Communications Law Commons^™

Keynote Address: Secret Evidence In The Age Of National Security, Adam Liptak

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article explores the tension between national security and the First Amendment, arguing that while the First Amendment remains a robust protection against government censorship, recent trends threaten press freedom, particularly in protecting confidential sources and accessing information. The author, drawing on personal experience as a media lawyer and reporter, emphasizes the importance of procedural safeguards and judicial oversight to prevent government overreach and ensure transparency.

The Slow Erosion Of The Adversary System: Article Iii Courts, Fisa, Cipa And Ethical Dilemmas, Ellen C. Yaroshefsky

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article examines the increasing reliance on secret evidence in U.S. legal proceedings, particularly in post-9/11 national security and terrorism cases, facilitated by the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This trend undermines the adversarial system by denying defendants access to relevant information, raising ethical concerns for defense attorneys, and potentially eroding constitutional rights. The author advocates for reforms to balance national security with civil liberties, emphasizing the need for judicial vigilance and legislative changes to address these issues.

21st Century Pillow-Talk: Applicability Of The Marital Communications Privilege To Electronic Mail, Mikah K. Story

ExpressO

This article is the first to explore whether the marital communications privilege, which protects from disclosure private communications between spouses, should attach to communication sent via Web-based email. Traditionally, the privilege does not attach where a third party learns, either intentionally or inadvertently, the content of an otherwise private communication. In the world of Web-based email, disclosure to a third party is necessary in order for successful communication to occur. Writers of Web-based email draft a message and store it on a third-party Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) server until the recipient reads the message. Even after the email has been …

Conversational Standing: A New Approach To An Old Privacy Problem, Christopher M. Drake

ExpressO

American society has long considered certain conversations private amongst the participants in those conversations. In other words, when two or more people are conversing in a variety of settings and through a variety of media, there are times when all parties to the conversation can reasonably expect freedom from improper government intrusion, whether through direct participation or secret monitoring. This shared expectation of privacy has been slow to gain judicial recognition. Courts have indicated that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution only protects certain elements of the conversation, such as where and how it takes place, but that …

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

The Priestly Class: Reflections On A Journalist's Privilege, William E. Lee

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Leakers, Bloggers, And Fourth Estate Inmates: The Misguided Pursuit Of A Reporter's Privilege, Randall D. Eliason

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Filmmaking In The Precinct House And The Genre Of Documentary Film, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores side-by-side two contemporary and related film trends: the recent popular enthusiasm over the previously arty documentary film and the mandatory filming of custodial interrogations and confessions.

The history and criticism of documentary film, indeed contemporary movie-going, understands the documentary genre as political and social advocacy (recent examples are Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 and Errol Morris's Fog of War). Judges, advocates, and legislatures, however, assume that films of custodial interrogations and confessions reveal a truth and lack a distorting point of view. As this Article explains, the trend at law, although aimed at furthering venerable criminal justice principles, …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Voice Over Internet Protocol And The Wiretap Act: Is Your Conversation Protected?, Daniel B. Garrie, Matthew J. Armstrong, Donald P. Harris

Seattle University Law Review

10101101: Is this sequence of digits voice or data? To a computer, voice is a sequence of digits and data is a sequence of digits. The law has defined 10101101 to be data, and 10101001 to be voice communications. Courts have constructed a distinction between data, 10101101, and voice, 10101001. However, that distinction is blurred when voice and data are simultaneously transmitted through the same medium. The courts forbid third parties to tap or monitor voice communications, yet permit data packets to be tracked, stored, and sold by third parties with the implied consent of either party engaged in the …

Reporter's Privilege In Utah, Edward L. Carter

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Justice Under Attack: The Federal Government's Assault On The Attorneyclient Privilege, Robert J. Anello

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article argues that the federal government, particularly through the Department of Justice, has launched a multi-faceted assault on the attorney-client privilege, undermining its protections. Recent laws, rules, and policies, such as the Attorney General's monitoring rules for inmate communications and the Department of Justice's guidelines pressuring corporations to waive privilege, threaten the confidentiality essential to the attorney-client relationship. These actions, often justified under the guise of national security and combating corporate fraud, erode constitutional rights and the adversarial system of justice.

Jaffee V. Redmond: Towards Recognition Of A Federal Counselor-Battered Woman Privilege, Fernando Laguarda, Michael B. Bressman

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Big Chill: Third-Party Documents And The Reporter's Privilege, Bradley S. Miller

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the wake of Philip Morris' multi-billion dollar libel suit against ABC, a Virginia court has sanctioned a new method of discovery that promises to have an unsettling impact on the reporter's privilege to protect confidential sources. In Philip Morris Cos. v. American Broadcasting Cos., the tobacco giant moved to compel disclosure of the identity of a former R.J. Reynolds manager who suggested on ABC's Day One news program that tobacco companies add nicotine to the cigarettes they manufacture. At the same time, Philip Morris issued subpoenas for the expense records of two ABC employees who wrote and produced …

Beyond Maryland V. Craig: Can And Should Adult Rape Victims Be Permitted To Testify By Closed-Circuit Television?, Lisa Hamilton Thielmeyer

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Contingent Fees Without Contingencies: Hamlet Without The Prince Of Demark?, Lester Brickman

Articles

According to conventional wisdom virtually all contingent fee percentages exceeding fifty percent are illegal and excessive, but most lower percentages are valid. This Article challenges the conventional wisdom, an amalgam of the unassailability of the standard one-third rate, notions of fairness versus price gouging, lawyer effort versus lawyer' reward, and the right of a lawyer to contract freely for a fee. It advances instead two propositions for determining the legitimacy of contingent fees. The first is that for a contingent fee to be valid, there must be an actual contingency, which means a realistic risk of nonrecovery. Though this proposition …

The Privacy Protection Act Of 1980: Curbing Unrestricted Third-Party Searches In The Wake Of Zurcher V. Stanford Daily, Jose M. Sariego

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article analyzes the Privacy Protection Act as a response to Zurcher. Part I discusses the Zurcher decision and its effect on First and Fourth Amendment rights, as well as its impact on state testimonial privileges. Part II critically examines key features of the statute, focusing on the parties and materials protected, the police practices regulated, the remedies provided for violations, and the Act's constitutional underpinnings. Part II also offers suggestions for remedying the problems the Act currently presents. The article concludes that the Privacy Protection Act, while a necessary first step to minimizing the impact of Zurcher, is …

An Examination Of The Naming Requirement Of Tittle Iii In Light Of United States V. Donovan - A Case For Suppression, William D. Goldberg

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Abstracts Of Recent Cases, Nick George Zegrea

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law - Evidence - Wiretapping, James A. Park

Michigan Law Review

Suspecting that petitioner and others were violating state narcotics laws, New York police tapped petitioner's telephone pursuant to a warrant obtained in accordance with New York law. Acting upon information thus gained the police apprehended petitioner's brother. In his possession was found, not the narcotics as suspected, but alcohol without the tax stamps required by federal law. This evidence was turned over to federal authorities. Prosecution for possessing and transporting distilled spirits without tax stamps thereon followed, during which petitioner's motion to suppress the evidence obtained through the wiretap was denied. The Second Circuit affirmed the conviction, holding that although …

Evidence - Admissibility In Federal Courts Of Record Of Telephone Conversation-Meaning Of "Interception", Robert C. Fox S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In a prosecution for perjury committed before a subcommittee of Congress, defendant filed a motion to suppress the record of a telephone conversation which had been made by the other party to the conversation without defendant's knowledge or consent.

Held , motion granted. To record a telephone conversation in this manner is to intercept it within the meaning of section 605 of the Communications Act; under the Supreme Court's ruling in Nardone v. United States, divulgence in court of a conversation so intercepted would be a violation of the Communications Act. United States v. Stephenson, (D.C. D.C. 1954) …

Privileged Communications--Some Recent Developments, Lloyd S. Adams Jr., Mary E. Polk

Vanderbilt Law Review

It is the purpose of this Note to collect and discuss some of the newer decisions construing and applying the rules of evidence as to certain privileged communications, with a view toward indicating possible trends and developments or limitations, if any, in this field of the law of evidence. It is limited primarily to communications between husband and wife, attorney and client, physician and patient, and priest and penitent, with a short discussion of the so-called "novel privileges." The assumption is made that the reader is familiar with generally accepted definitions of the various privileges, as well as traditional limitations.' …

Wire-Tapping Evidence Inadmissible Unless Both Parties Consent

Indiana Law Journal

Notes and Comments: Evidence

Evidence - Federal Communications Act - Admissibility Of Evidence Which Became Accessible By Wire-Tapping, Edmond F. Devine

Michigan Law Review

Petitioners were convicted under a federal indictment for frauds on the revenue. The United States Supreme Court reversed the conviction on the ground it was obtained by use of evidence secured in violation of section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 by wire-tapping. A new trial resulted in conviction and eventually the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to consider the question whether evidence indirectly obtained by that wire-tapping could be admitted despite the first holding. Held, such evidence is inadmissible on the basis that to rule otherwise would largely nullify the doctrine previously laid down. Nardone …

Libel And Slander - Privileged Reports Of Public Proceedings - Confession To Prosecuting Attorney Implicating Plaintiff, James D. Ritchie

Michigan Law Review

Defendant published in its newspaper the contents of confessions made to a prosecuting attorney by third parties, implicating plaintiff in crimes for which he had been indicted but the commission of which he denied. In an action for damages for libel, held, that the taking of the confession was neither a judicial proceeding nor an official proceeding authorized by law, and therefore its publication was not privileged. Caller Times Publishing Co. v. Chandler, (Tex. 1939) 130 S. W. (2d) 853.

Evidence-Privilege-Husband And Wife-Attorney And Client

Michigan Law Review

A husband and wife are involved in marital difficulties. Together they consult an attorney in an effort to compromise their dispute, or failing in that, to arrange a property settlement prior to separation or divorce. Such a joint consultation may be for any one of a variety of purposes. In a later action, for divorce or separate maintenance for example, the question arises whether either the attorney or one of the spouses can disclose words spoken by the other spouse in the consultation. For instance, can the attorney or the husband disclose the wife's admission of adultery?

Evidence - Privileged Communication

Michigan Law Review

In a suit for divorce on the ground of adultery, a Luthern clergyman refused to testify concerning a disclosure made to him in his religious capacity by the defendant husband, on the ground that it was a privileged communication under the Minnesota statute. The district court adjudged him in contempt of court. Upon certiorari to the supreme court of Minnesota, held, the communication was privileged, and the order was reversed. In re Swenson (Minn. 1931) 237 N.W. 589.

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Note And Comment, Evans Holbrook, Myron Mclaren, Walter F. Whitman

Michigan Law Review

The Death of President Angell - The death of Dr. James Burrill ANGELL, president-emeritus of the university, has deprived the law school of a sympathetic and helpful friend. Such was the catholicity of Dr. ANGL'S mind and his intellectual interests that probably all departments of the university felt and had good reason to feel that he was in some special sense the interested friend of each.

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Appeal and Error--Meaning of "Person Aggrieved"; Bankruptcy--dower Rights of Bankrupt's Wife; Bankruptcy--Mechanic's Lien--Set Off; Bills and Notes--Usury--when note is Void as to Both Principal and Interest; Boundaries--Meander Line--Riparian Rights; Citizenship--Marriage of Alien Woman to a Citizen--Naturalization; Constitutional law--Constitutionality of Office of Supreme Judge--Construction of State Constitution; Constitutional Law--Full Faith and Credit--Chancery Power to Affect Foreign Property; Constitutional Law--Police Power--License and Registration of Automobiles; Contracts--Restraint of Trade--Limitation as to Time; Damages--Breach of Warranty of Title--Attorney's Fees and Costs; Deeds--Support and Maintenance as Consideration--Condition Subsequent; Evidence--Crimes Affecting Credibility of Witnesses; Evidence--Letters Between Husband and Wife--Not Privileged in Hands of Third Parties; Husband …