Law Commons^™

Paying Eliza: Comity, Contracts, And Critical Race Theory, Or 19th Century Choice Of Law Doctrine And The Validation Of Antebellum Contracts For The Purchase And Sale Of Human Beings, Diane J. Klein

ExpressO

During the period before the Civil War, courts in non-slave-holding states were sometimes called upon to enforce contracts for the purchase and sale of human beings (or contracts whose consideration otherwise consisted of human beings), and sometimes did so, for reasons arguably having more to do with inter-state contract law than with the “peculiar institution” itself. What may be more surprising, and more difficult to understand, is that some “Union” courts went on doing so even after the Civil War ended, when substantive changes of law, together with well-established exceptions to general principles favoring out-of-state contract enforcement, made the contrary …

'Prima Paint' Pushed Compulsory Aribitration Under The 'Erie' Train, Richard L. Barnes

ExpressO

As the face of commerce changes, the law usually follows, albeit at some distance. The United States Supreme Court has recently sped the pace. In a line of cases, some old, some recent, but all feeding off of one another, the Court has held that challenges to agreements which contain arbitration provisions must go to the arbitrator first. Courts may hear formational challenges only where they challenge the arbitration provision alone. In the Supreme Court, arbitration, with its vast potential for abuse as well as for good, has found a friend.

The Court’s doctrine of choice, “severability,” raises serious concerns …

The Inescapable Federalism Of The Ninth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash

ExpressO

For the past several decades, the majority of courts and commentators have viewed the Ninth Amendment as a provision justifying judicial enforcement of unenumerated individual rights against state and federal abridgment. The most influential advocate of this libertarian reading of the Ninth has been Professor Randy Barnett who has argued in a number of articles and books that the Ninth was originally understood as guarding unenumerated natural rights. Recently uncovered historical evidence, however, suggests that those who framed and ratified the Ninth Amendment understood the Clause as a guardian of the retained right to local self-government. Recognizing the challenge this …

A Textual-Historical Theory Of The Ninth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash

ExpressO

Despite the lavish attention paid to the Ninth Amendment as supporting judicial enforcement of unenumerated rights, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the Amendment’s actual text. Doing so reveals a number of interpretive conundrums. For example, although often cited in support of broad readings of the Fourteenth Amendment, the text of the Ninth says nothing about how to interpret enumerated rights such as those contained in the Fourteenth. No matter how narrowly one construes the Fourteenth, the Ninth merely demands that such enumerated rights not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people. The standard …

Interrogation Of Detainees: Extending A Hand Or A Boot?, Amos N. Guiora

ExpressO

The so called “war on terror” provides the Bush administration with a unique opportunity to both establish clear guidelines for the interrogation of detainees and to make a forceful statement about American values. How the government chooses to act can promote either an ethical commitment to the norms of civil society, or an attitude analogous to Toby Keith’s “American Way,” where Keith sings that “you’ll be sorry that you messed with the USofA, ‘Cuz we’ll put a boot in your ass, It’s the American Way.”

No aspect of the “war on terrorism” more clearly addresses this balance than coercive interrogation. …

The Hidden Harm Of Law And Economics, Daniel I A Cohen

ExpressO

The paper deals with the adverse psychodynamic consequences to an individual and to society, immediately and in the long run, of dissolving individual responsibility for fault as in the doctrine of Law and economics.

At War With The Eclectics: Mapping Pragmatism In Contemporary Legal Analysis, Justin Desautels-Stein

ExpressO

This article has two primary goals. The first is descriptive, and seeks to respond to what appears to be an increasing degree of confusion over the word “pragmatism,” especially as it is used in a good deal of legal literature. This descriptive aim begins by separating out three general categories of pragmatism: (1) the so-called “everyday” pragmatism familiar to the American vernacular, (2) the classical philosophy of the early pragmatist authors like William James and John Dewey, and (3) pragmatism as understood in the context of law. The majority of the article is subsequently concerned with exploring this last category, …

Son Of Sam Resurrected: Did Greedy Criminals Unwittingly Give New Life To The “Son Of Sam” Laws?, Arthur M. Ortegon

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Jutstice Kennedy And The Environment: Property, States' Rights, And The Search For Nexus, Michael Blumm

ExpressO

Justice Anthony Kennedy, now clearly the pivot of the Roberts Court, is the Court’s crucial voice in environmental and natural resources law cases. Kennedy’s central role was never more evident than in the two most celebrated environmental and natural resources law cases of 2006: Kelo v. New London and Rapanos v. U.S., since he supplied the critical vote in both: upholding local use of the condemnation power for economic development under certain circumstances, and affirming federal regulatory authority over wetlands which have a significant nexus to navigable waters. In each case Kennedy’s sole concurrence was outcome determinative.

Justice Kennedy has …

Principled Consequentialism, Hamish C. Stewart

ExpressO

This Article characterizes and seeks to reconcile two competing approaches to legal reasoning, through the lens of the problem of the determinacy of legal doctrine. On the “neo-formalist” approach, characteristic of many modern liberal scholars, the appropriate doctrinal answer to any legal problem can be determined by working out, in a quasi-deductive way and in isolation from consequentialist considerations, the implications of a small and stable set of legal principles. On the “neo-realist” approach, characteristic of many economic analysts of law but also of certain leftist critics of liberalism, principles provide no determinate answer to legal problems; the only way …

Dialogic Allocution, Felix Valenzuela

ExpressO

This Article argues in favor of increasing the scope of the national sentencing dialogue in order to remedy the current sentencing defects. The increase in scope hinges on expanding the role of allocution within criminal sentencing. By treating allocution as seriously as the Federal Rules do, new discussants will contribute creative solutions for the defects, while at the same time enhancing institutional and ontological legitimacy. To achieve that end, the Article proposes a modified view of allocution. This dialogic allocution unifies the judge and defendant as co-discussants in the national debate, rather than pitting them against each other. The Article …

The Interdisciplinary Turn In Legal Education , Anthony D'Amato

ExpressO

The nature of law and legal practice is changing with the addition of interdisciplinary scholars to law-school faculties and interdisciplinary studies to the law curriculum. However, the accessibility of non-law disciplinarians in the rest of the university raises the question of the cost-effectiveness and opportunity costs of importing them directly into the law school. This Article criticizes the interdisciplinary turn on three grounds. First is the unlikelihood that the joint-degreed persons who join the law faculty will happen to be the ones that their colleagues will end up collaborating with. Second is the even greater unlikelihood that any given discipline …

Nomos, Conflict, And The Tragedy Of Adjudication: The Jurisprudence Of Robert Cover, Julen Etxabe

ExpressO

Robert Cover is known for having argued that in every plural society there exist, along with the State, multiple normative entities that create and maintain their own sense of normativity, that is, their own holistic modes of assessing good and bad, valid and invalid, right and wrong. Beyond that, few systematic attempts have been made to pursue this view as a comprehensive theory of law. The principal aim of this piece is to demonstrate that Cover offers a novel and viable paradigm of law, which must at least include an ontology (an understanding of the basic units and organizational structure …

Contractarianism, Contractualism, And The Law Of Corporate Insolvency, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

What is the appropriate way of theorising about corporate bankruptcy law? That lies, argues this paper, in rejecting Pareto and Kaldor-Hicks efficiency in favour of a particular conception of transaction cost efficiency, and in rejecting the ‘contractarian’ Creditors’ Bargain Model in favour of the ‘contractualist’ Authentic Consent Model. The paper vindicates these arguments with an analysis of the automatic stay which characterises the collective liquidation regime, of the pari passu principle often said to be at the heart of this regime, and of the liability imposed in some jurisdictions on the managers of terminally distressed companies for failing to take …

Daubert And The Disappearing Jury Trial, Allan Kanner

ExpressO

Since being decided by the Supreme Court in 1993, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals has earned its place as one of the most misinterpreted and misapplied decisions in modern history. Meant to liberalize the standards for admissions of proof, the decision has had the opposite effect. The gatekeeper powers given to judges via Daubert, coupled with the internal and external incentives to prevent jury trials, has placed our entire civil justice system at risk.

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Parents Involved & Meredith: A Prediction Regarding The (Un)Constitutionality Of Race-Conscious Student Assignment Plans, Eboni S. Nelson

ExpressO

During the October 2006 Term, the United States Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of voluntary race-conscious student assignment plans as employed in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education. These cases will mark the Court’s first inquiry regarding the use of race to combat de facto segregation in public education. This article examines the constitutionality of such plans and provides a prediction regarding the Court’s decisions.

The article begins with an analysis of the resegregation trend currently plaguing American educational institutions and identifies two causes for the occurrence: …

Empire Has Its Own Hurdles: Exploring The Nature Of Exceptionalism And Its Consequences For International Law And Multilateral Decision-Making, Saptarishi Bandopadhyay

ExpressO

While it is increasingly becoming a platitude that exceptionalism exists in international law, little is being said about the nature, degrees of this exceptionalism and their differential consequences on the international legal system.

In my effort to bridge what I see as an oversight, this paper will seek to show how contemporary exceptionalist practices are creating a fault in the international legal order which will in turn provide a basis for others to argue for an overall reformulation of rules i.e. actions in contravention of the multilateral international legal framework would no longer need to be justified by manipulative rule …

Legal Consciousness And Contractual Obligations, Kojo Yelpaala

ExpressO

The Article on “Legal Consciousness and Contractual Obligations” will explore and offer an explanation of the origins of the moral foundations for contractual obligations beyond conventional analysis. Building on themes and threads across many disciplines and theories, it seeks to identify and locate certain unities and common elements that explain human consciousness in exchange relations across cultures. The term contract is used in its non-technical and most inclusive sense to cover agreements, promises, undertakings and other forms of consensus whether or not supported by consideration. Viewed within this broad conceptual framework, where do human beings get the idea that they …

Herding Bullfrogs Towards A More Balanced Wheelbarrow: An Illustrative Recommendation For Federal Sentencing Post-Booker, Brian R. Gallini, Emily Q. Shults

ExpressO

The Article argues in favor of shifting the balance in federal sentencing toward a more indeterminate system. By exploring the post-Booker legal landscape at both the federal and state levels, the Article asserts that the judiciary's continued reliance on the “advisory" Guidelines has practically changed federal sentencing procedures very little in form or function. Accordingly, the Article proffers that, rather than insisting upon the Guidelines' immutability, federal sentencing would do well to reflect upon its own history, and the evolution of its state counterparts.

Formulaic Deliberation, Andre L. Smith

ExpressO

Formulaic Deliberation describes the major interpretive regimes--textualism, intentionalism, purposivism, and pragmatism—and represents them formulaically. By classifying them this way, it more precisely describes them as theories, so that we can more precisely perform them as deliberative techniques. And, if we agree that none of them, individually, fits all cases at all times, we can formulaically describe how to synthesize them toward a discrete decision.

William Eskridge, Stanley Fish, Hon. Antonin Scalia, Richard Posner, Ronald Dworkin, John Hart Ely, Adrian Vermeule, Hon. Stephen Breyer, Cass Sunstein, Lawrence Lessig. All of them are right, their method for deciding cases produces benefits with …

Judicial Caprice, Eric Miller

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Corporations And The Lateral Obligations Of The Social Contract, Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

Social contract theorists suggest that society at some level is based on the idea that human people surrender freedom for the privilege of participating in society. That participation implicitly requires more than mere minimal compliance with law. Each human person’s contribution to society above the legal baseline, permits humans to create a society that is at least tolerable. Corporations as non-human act without regard for these supra-legal obligations which results in society suffering injustice. Corporate participation in society has become increasingly unjust and has done so to the extent that we may speak of living in a post-ethical world.

Radicals In Robes: A Review, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

This essay reviews and critiques Cass Sunstein’s new book about conservative activists in the federal judiciary. After a discussion of Sunstein’s (somewhat misleading) rhetorical nomenclature, this essay argues that Sunstein’s proposed “minimalist” methodology in constitutional jurisprudence is beneficial, but not for the reasons Sunstein suggests. Sunstein alternatively justifies judicial restraint or incrementalism on epistemological self-doubt (cautiousness being an outgrowth of uncertainty) and his fear that accomplishments by Progressives in the last century will be undone by conservative judges in the present. Constitutional incrementalism is more convincingly justified on classical economic grounds. While affirming Sunstein’s overall thesis, this essay offers an …

Tough Talk From The Supreme Court On Free Speech: The Illusory Per Se Rule In Garcetti As Further Evidence Of Connick’S Unworkable Employee/Citizen Speech Partition, Sonya K. Bice

ExpressO

Garcetti v. Ceballos was intended to clear up an area of First Amendment law so murky that it was the source not only of circuit splits but also of intra-circuit splits—panels from within the same circuit had arrived at opposite results in nearly identical cases. As it turned out, the Supreme Court itself was as splintered as the circuits. Of all the previously argued cases that remained undecided during the Court’s transition involving Justice O’Connor’s retirement and Justice Alito’s confirmation, Garcetti was the only one for which the Court ordered a second argument. This suggested to some that without a …

When Should Judges Appoint Experts?: A Law And Economics Perspective, Jonathan T. Tomlin, David Cooper

ExpressO

The Supreme Court’s decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals placed federal judges in the role of “gatekeepers” empowered to evaluate the reliability of often complex expert testimony. Many judges, commentators, and legal scholars have argued that court-appointed experts can assist judges in appropriately carrying out their gatekeeping role. However, previous literature has not evaluated the role of court-appointed experts in a rigorous framework that considers the complex interaction of the incentives of expert witnesses, the impact of expert witnesses on the decision-making of the fact finder, and the knowledge of the judge. In this article, we provide such a …

A Defense Of Structural Injunctive Remedies In South African Law, Danielle E. Hirsch

ExpressO

This Article argues that the use of structural injunction remedies by South African courts is appropriate, and, in light of demonstrated government inaction, often necessary in order to give meaning to the protection of socio-economic rights, which is mandated by their Constitution. The Article draws upon numerous United States judicial decisions where structural injunctions have been successfully implemented to address systemic institutional inaction and violations of the equal protection and due process clauses of the United States Constitution. In numerous instances, the South African government has not acted to effectively give meaning to the socio-economic rights which were broadly declared …

Taking "Justice And Fairness" Seriously: Distributive Justice And The Takings Clause, Jeffrey M. Gaba

ExpressO

Since the 1960 case of Armstrong v. United States, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that “the” purpose of the Takings Clause is to prevent burdens falling on individual landowners that should in “justice and fairness” be born by society as a whole. The essay argues that this embodies a concept of distributional justice and further argues that the Court has failed to adequately consider the implications of such a conception as the basis of Takings analysis. The essay, after describing the origins of the Armstrong principle, discusses four implications: first, the rejection of a rights- based conception of the …

Searches & The Misunderstood History Of Suspicion & Probable Cause: Part One, Fabio Arcila

ExpressO

This article, the first of a two-part series, argues that during the Framers’ era many if not most judges believed they could issue search warrants without independently assessing the adequacy of probable cause, and that this view persisted even after the Fourth Amendment became effective. This argument challenges the leading originalist account of the Fourth Amendment, which Professor Thomas Davies published in the Michigan Law Review in 1999.

The focus in this first article is upon an analysis of the common law and how it reflected the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions. Learned treatises in particular, and to a lesser extent a …

The Restitutionary Approach To Just Compensation, Tim Kowal

ExpressO

In the wake of the Court’s near-total refusal to impose a check on the legislature through the public use clause, this paper discusses whether any confidence in our property rights be restored through the just compensation clause in the form of restitutionary compensation, rather than the traditional, and myopic, “fair market value” standard. This paper discusses the historical presumption against restitution, elucidated through Bauman v. Ross over a century ago, is founded upon (1) the idea that the public should not be made to pay any more than necessary to effect a public project, and (2) the idea that the …