit, Peter Singleton

UC Law Journal

Personal jurisdiction is an area of unquestioned doctrinal significance. Personal jurisdiction is also of great practical importance to litigators, as well as to the trial court judges who need to apply personal jurisdiction doctrines to cases brought before them.

The Ninth Circuit has issued dozens of published personal jurisdiction opinions which have continuing precedential significance. This body of case law, while often well argued and well-reasoned, is at times confusing and even conflicting. This presents substantial problems for Ninth Circuit panels attempting to follow precedent, let alone for district courts who are attempting to apply the law, litigators attempting to …

Documenting Gender, Dean Spade

UC Law Journal

This Article provides an analysis of gender reclassification policies- policies which determine when an administrative agency will change an individual's gender marker on its records-in three contexts: policies related to gender markers on identification documents, policies related to placement in sex-segregated facilities, and policies related to the state provision of health care that is prohibited based on the gender on record for the person seeking coverage. The Article looks at the significant variation in these policies across agencies to demonstrate the instability of gender as a category of identity verification and to ask whether the assumed usefulness of gender tracking …

Transnational Legal Practice 2006-07, Carole Silver, Laurel S. Terry, Ellyn S. Rosen, Carol A. Needham, Robert Lutz, Peter D. Ehrenhaft

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article reviews developments in transnational legal practice during 2006 and 2007, including international developments, U.S. developments and regional developments in Australia and Europe. The primary focus of the international developments section is the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This article discusses GATS Track 1 Activities related to legal services, including the Legal Services Collective Requests and issues related to GATS Track 2 and the potential development of GATS disciplines. This section also surveys GATS-related initiatives of the American Bar Association and the International Bar Association and U.S. implementation of foreign lawyer multi-jurisdictional practice rules. In other …

Preventive Tax Policy: Chief Justice Roger J. Traynor's Tax Philosophy, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

UC Law Journal

Justice Roger J. Traynor is best known for his judicial innovations in the fields of conflict of laws, product liability, and civil procedure. However, few would trace Traynor's roots to the field of tax law. In the late 193os, Traynor and Stanley S. Surrey, one of our nation's foremost authorities on federal tax law, worked together to propose a substantial transformation of existing mechanisms for settling tax disputes. At what was a crucial time in the development of tax law, high marginal tax rates intensified the friction between taxpayers and the government, boosted litigation, and multiplied the number of tax …

Globalization And The Business Of Law: Lessons For Legal Education, Carole Silver, David Van Zandt, Nicole De Bruin Phelan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Whether working for global or local organizations, lawyers today are increasingly faced with the prospect of working with colleagues and competitors who are diverse in terms of nationality, education and training, and with clients whose problems may be as locally-focused as a Chicago zoning matter or as distant as the acquisition of one non-U.S. company by another. The global forces shaping business and the practice of law are felt in legal education, too, and U.S. law schools occupy a leading role in educating domestic and non-U.S. students for practice in the transnational marketplace. In spite of this, however, the core …

Methods Of Judicial Selection And Their Impact On Judicial Independence, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Endless Judicial Selection Debate And Why It Matters For Judicial Independence, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this overview, I begin by describing the five different systems of state judicial selection that have evolved out of a perennial struggle to strike an optimal balance between judicial independence and judicial accountability. I then explore recent developments that have intensified that struggle, before analyzing, with reference to available research, how different selection systems counter or accommodate such developments. My purpose here is not to write (another) position piece. Rather, my purpose is to step back and contextualize disputes over judicial selection with reference to the independence and accountability issues that animate them, and to isolate what we know …

Forging Fiscal Reform: Constitutional Change, Public Policy, And The Creation Of Administrative Capacity In Wisconsin, 1880-1920, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In 1911, Wisconsin became one of the first U.S. states to adopt an effectively administered income tax. Wisconsin reformers were able to overcome several institutional barriers to create the administrative capacity necessary to assess and collect a graduated income tax that in time raised significant revenue, but did not supplant the property tax. With this limited success, the Wisconsin income tax soon became a model for other states and even the national government. In this sense, Wisconsin was a leader in forging fiscal reform. Political activists, lawmakers, and other government actors in the Badger State led a turn-of-the-century property tax …

Anecdotal Forensics, Phrenology, And Other Abject Lessons From The History Of Science, David L. Faigman

UC Law Journal

Many of the forensic identification sciences-including, among others, latent fingerprints, firearms, handwriting, and bitemarks- have little or no scientific foundation underlying them. They are largely based on anecdotal experience and supposition. In this way, "anecdotal forensics" closely resemble other historical failures of science, such as phrenology. Like phrenology, anecdotal forensics are based on inductive experience, have not been subjected to systematic tests, conform to expectations, "prove" what is already presumed to be known, and seem to have great practical utility for society. A century from now, however, the anecdotally-based beliefs of forensic experts are likely to survive much as phrenology …

Straddling The Fence Between Truth And Pretense: The Role Of Law And Preference In Judicial Decision Making And The Future Of Judicial Independence, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Duty Issues In The Ever-Changing World Of Payments Processing: Is It Time For New Rules?, Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Inferences, Arguments, And Second Generation Forensic Evidence, Erin Murphy

UC Law Journal

Advances in scientific and technological evidence have resulted in a new, "second generation" of forensic proof characterized by its high degree of probativeness and mechanical sophistication. Methods such as DNA typing are already in widespread use in the criminal justice system, and law enforcement may soon have available other biometric techniques, global locators, or even reliable lie detection systems.

The promise and allure of such forms of forensic evidence lie in its high degree of accuracy. But the perception that such evidence is infallible has resulted in an increasing number of instances in which the government has sought to bolster …

"Good" Science Gone Bad: How The Criminal Justice System Can Redress The Impact Of Flawed Forensics, Jessica D. Gable, Margaret D. Wilkinson

UC Law Journal

What can the criminal justice system do when "good" science goes bad? This article provides an answer to that question in three parts. First, this article looks at the inability of certain fields of forensic science to produce reliable results. Second, it discusses problems with the current methods of challenging convictions based on unreliable science. Finally, it proposes a new framework to better enable prisoners to seek review of such convictions. What this article does not do is propose ways to prevent wrongful convictions in the future. We recognize that many issues, including the standards governing the admissibility of forensic …

The Philosophy Of Forensic Scientific Identification, Allan Jamieson

UC Law Journal

This paper outlines a convenient categorization of the means by which evidence moves from crime scene to court; the forensic process. This process is proposed to include; Protection, Recording, Collection, Analysis, Interpretation, Evaluation, and Presentation.

A rational scientific approach to the process is discussed in terms of a cycle of observation, and hypothesis building and testing. The matching process, common to almost all forensic sciences, is assessed in the forensic and scientific contexts. Particular emphasis is recommended to differentiate between the processes of interpretation and evaluation. 'Interpretation' is proposed to be the results of the analytical process with no case-dependent …

Fingerprint Error Rates And Proficiency Tests: What They Are And Why They Matter, Jonathan J. Koehler

UC Law Journal

The reliability and probative value of a reported fingerprint match at trial is inextricably linked to the rate at which fingerprint examiners make errors. Therefore, it is important that jurors and other legal actors have valid information about the different types of errors, error rates, and scientific tests that can assist with error rate estimates. There is much confusion surrounding these issues and this paper addresses each using a question- and-answer style. Specifically, I describe the different types of errors (e.g., false positives, false negatives, and false alarms) and error rates, explain why they matter, and discuss how we might …

Signature Identification In The Light Of Science And Experience, Roger C. Park

UC Law Journal

The Daubert case encourages judges to ask whether forensic identification expertise is valid, not merely whether it is accepted among practitioners. The example of DNA has shown what real science can do, and has highlighted the shortcomings of other forms of forensic science. The combined effect of Daubert and DNA has contributed to skepticism about forensic identification techniques. This skepticism may lead to exclusion of evidence or to procedural limits aimed at making the expertise more trustworthy or preventing it from having undue weight. I will discuss these two alternatives in the context of the specific forensic problem of signature …

Conceptual Hurdles To The Application Of Atkins V. Virgina, Lois A. Weithorn

UC Law Journal

In its 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment precludes the execution of "mentally retarded offender[s]." Despite the apparent "brightline" clarity of an absolute ban on the execution of mentally retarded offenders, the determination of which offenders fall within the protected group is deceivingly complex. The meanings of the concepts of "mental retardation," "intelligence," and "adaptive behavior" are-like the standards of decency guiding the Court-continually evolving, and are subjects of ongoing reevaluation and debate. Given what is at stake in Atkins assessments, lawmakers, jurists, practitioners, …

The Temporal Dimension Of Land Pollution: Another Perspective On Applying The Breaking The Logjam Principles To Waste Management, John S. Applegate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Unlike air and water pollution, pollution from dangerous solid and liquid wastes on land remains a relatively concentrated, active hazard for long periods of time. Uncontrolled, land pollution moves through the environment slowly and often without significant diminution of toxicity. Persistence, in fact, is often regarded as the defining quality of dangerous land pollutants. Hazardous and nuclear waste regulation is very much concerned with the problem of maintaining the isolation of solid and liquid materials over decades, centuries, and even millennia, and, the author argues, there is good reason to believe that waste management practices and institutions are not well …

Communicating Opinion Evidence In The Forensic Identification Sciences: Accuracy And Impact, Dawn Mcquiston-Surrett, Michael J. Saks

UC Law Journal

How forensic identification experts describe their observations and express their opinions in court can be expected to have important effects on what jurors and judges conclude from this evidence. But the communication of findings from forensic identification analyses can be challenging as experts try to express their results accurately: without error, exaggeration or intentionally or unintentionally misleading fact finders. In this Article, we discuss how fact finders interpret and respond to the expert testimony of forensic science examiners, and how expert testimony can be made most informative. We first describe the results of several empirical studies we have done which …

The Myth Of "Lucky" Patent Verdicts: Improving The Quality Of Appellate Review By Incorporating Fuzzy Logic In Jury Verdicts, Michael T. Nguyen

UC Law Journal

Fuzzy logic, a relatively new mathematical concept, has emerged over the past few decades as an effective tool to model complexity and uncertainty. In a nutshell, fuzzy logic recognizes that truth is not always black or white, but rather, truth can be measured in shades of gray. Patents, because they rely on language to claim inventions, are fuzzy legal concepts. Fuzzy logic may help to simplify the jurors' comprehension of complex real-world problems in patent law.

In this Note, I propose a "fuzzy" special verdict form and procedure for "defuzzifying" the verdict that would allow the jury the freedom to …

Why Binomial Distributions Do Not Work As Proof Of Employment Discrimination, Ben Ikuta

UC Law Journal

Although it is possible for employer discrimination policies to be facially apparent in employment discrimination cases, usually employer policies are not overtly discriminatory. In those situations where it is not apparent, the only method of proving a prima facie case of discrimination in most systemic disparate treatment instances is to show a pattern of discrimination in the employer's hiring decisions. Since these patterns can usually "be identified and analyzed in quantitative form," cases rely primarily, and often exclusively, on statistics. If the plaintiff offers statistics that indicate a hiring practice that is unlikely absent discrimination, then the plaintiff is deemed …