Courts Commons^™

Trading Diversity? Judicial Diversity And Case Outcomes In Federal Courts, Ryan W. Copus, Ryan Hübert, Paige Pellaton

Faculty Works

Are federal lawsuits resolved differently based on the race or gender of the judges assigned to hear them? Recent empirical research posits that women and judges of color decide cases more liberally, at least in some identity-salient areas of law. However, these studies analyze small numbers of cases and judges, and use research designs that limit their causal interpretations. Using an original dataset of all civil rights cases filed in 20 federal district courts over multiple decades and a strong causal identification strategy, we find that assignment of cases to judges of color or women has no statistically significant effect …

“Any Rebroadcast, Retransmission, Or Account Of This Trial Without The Express Written Consent Of The Judge Is Prohibited”: The First Amendment And Judicial Constraints On Redistributing Courtroom Video, Frank D. Lomonte, Rachel Jones

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Distinctive Court: A Glimpse Into The History And Significance Of The D.C. Circuit, Judge J. Michelle Childs

Fordham Law Review

Judge J. Michelle Childs serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Before her appointment, Judge Childs received a B.A. from the University of South Florida Honors College and a J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law. She also received Masters degrees from the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business and from Duke University School of Law, as well as an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of South Carolina. After working in private practice for eight years, Judge Childs received an appointment to serve as the Deputy Director for the …

Misusing Eminent Domain: Pretextual Takings For A Traditional Public Use, Cameron P. Hellerman

Fordham Law Review

Eminent domain is a powerful tool at the disposal of local, state and federal governments. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution imposes two conditions on this sovereign power: the taking must be for “public use,” and the condemner must pay “just compensation” to the property owner. There are minimal guardrails in place to police potential misuse of the eminent domain power in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court equates “public use” with “public purpose” and applies a deferential standard of review to a condemner’s determination that a taking serves a public purpose. Nonetheless, the Court in Kelo v. City …

“Shipping” Away The Captive Audience Meeting, Nathan Kakalec

Fordham Law Review

On November 14, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overturned seventy-six years of labor law precedent by banning captive audience meetings in Amazon.com Services LLC. Captive audience meetings, mandatory meetings where employers discuss unionization with their employees, were a powerful anti-union tool used by employers to coerce their employees into rejecting unionization. The NLRB argues that captive audience meetings are inconsistent with § 7 and § 8 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Employers reject the NLRB’s assertion and contend that banning captive audience meetings infringes on their First Amendment right to communicate their views on unionization. …

Text, Context, Or Both?: Considering When And How To Use Statutory History In The New Textualist Framework, Devon Brostoff

Fordham Law Review

Statutory history represents the evolution of a statute through enacted amendments. Although textualists have widely rejected traditional forms of legislative history, statutory history has not received the same fate. Instead, textualists have accepted the use of statutory history as a resource separate from—and superior to—legislative history. Thus, this Note examines how courts are using statutory history, focusing primarily on the author’s analysis of a set of courts of appeals cases that rely on statutory history. Using these cases, this Note explores whether statutory history is best understood as text or context within the interpretation process. Further, this Note challenges the …

Extralegal Factors Influencing Judicial Perceptions Of Defendants With Mental Illness, Hailey Erdbruegger

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The United States has one of the highest prison populations in the world. This means millions of individuals are either incarcerated or under other forms of supervision by the criminal justice system at any one given time. All those millions of individuals had to move through the U.S. criminal courts and thus engage with multiple forms of courtroom participants along the way. Of those millions coming through the system, many have either been diagnosed with a mental illness, or have self-reported having a mental illness. This makes the personal beliefs, stigmas, and biases of the previously mentioned courtroom participants regarding …

Blunting The “Tools At Hand”: Recent Developments In Delaware Books-And-Records Demand Law, Daniel Meyer

University of Miami Business Law Review

In recent years, and despite their heeding the guidance of Delaware courts, stockholders’ use of the statutory books-and-records investigation mechanism under Delaware Code Title 8, Section 220 (“Section 220”) has been much maligned, with commentators blaming Section 220 actions for straining judicial resources and causing companies unnecessary costs and burdens. Moreover, Delaware’s legislature and courts have taken steps to curb stockholders’ inspection rights, blunting a crucial tool needed to develop allegations in meritorious cases so that stockholders can bring cases that survive motions to dismiss and continue into plenary discovery.

Instead of blindly accepting a narrative regarding a Section 220 …

A New Equal Protection And Due Process Clause: Pushing Back On The Eleventh Circuit’S Error In Corbitt, Alberto Bufalino

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Right To Gender-Affirming Care, Justin J. Soulas

Theses and Dissertations

As of recent, twenty-four states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care, restricting minors from accessing medically necessary treatment. Existing scholarship has begun to explore the profound impact of these bans on transgender youth, their parents or guardians, and the medical professionals who support them. However, the body of literature on this rapidly evolving issue remains limited. This thesis aims to fill that gap by offering a legal defense of gender-affirming care, grounded in judicial precedent. It argues that parental rights to make medical decisions for their children—recognized in constitutional jurisprudence—extend to decisions involving gender-affirming treatment. Additionally, it draws on anti-discrimination …

Do Bankruptcy Judges Belong In Chambers? Rethinking Inherent Civil Contempt Power In Bankruptcy, Abigail B. Willie

Brooklyn Law Review

In recent years, the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized limitations on the adjudicatory authority of the bankruptcy judge in certain contexts. In the face of this seeming erosion in the previously presumed power of the bankruptcy judge, the time is ripe to consider areas in which a bankruptcy judge’s adjudicatory authority may be further challenged. Inherent civil contempt power is one such area. Contempt power in the bankruptcy context has been murky since the creation of the non-Article III bankruptcy court in 1978. While today, courts generally agree that bankruptcy judges possess (at least some) inherent civil …

Conflicting Canons Of Construction: The Aftermath In Veterans’ Law, Carlissa R. Carson

Brooklyn Law Review

Until June 28, 2024, when the United States Supreme Court overturned decades of administrative law precedent, veterans' law judges, veterans, and practitioners alike would gather in the administrative law arena to watch an unpredictable battle: Chevron vs. Gardner. The outcome of bouts between these heavyweights was as unexpected as the plot twist in an M. Night Shyamalan film. As a result, our nation’s veterans were defeated. Federal courts tended to apply either Chevron (agency deference) or Gardner (veteran friendliness) and courts rarely mentioned both canons of construction in the same opinion. It was difficult to predict which canon of construction …

Climate Exceptionalism In Court, Zachary D. Clopton, David A. Dana

Northwestern University Law Review

Across a range of cases, fossil fuel companies, government actors, and some judges have conceded that climate change is an exceptional phenomenon, only to argue that its exceptional nature is a reason to keep climate change out of court. These parties and judges thus seek to avoid the adjudication of climate cases on the merits, even when the neutral application of existing law would provide for jurisdiction in these cases. We term this phenomenon “climate jurisdiction exceptionalism.”

This Article provides a comprehensive account of climate jurisdiction exceptionalism, focusing on two main threads: Article III standing and state court jurisdiction. First, …

Preclusive Jurisdictional Dismissals, Kevin Song

Northwestern University Law Review

Every litigant deserves their day in court. At the same time, litigants cannot endlessly go to court on the same matter. A complex body of preclusion law balances these fundamental tenets by examining when adjudication of a matter precludes subsequent relitigation. This body of law has evolved over time to preserve the day-in-court ideal in a way that is sensitive to the threats that relitigation present to judicial efficiency, fair adjudication, and repose. Modern preclusion law has settled on a pragmatic approach: where a court has issued a final judgment on the merits but erroneously assumed jurisdiction, relitigation may still …

Hindsight Is 20/20: Epilepsy Is Not One-Size-Fits-All, Raika Kim

Northwestern University Law Review

For many, epilepsy is one of the first conditions that come to mind when thinking of a disability, and for good reason: over 50 million people in the world live with epilepsy. Yet misunderstandings about epilepsy have perpetuated social stigma surrounding the disability for centuries. Ableist beliefs led to the passage of laws in the 1900s condoning—and in some cases, requiring—sterilization of individuals with epilepsy and restriction of their right to marry. Even today, state driving laws, justified as promoting public safety, categorically prevent anyone diagnosed with epilepsy from driving unless they are seizure free for an arbitrary, nonuniform period …

Modalities, Anti-Modalities, And The Social Psychology Of Persuasive Constitutional Argument, Asma T. Uddin

Catholic University Law Review

Constitutional argumentation traditionally relies on modalities such as text, history, doctrine, and structure. However, the exclusion of certain “anti-modalities”—such as policy arguments, fundamentalist views, and emotional appeals—can create a “resonance gap” between legal reasoning and public understanding. This paper explores how social science insights, particularly from cultural cognition theory (CCT) and moral foundations theory (MFT), can help bridge this gap by guiding the strategic incorporation of pathos and moral intuitions into constitutional arguments. Techniques such as self-affirmation, expressive overdetermination, and aporetic reasoning can make opinions more persuasive and inclusive without compromising legal integrity. The paper examines how these strategies can …

The Law Of Disqualification And Problems With The Supreme Court Code Of Conduct, Donald K. Sherman, Marco A. White, Virginia Canter

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

In this Article, we analyze the federal disqualification statute applicable to federal judges, magistrates, and Justices of the Supreme Court as compared to the disqualification provisions of the United States Supreme Court Code of Conduct and detail the ways in which the standards contained within the Code are contrary to law and history. To provide proper context, we examine the history, case law, and statutory framework that have created the current standards of judicial disqualification for all Article III judges and Justices. We demonstrate that the Court is bound to apply disqualification procedures in accordance with the United States Constitution, …

Chief Justice Dufresne: An Appreciation, Charles A. Pomeroy

Maine Law Review

To those of us who worked with him almost daily, the years of Armand Dufresne's stewardship will be best remembered as the years during which the Justices of the Supreme Court grew closer together, both in their professional and social relations, and in the respect and admiration each held for the other and all held for the Chief Justice. I am confident I express the sentiment of my colleagues when I say the Dufresne years were among the happiest years of the Court family, largely because of the leadership Chief Justice Dufresne provided US.

“Appeals On Wheels” Brings Court Of Appeals Of Indiana To Bloomington, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Court of Appeals of Indiana will hold oral arguments at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law on Thursday, April 3 inside Baier Hall.

The event is part of the court’s Appeals on Wheels series and is open to the public. Arguments begin at 1:45 p.m. and are expected to conclude around 2:45 p.m.

“The Appeals on Wheels program is the best trust-building tool we have as a judiciary,” said Anne Fuchs, the Court’s director of communications. “The court brings real oral arguments to communities around the state so the public can understand how the judiciary really works. We …

Put Me In, Coach: Constitutional Concerns Of Judicial Activism And Legislating From The Bench, Jacob M. Elliott

Senior Honors Theses

Unrestrained judicial activism and legislating from the bench at the Supreme Court level place federalism and freedom in jeopardy. By ignoring crucial doctrines like jurisdiction, deference, and independence, the Supreme Court has demonstrated a tendency toward reinterpreting existing Constitutional precedent as they see fit, basing judgments on extra-legal influences, and supplanting Constitutional principles with their own personal policy preferences.

Numerous cases demonstrate the looming threat of judicial overreach; these cases are often considered some of the most damaging and injurious decisions in the history of the American federal judiciary. One potential solution is to appoint justices who will operate …

Scientific Educations Among U.S. Judges, Christa Laser

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Should more judges have technical and scientific educations than are currently prevalent in the federal judiciary? This empirical study of the educational background of federal judges reports the undergraduate and graduate majors of active U.S. federal Article III judges. Information on the subject area of study is largely not publicly available, especially for judges appointed decades ago. This is the first and only publicly available research study of the subject areas of study of U.S. judges, collected via phone and email surveys to U.S. judges. The results of this study show that only 7.35% offederal judges have majors in science …

The Wrongly Read Right: Insurrection And The Second Amendment Right To Bear Arms, Aman Mcleod, Jacob M. Jones

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Several judges and scholars have interpreted the Second Amendment as creating a right to bear arms to facilitate armed resistance against the government whenever it threatens to impose tyranny. These arguments have been made in books, scholarly articles, and court decisions. Many of the proponents of the pro-armed insurrection interpretation of the Second Amendment root this point of view in the history of the right to bear arms in the Anglo-American legal tradition. This Article argues that the Second Amendment does not create a right to bear arms to resist government authority because such a right is inconsistent with several …

Benchmarked For Arbitration: Work Avoidance As An Explanation For Why Judges Have Become Increasingly Favorable Toward Compelled Arbitration, Michael Conklin

Pepperdine Law Review

The clear trajectory over the last 100 years has been for judges to become increasingly more favorable toward sending disputes to compelled arbitration and enforcing arbitration awards. This results in a modern widespread proliferation of compelled arbitration that has become increasingly controversial. Some have alleged that the steady trend toward courts favoring compelled arbitration is the result of a corresponding building up of trust among judges in the arbitration process. This Article posits an alternative theory: Namely, judges face immense incentives to clear their dockets, and compelled arbitration is a highly efficient tool to that end. Exploring the historical trajectory …

In Memoriam Harry P. Glassman, L. Kinvin Wroth, Daniel E. Wathen, Gerald F. Petruccelli, Melvyn H. Zarr

Maine Law Review

Harry Paul Glassman was a remarkable lawyer, scholar, teacher, judge, colleague, and friend, whose untimely death has been deeply felt by all who knew him. The editors of the Maine Law Review have brought together in this issue a wide-ranging and moving col- lection of essays that illuminates each of these aspects of Harry's multifaceted life.

Get Your Act Together: The Alternative Fines Act In Federal Prosecutions Of Corporate Environmental Crimes, Josiah B. Harmar

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …