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Plea Agreements As Constitutional Contracts, Colin Miller Dec 2018

Plea Agreements As Constitutional Contracts, Colin Miller

Faculty Publications

In his dissenting opinion in Ricketts v. Adamson, Justice Brennan proposed the idea of plea agreements as constitutional contracts and lamented the fact that the Supreme Court had yet to set up rules of construction for resolving plea deal disputes. Since Adamson, courts have given lip service to Justice Brennan’s dissent and applied his reasoning in piecemeal fashion. No court or scholar, however, has attempted to define the extent to which a plea agreement is a constitutional contract or develop rules of construction to apply in plea deal disputes. This gap is concerning given that ninety-five percent of criminal cases …


The Best And Worst Of Contracts Decisions: An Anthology, Nathan B. Oman, Daniel Barnhizer, Scott J. Burnham, Charles R. Calleros, Larry T. Garvin, Nadelle Grossman, F. E. Guerra-Pujol, Jeffrey L. Harrison, Hila Keren, Michael P. Malloy, Daniel P. O'Gorman, Deborah Post, Val Ricks, Rachel Arnow-Richman, Richard R. Carlson, Mark P. Gergen, Kenney Hegland, Nancy S. Kim, Jean Fleming Powers, Cheryl B. Preston Jul 2018

The Best And Worst Of Contracts Decisions: An Anthology, Nathan B. Oman, Daniel Barnhizer, Scott J. Burnham, Charles R. Calleros, Larry T. Garvin, Nadelle Grossman, F. E. Guerra-Pujol, Jeffrey L. Harrison, Hila Keren, Michael P. Malloy, Daniel P. O'Gorman, Deborah Post, Val Ricks, Rachel Arnow-Richman, Richard R. Carlson, Mark P. Gergen, Kenney Hegland, Nancy S. Kim, Jean Fleming Powers, Cheryl B. Preston

Faculty Publications

Five hundred years ago, the common law of contract was without substance. It was form-procedure. Plaintiffs picked a form of action, and common law judges made sure someone besides themselves answered all the hard questions; the parties, a jury, or a ritual determined the winner and the remedy. Judges ran a switch on a conflicts-resolution railway. Thomas More, when Chancellor of England (1529-33), urged judges to lay tracks and control the trains. The problem, he said, was that the judges, "by the verdict of the jury[,] cast off all quarrels from themselves." The judges soon assumed greater authority, taking responsibility …


Markets And Morals: The Limits Of Doux Commerce, Mark L. Movsesian Jan 2018

Markets And Morals: The Limits Of Doux Commerce, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

In this essay for a symposium on Professor Nathan Oman's new book, The Dignity of Commerce, I do three things. First, I describe what I take to be the central message of the book, namely, that markets promote liberal values of tolerance, pluralism, and cooperation among rival, even hostile groups. Second, I show how Oman's argument draws from a line of political and economic thought that dates to the Enlightenment, the so-called "doux commerce" thesis of thinkers like Montesquieu and Adam Smith. Finally, I discuss what I consider the most penetrating criticism of that thesis, Edmund Burke's critique from …