Law Commons^™

Caps Off To Juries: Noneconomic Damage Caps In Medical Malpractice Cases Ruled Unconstitutional, Jennifer W. Terry

Mercer Law Review

In 2005 the Georgia General Assembly (General Assembly) passed a controversial tort reform bill in an effort to reduce the cost of medical liability insurance for health care providers. In this bill, the legislature put a cap of $350,000 on noneconomic damages (pain and suffering) for medical malpractice cases. On March 22, 2010, the Georgia Supreme Court in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, RC. v. Nestlehutt held these caps unconstitutional on grounds that they violate the state constitutional right to jury trial. By ruling on these grounds, the court was able to avoid weighing in on the competing interests of the medical …

State V. Jackson And The Explosion Of Liability For Felony Murder, Brian E. Brupbacher

Mercer Law Review

In The Discourses, Niccold Machiavelli wrote, "The dangers involved in conspiracies[] ... are considerable, and go on all the time, for in a conspiracy dangers crop up alike in forming the plot, in carrying it out, and as a result of its having been carried out."' Although by its context this remark refers to conspiracies to commit regicide and the problems these conspiracies pose to the conspirators, this remark well describes practical and legal problems that can result from conspiracies to commit felonies. In Georgia this is particularly true following the June 28, 2010 ruling in State v. Jackson …

Foreward: The Brain Sciences And Criminal Law Norms, Theodore Y. Blumoff

Mercer Law Review

In general, researchers hope to answer the same ontological question: "Who are we?" Practitioners address the question in their own unique ways, employing the rhetoric and idioms, and the agenda and metrics, that express their respective domains. Researchers in the various brain sciences work at the frontier of knowledge about our brains, the final material cause of all of our endeavors. They fully share the commitment to this fundamental question. From the perspective of the brain sciences, the answer to this question-though certainly not now and perhaps never fully elaborated-is nonetheless more widely understood than at any time in human …

Brain Scans As Evidence: Truths, Proofs, Lies, And Lessons, Francis X. Shen, Owen D. Jones

Mercer Law Review

This Brain Sciences in the Courtroom Symposium is both timely and important. Given recently developed and rapidly improving brain imaging techniques that enable non-invasive detection of brain activity, civil and criminal courts increasingly encounter attorneys proffering brain scans as evidence.' The reason is simple. In addition to caring about how people act-such as when they cause a person's death or sign a will-the legal system's inquiries frequently turn on determining what people were thinking, or were capable of thinking, when they acted.

In criminal law, for example, the same act can yield anything from mere probation to decades in …

Functional Magnetic Resonance Detection Of Deception: Great As Fundamental Research, Inadequate As Substantive Evidence, Charles Adelsheim

Mercer Law Review

Essential to the law's pursuit of truth, justice, and the efficient resolution of conflict is assessing the veracity of statements made by individuals both in and out of court. In this judicial context, untruthful statements can be, and no doubt are, made regularly by plaintiffs, defendants, and other witnesses. Humans are generally very skilled at deceiving others, yet they are poor at detecting deception. Because of this disparity, there is a strong demand for reliable scientific techniques to detect deception. The most popular technique is currently the polygraph examination. However, polygraph-based evidence is inadmissible as substantive evidence in nearly all …

Life, Death, And Neuroimaging: The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Defense's Use Of Neuroimages In Capital Cases -Lessons From The Front, John H. Blume, Emily C. Paavola

Mercer Law Review

Over the past several decades, commentators and scholars from the medical, legal, and social science fields have produced a massive body of literature on the intersection of law and neuroimaging. Earlier writings focused on explaining various new techniques for developing brain images, exploring how such images might be relevant in legal proceedings, and addressing evidentiary issues posed by the use of such images in court. More recent publications correspond with a vast expansion of research and funding in the area of neuroscience and address a wide variety of topics, such as the use of neuroimaging to detect deception, predict recidivism …

Neuropsychiatry In The Courtroom, Richard L. Elliott

Mercer Law Review

This Symposium, "The Brain Sciences in the Courtroom," will make frequent reference to neuropsychiatry, neuroinaging, and brain science, and assumes a rudimentary understanding of neuroscience. While some readers have considerable experience in these areas, others might benefit from a brief introduction to key concepts in neuroscience, and to their applications in the courtroom from a historical perspective. In providing such an introduction, several points will become clear. For 200 years, lawyers, judges, and expert witnesses have struggled to understand how neuroscience can be helpful in the courtroom, with varying degrees of success. This is, in part, due to the fact …

Serendipitous Timing: The Coincidental Emergence Of The New Brain Science And The Advent Of An Epistemological Approach To Determining The Admissibility Of Expert Testimony, Edward J. Imwinkelried

Mercer Law Review

This is an exciting time for students of the human brain. Worldwide there has never been such intense interest in and extensive research into the brain. Techniques for studying the brain are proliferating. By way of example, one group of scientists is employing electroencephalography (EEG) as a tool to investigate the brain's operations. Some of these researchers have utilized EEG to identify brain damage; others, including Dr. Lawrence Farwell of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, are endeavoring to adapt EEG technology to the detection of deception. Another group of scientists has focused its research on BOLD fMRI (Blood Oxygen Level Dependent functional …

Schoolhouse Rock: Lessons Of Homosexual Tolerance In Keeton V. Anderson-Wiley From The Classroom To The Constitution, Billie Pritchard

Mercer Law Review

The public educational system is charged with more than the academic success of America's youth. Educators are responsible for "nurtur[ing] students social and moral development by transmitting to them an official dogma of community values." As Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley demonstrates, community values are rapidly changing to acknowledge new constructions of homosexual identity and constitutional interests relative to historically marginalized attributes. In Keeton the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia denied a preliminary injunction to a student asserting various First Amendment claims against her university for requiring her to complete remedial training for counseling gay, lesbian, bisexual, …

Taking A Bite Out Of Speech Regulation: The Supreme Court Upholds First Amendment Protection For Depictions Of Animal Cruelty In United States V. Stevens, J. Matthew Barnwell

Mercer Law Review

The First Amendment is tested most strenuously when called upon to protect expression that many people would find indefensible. This occurred in United States v. Stevens when the Supreme Court of the United States refused to categorically remove depictions of animal cruelty from the bulwark of free speech. Further, the Court invalidated section 48 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which prohibited the creation, sale, or possession of depictions of animal cruelty,' as unconstitutionally overbroad. By not allowing speech to be categorically excluded from First Amendment protection because of its inherent lack of value, the Court revealed an …

Bullying In Public Schools: The Intersection Between The Student's Free Speech Rights And The School's Duty To Protect, Elizabeth M. Jaffe, Robert J. D'Agostino

Mercer Law Review

The 2009 case of eleven-year-old Jaheem Herrera's suicide in Georgia, which resulted after alleged repeated verbal bullying by his classmates, presents an interesting question regarding whether public schools must take action to prevent this type of behavior even if it does not disrupt the classroom. The issue to be addressed is not what speech schools can censor but whether schools must censor or prevent certain speech that has a harmful effect on the educational environment for a specific student or a specifically identifiable group of students.

If a public school student has a civil or liberty right to his education,' …

Overcoming Under-Compensation And Under-Deterrence In Intentional Tort Cases: Are Statutory Multiple Damages The Best Remedy?, Stephen J. Shapiro

Mercer Law Review

There is a general agreement that the primary purpose of tort law is to compensate parties injured by the wrongful conduct of another. Typically, a prevailing plaintiff is awarded compensatory damages. The main purpose of tort law is to make the plaintiff whole, to the extent possible, in order to put the plaintiff in the same financial situation the plaintiff would have been in absent the defendant's actions. A prevailing plaintiff, however, will not normally be made whole by the award of a reasonable amount of compensatory damages. The primary reason for this insufficiency is that the plaintiff will have …

Waiver Of The Right To Remove In Forum Selection Clauses Subject To The Convention On The Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Arbitral Awards, William E. Marple, Andrew O. Wirmani

Mercer Law Review

Three federal appellate decisions have now addressed whether, in cases subject to the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention), parties may agree to waive their right to remove to federal court through forum selection clauses. In all three cases, each court held that to be enforceable the waiver must be expressed in "clear and unequivocal" terms or meet some other heightened standard of scrutiny. These court decisions present several significant points. First, the decisions of these courts to deviate from general principles of contract construction and analyze the waiver issue under …

What Is A Judicial Author?, Peter Friedman

Mercer Law Review

Martha Woodmansee has pointed out that

the law has yet to be affected by the "critique of authorship" initiated by Foucault and carried forward in the rich variety of post-structuralist research that has characterized literary studies during the last two decades. Indeed, . . . it would seem that as creative production becomes more corporate, collective, and collaborative, the law invokes the Romantic author all the more insistently.

Woodmansee wrote about the conceptions of authorship that legal institutions bring to bear in deciding copyright-related disputes.2 Nevertheless, the law's ignorance of the "critique of authorship" includes a willful ignorance of the …

Introduction Of Speakers At The Aals Hot Topic Panel Discussion On January 7, 2011, Brad Joondeph

Mercer Law Review

There are currently about twenty cases being litigated in the lower federal courts that challenge-in some way, shape, or form-the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, also affectionately known as the ACA or "Obamacare." Thus far, three district courts have dispositively ruled on the merits of the constitutional challenges: one from the Western District of Virginia, one from the Eastern District of Virginia, and one from the Eastern District of Michigan. So we now have three cases that are essentially in the courts of appeals. …

Three Stories About Nature: Property, The Environment, And Ecosystem Services, Keith H. Hirokawa

Mercer Law Review

Property is the process of dividing the world into bits that may be subjected to private control. As such, how we understand the world, its characteristics, and its processes is very important. If, for instance, we think of water as an infinite resource that serves growth needs, we might not be concerned with how that resource is acquired, used, or even wasted. On the other hand, if we believe that water is a scarce and essential resource, we may find that an allocation scheme bears the weight of accomplishing many social and economic objectives. Nature matters because our understanding of …

Turning Citizens Into Subjects: Why The Health Insurance Mandate Is Unconstitutional, Randy E. Barnett

Mercer Law Review

In 2010 something happened in this country that has never happened before: Congress required that every person enter into a contractual relationship with a private company. I realize that writers make lots of factual claims that readers are wise to be skeptical about. I can prove, however, that an economic mandate like this one is unprecedented. If this mandate had ever happened before, everyone reading this passage would know all the contracts the federal government requires them to make, upon pain of a penalty enforced by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). No reader, however, can recite any such mandate and …

A Defense Of The Constitutionality Of The Individual Mandate, Erwin Chemerinsky

Mercer Law Review

Under current constitutional law, I do not think this is a close question. It is quite clear that this law is constitutional because it exercises Congress's power. Lest this be taken as the observation of a liberal law professor, Charles Fried-whom no one would call a liberal law professor, former Solicitor General in the Bush Administration-said on Fox television that he had recently been to Australia and purchased a kangaroo hat, and he would eat that hat if the Supreme Court were to declare this law unconstitutional. While I do not find a hat made out of kangaroo skins to …

Health Care Reform, The Spending Clause, And Dole's Restrictions, David G. Oedel

Mercer Law Review

I am here to discuss a constitutional problem with the Health Care Reform Act" that so far has gotten little attention and that has not yet been discussed by our other panelists. The question is whether the federal government's expansion of Medicaid is a coercive exercise of federal power in violation of the Spending Clause of the United States Constitution." This is one of the two main arguments being pressed by the twenty states87 in the Florida litigation challenging the constitutionality of health care reform." It is an argument that I think you're likely to hear more of in the …

Crossing The Constitutional Line In Spending From Persuasion To Compulsion: A Reply To Gillian Metzger, David G. Oedel

Mercer Law Review

In her remarks at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), Professor Gillian Metzger of Columbia University Law School offered an interesting critique of the Spending Clause claim now being pursued by a majority of the states in the United States in the constitutional challenge to health care reform. The states claim that the changes to Medicaid are beyond the power of Congress to effect constitutionally under the Spending Clause of the United States Constitution because the changes are coercive and also violate the "general restrictions" identified by the Supreme Court of the United States …

Aals Hot Topic Panel Question & Answer Session

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Last Rights: Controversial Ne Exeat Clause Grants Custodial Power Under Abbott V. Abbott, Danielle L. Brewer

Mercer Law Review

The weight to be assigned to the laws and practices of foreign legal systems in the analysis of international agreements and domestic statutory disputes has long been a topic of debate in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the United States government. On one side of the argument, traditional scholars contend that, as a sovereign, the United States should make decisions based solely on the best interests of its citizens, regardless of the detriment imposed on the international community by such practices. Conversely, as a modern approach, the cosmopolitan view of international systems' depicts the United States as just …

Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz, Pa. V. United States: "In Contemplation Of' The Meaning, Applicability, And Validity Of Attorney Restrictions In The Bapcpa, Joseph D. Orenstein

Mercer Law Review

In Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz, PA. v. United States, the Supreme Court of the United States held that, under section 227 of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), attorneys who provide bankruptcy counsel are "debt relief agencies." The Court also held two BAPCPA provisions constitutional: one provision that prevented debt relief agencies from advising a debtor to incur more debt in contemplation of bankruptcy and another that imposed disclosure requirements on debt relief agencies. In light of the inconsistent and unclear interpretations of BAPCPA provisions considered in this case, the Court's ruling acts to …

Defense Of The Constitutionality Of Health Care Reform, Gillian Metzger

Mercer Law Review

Along with the others, I want to thank David for organizing this panel. The great advantage of going last is that the terms of the debate over the Affordable Care Act's constitutionality have been established by the other panelists. As a result, I am going to target my remarks on a few key points, rather than walk through a full dress review of some of the arguments. Like the others, my focus is on existing doctrine. I completely agree with Dean Chemerinsky in thinking that the Supreme Court is not going to change the key parameters of existing analysis, but …