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Full-Text Articles in Law

How (Not) To Think Like A Punisher, Alice Ristroph Sep 2009

How (Not) To Think Like A Punisher, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Here Comes The Judge! Gender Distortion On Tv Reality Court Shows, Taunya Lovell Banks Jan 2009

Here Comes The Judge! Gender Distortion On Tv Reality Court Shows, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

In the judicial world of television court shows women constitute a majority of the judges and where non-white women and men dominate. In real life most judges are white and male. This essay looks at the gender and racial composition and demeanor of these television reality judges. It asks whether women TV reality judges behave differently from their male counterparts and whether women’s increased visibility as judges on daytime reality court shows reinforces or diminishes traditional negative stereotypes about women, especially non-white women.


Original Sin And Judicial Independence: Providing Accountability For Justices, Paul D. Carrington, Roger C. Cramton Jan 2009

Original Sin And Judicial Independence: Providing Accountability For Justices, Paul D. Carrington, Roger C. Cramton

Faculty Scholarship

The independence of the judiciary is an enduring and defining objective of the legal profession. Law depends on judges to observe and enforce it. To secure such virtuous judges, they must be protected from retaliation by those who disapprove their decisions and prevented from receiving rewards from those who benefit by them. Those having the greatest stake in shielding judges from intimidation or reward are the profession that shares their dependence on public acceptance and respect. And that task of protecting judicial independence stands today at the very top of the agenda of the American legal profession.


Are Judges Overpaid?: A Skeptical Response To The Judicial Salary Debate, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner Jan 2009

Are Judges Overpaid?: A Skeptical Response To The Judicial Salary Debate, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner

Faculty Scholarship

The public debate over the need to raise judicial salaries has been one-sided. Sentiment appears to be that judges are underpaid. But neither theory nor evidence provides much support for this view. The primary argument being made in favor of a pay increase is that it will raise the quality of judging. Theory suggests that increasing judicial salaries will improve judicial performance only if judges can be sanctioned for performing inadequately or if the appointments process reliably screens out low-ability candidates. However, federal judges and many state judges cannot be sanctioned, and the reliability of screening processes is open to …


Judicial Disciplinary Systems For Incorrectly Decided Cases: The Imperial Chinese Heritage Lives On, Carl F. Minzner Jan 2009

Judicial Disciplinary Systems For Incorrectly Decided Cases: The Imperial Chinese Heritage Lives On, Carl F. Minzner

Faculty Scholarship

Local Chinese courts commonly use responsibility systems (mubiao guanli zeren zhi, zeren zhuijiu zhi) to evaluate and discipline judges. Judges receive sanctions under these systems for a wide range of behavior, such as illegal or unethical dealings with parties and lawyers, inappropriate courtroom behavior, and neglect of duty.

Many local court Chinese responsibility systems also discipline judges for simple legal error. Judges may face sanctions linked to the number of cases that are reversed on appeal, simply because the interpretation of law made by a higher court differs from that of the original trial judge. Sanctions include monetary fines and …


Case For A Constitutional Definition Of Hearsay: Requiring Confrontation Of Testimonial, Nonassertive Conduct And Statements Admitted To Explain An Unchallenged Investigation, The, James L. Kainen, Carrie A. Tendler Jan 2009

Case For A Constitutional Definition Of Hearsay: Requiring Confrontation Of Testimonial, Nonassertive Conduct And Statements Admitted To Explain An Unchallenged Investigation, The, James L. Kainen, Carrie A. Tendler

Faculty Scholarship

Crawford v. Washington’s historical approach to the confrontation clause establishes that testimonial hearsay inadmissible without confrontation at the founding is similarly inadmissible today, despite whether it fits a subsequently developed hearsay exception. Consequently, the requirement of confrontation depends upon whether an out-of-court statement is hearsay, testimonial, and, if so, whether it was nonetheless admissible without confrontation at the founding. A substantial literature has developed about whether hearsay statements are testimonial or were, like dying declarations, otherwise admissible at the founding. In contrast, this article focuses on the first question – whether statements are hearsay – which scholars have thus far …


The Andean Tribunal Of Justice And Its Interlocutors: Understanding Preliminary Reference Patterns In The Andean Community, Laurence R. Helfer, Karen J. Alter Jan 2009

The Andean Tribunal Of Justice And Its Interlocutors: Understanding Preliminary Reference Patterns In The Andean Community, Laurence R. Helfer, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Scholarship

In the European Union, national courts have been key intermediaries in helping to bolster and expand the authority of the European Court of Justice through its preliminary reference mechanism. This article analyzes the role of national judges in the Andean Community, a regional legal system whose judicial institution - the Andean Tribunal of Justice (ATJ) - was modeled directly on its European predecessor. Our analysis is based on an original coding of every publically available national court referral to the ATJ from 1987 to 2007 and interviews with over forty participants in the Andean legal system. We find that the …


What Do Federal District Judges Want?: An Analysis Of Publications, Citations, And Reversals, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner Jan 2009

What Do Federal District Judges Want?: An Analysis Of Publications, Citations, And Reversals, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner

Faculty Scholarship

We report evidence from a dataset of federal district judges from 2001 to 2002 that district judges adjust their opinion-writing practices to minimize their workload while maximizing their reputation and chance for elevation to a higher court. District judges in circuits with politically uniform circuit judges are better able to predict what opinions will get affirmed by the circuit court, leading to higher publication rates and a higher affirmance rate. In contrast, district judges in circuits with politically diverse circuit judges are less able to predict the preferences of the reviewing circuit court panel, leading district judges to publish fewer …


Cross-Examining Film, Jessica Silbey Jan 2009

Cross-Examining Film, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court decision in Scott v. Harris holds that a Georgia police officer did not violate a fleeing suspect's Fourth Amendment rights when he caused the suspect's car to crash. The court's decision relies almost entirely on the filmed version of the high-speed police chase taken from a "dash-cam," a video camera mounted on the dashboard of the pursuing police cruiser. The Supreme Court said that in light of the contrary stories told by the opposing parties to the lawsuit, the only story to be believed was that told by the video. In Scott v. Harris, the court fell …