Law Commons^™

Symposium: The Least Understood Branch: The Demands And Challenges Of The State Judiciary: Introduction, Alex Carver, Susanna Rychlak

Vanderbilt Law Review

On March 31, 2017, the Vanderbilt Law Review, in conjunction with the American Constitution Society, hosted a Symposium at Vanderbilt Law School entitled The Least Understood Branch: The Demands and Challenges of the State Judiciary. This Symposium began five months earlier at Emory University School of Law, where the Symposium's contributors gathered to discuss the importance and difficulties of studying state courts. This theme is reflected in the articles published in this Symposium issue. The importance of state courts to the American system of justice can hardly be overstated. As Professors Tracey George and Albert Yoon recognize, "The work of …

The Failure Of Education Federalism, Kristi L. Bowman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Since the Great Recession of 2007–09, states have devoted even less money to public education and state courts have become even more hostile to structural reform litigation that has sought to challenge education funding and quality. Yet the current model of education federalism (dual federalism) leaves these matters largely to the states. As a result, state-level legislative inaction, executive acquiescence, and judicial abdication can combine to create a situation in which the quality of traditional public schools declines sharply. This is the case in Michigan, which is an unusually important state not only because the dynamics that are emerging in …

Measuring Justice In State Courts: The Demographics Of The State Judiciary, Tracey E. George, Albert H. Yoon

Vanderbilt Law Review

For most individuals and organizations, state courts--especially state trial courts-are the "law" for all effective purposes. State courts are America's courts. But, we know surprisingly little about state court judges despite their central and powerful role in lawmaking and dispute resolution. This lack of information is especially significant because judges' backgrounds have important implications for the work of courts. The characteristics of those who sit in judgment affect the internal workings of courts as well as the external perception of those courts and judges. The background of judges will influence how they make decisions and can impact the public's acceptance …

Introduction: The Power Of New Data And Technology, Laura E. Dolbow

Vanderbilt Law Review

Modern technology has revolutionized the law. Computers drastically expanded the scope and speed of access to legal information. Unlike the days when lawyers had to climb ladders in the stacks to find specific statutes or cases in printed reporters, Westlaw brings up thousands of resources at the touch of a fingertip. Beyond transforming legal research, new data and technology have transformed the law in two other powerful ways: they have made the law more accessible to nonlawyers, and they have made it possible for lawyers to gather information about how the law is being executed. The articles in this Section …

Improving Access To Justice In State Courts With Platform Technology, J. J. Prescott

Articles

Access to justice often equates to access to state courts, and for millions of Americans, using state courts to resolve their disputes—often with the government—is a real challenge. Reforms are regularly proposed in the hopes of improving the situation (e.g., better legal aid), but until recently a significant part of the problem has been structural. Using state courts today for all but the simplest of legal transactions entails at the very least traveling to a courthouse and meeting with a decision maker in person and in a one-on-one setting. Even minimally effective access, therefore, requires time, transportation, and very often …

The Constitutional Right To Collateral Post-Conviction Review, Carlos Manuel Vázquez, Stephen I. Vladeck

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For years, the prevailing academic and judicial wisdom has held that, between them, Congress and the Supreme Court have rendered post- conviction habeas review all but a dead letter. But in its January 2016 decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court may have dramatically upended that understanding in holding—for the first time—that there are at least some cases in which the Constitution itself creates a right to collateral post-conviction review, i.e., cases in which a prisoner seeks to enforce retroactively a “new rule” of substantive constitutional law under the familiar doctrine of Teague v. Lane.

On the …

Habeas As Forum Allocation: A New Synthesis, Carlos M. Vázquez

University of Miami Law Review

The scope of habeas relief for state prisoners, especially during the decades before the Supreme Court’s 1953 decision in Brown v. Allen, is a famously disputed question—one of recognized significance for contemporary debates about the proper scope of habeas review. This Article provides a new answer. It argues that, until the enactment of Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), it was broadly accepted that state prisoners were entitled to plenary federal review of the legal and mixed law/fact questions decided against them by state courts. Until 1916, such review was provided by the Supreme Court; after 1953, …

The Asymmetry Problem: Reflections On Calvin Massey’S Standing In State Courts, State Law, And Federal Review, John M. Greabe

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

This paper is based on remarks delivered at a symposium to honor my University of New Hampshire School of Law colleague Calvin Massey, who passed away in the fall of 2015. The paper discusses an asymmetry in federal standing law. The asymmetry lies in the fact that, when a state’s highest court decides the merits of a federal claim brought in circumstances where the claimant has standing under state law but not federal law, the United States Supreme Court has jurisdiction to review the decision only if the state supreme court upholds the federal claim. This asymmetry was the subject …

Federal Review Of State Criminal Convictions: A Structural Approach To Adequacy Doctrine, Eve Brensike Primus

Michigan Law Review

Modern state postconviction review systems feature procedural labyrinths so complicated and confusing that indigent defendants have no realistic prospect of complying with the rules. When defendants predictably fail to navigate these mazes, state and federal courts deem their claims procedurally defaulted and refuse to consider those claims on their merits. As a result, systemic violations of criminal procedure rights—like the right to effective counsel—persist without judicial correction.

But the law contains a tool that, if properly adapted, could bring these systemic problems to the attention of federal courts: procedural adequacy. Procedural adequacy doctrine gives federal courts the power to ignore …

Unequal Opportunities: Education Pathways To The U.S. Judiciary, Alfred C. Aman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This paper is about diversity in federal and state courts in the United States. My main argument is that we should promote a judiciary that is reflective of the society of which it is a part for three reasons: first, because in doing so, we gain critical awareness of barriers to judicial service; second, because in doing so, we are also promoting access to resources, education and opportunities in the legal profession; and third, because it is possible (although not automatic) that a reflective judiciary will broaden the range of experience and perspective on the matters involved in the cases …