Courts Commons^™

Contents

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contents

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sovereign Speech In Troubled Times: Prosecutorial Statements As Extrajudicial Admissions, Amir Shachmurove

Tennessee Law Review

On its face, Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2) is elegantly simple. Distinguishing between neither private persons nor public entities, it renders admissible out-of-court statements made by an agent "authorized to make a statement on the subject" and by an agent or employee "on a matter within the scope of. . . [its] relationship" to the party per subparagraph (C) and (D), respectively. More colloquially, Evidence Rule 801(d)(2)(C) permits the introduction of an authorized representative's statements into a case's evidentiary record, and Evidence Rule 801(d)(2)(D) does the same for statements uttered by certain agents and employees. History partly vindicated the former, …

Foreword: From Suffrage To The Era, Wanda G. Sobieski

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Subdivision And Conserved Farmland, Jess R. Phelps

Tennessee Law Review

Limiting subdivision of conserved farmland is often a critical component of an agricultural conservation easement project's design. These restrictions are critical for ensuring that a protected farm remains of sufficient size and scale to continue to be viable for agricultural use. This form of restriction, however, is often undervalued by courts reviewing agricultural conservation easements as being secondary or incidental to the agricultural conservation easement's stated goal of preventing this land from being developed or converted to non-agricultural use. The purpose of this Article is to place subdivision restrictions in their appropriate context and to consider options for increasing their …

One Wotus, Two Potus: The Clean Water Act And The Economic Impact, Brad Finney

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Subject Index

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Virtual Hearings And Blockchain Technology Solutions In Criminal Law, Chantell Bergquist

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Technology has evolved and raided our personal and professional lives. Although the courts are not immune to the advancement and integration of technology, the courts are not keeping up with relevant technological advancements. Historically, courts have been hesitant to embrace new technologies despite the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure creates the right to a “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Likewise, the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct have determined attorneys must “keep abreast of …

Rwu Law News: The E-Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law January 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Female Body In The Workplace: Judges And The Common Law, Maritza I. Reyes

Journal Publications

If the common law serves to liberate women, everybody, including judges, should understand the role they do play and should play in the development of the common law. As a career law clerk in the federal courts, I witnessed the decision-making process inside the chambers of federal judges and in the courtrooms. I came to the conclusion that judges, more than statutory law, influence what happens to female bodies in the workplace. Litigants initially drive the common law by filing complaints. However, judicial decisions affect not only the litigants in their individual cases, they also serve as precedent for future …

Righting The Ship: What Courts Are Still Getting Wrong About Electronic Discovery, Tanya Pierce

SMU Law Review

What happens when law changes but courts and lawyers ignore the changes? On December 1, 2015, amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect. One of those amendments includes a sweeping change to Rule 37(e), dealing with the availability of sanctions in federal courts for lost or destroyed electronically stored information (ESI). In the last few years, however, a number of courts have interpreted the amended rule in ways at odds with its plain language and underlying policies, and a surprising number of courts continue to ignore the amended rule altogether. This article examines those trends and …

Simplified Courts Can't Solve Inequality, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter

Faculty Scholarship

State civil courts struggle to handle the volume of cases before them. Litigants in these courts, most of whom are unrepresented, struggle to navigate the courts to solve their problems. This access-to-justice crisis has led to a range of reform efforts and solutions. One type of reform, court simplification, strives to reduce the complexity of procedures and information used by courts to help unrepresented litigants navigate the judicial system. These reforms mitigate but do not solve the symptoms of the larger underlying problem: state civil courts are struggling because they have been stuck with legal cases that arise from the …

Law School News: Three Rwu Law Graduates Nominated For State Judgeships 12-10-2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Ethical Cannabis Lawyering In California, Francis J. Mootz Iii

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Cannabis has a long history in the United States. Originally, doctors and pharmacists used cannabis for a variety of purposes. After the Mexican Revolution led to widespread migration from Mexico to the United States, many Americans responded by associating this influx of foreigners with the use of cannabis, and thereby racializing and stigmatizing the drug. After the collapse of prohibition, the federal government repurposed its enormous enforcement bureaucracy to address the perceived problem of cannabis, despite the opposition of the American Medical Association to this new prohibition. Ultimately, both the states and the federal government classified cannabis as a dangerous …

Law By Non-Lawyers: The Limit To Limited License Legal Technicians Increasing Access To Justice, Rebecca M. Donaldson

Seattle University Law Review

For the first time in the American legal profession, non-lawyers can openly, independently, ethically, and legally engage in activities recognized by bar associations as the practice of law. In 2012, the Washington Supreme Court passed Admission and Practice Rule 28 (APR 28), establishing the profession’s first paraprofessional licensing scheme that allows non-lawyers to give legal advice. The process authorizes qualified non-lawyers to provide legal advice without the supervision of a lawyer. Washington’s Supreme Court intends for Limited License Legal Technicians, or “LLLTs” as they are known, to increase access to justice by responding to the unmet civil legal needs of …

Law School News The First Circuit At Rwu Law 10/03/2018, Michael M. Bowden, Julia Rubin

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Appeals Court Hears Labor Arguments At Roger Williams University School Of Law 10-2-2018, Katie Mulvaney, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Visibly (Un)Just: The Optics Of Grand Jury Secrecy And Police Violence, Nicole Smith Futrell

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Police violence has become more visible to the public through racial justice activism and social justice advocates’ use of technology. Yet, the heightened visibility of policing has had limited impact on transparency and accountability in the legal process, particularly when a grand jury is empaneled to determine whether to issue an indictment in a case of police violence. When a grand jury decides not to indict, the requirement of grand jury secrecy prevents public disclosure of the testimony, witnesses, and evidence presented to the grand jury. Grand jury secrecy leaves those who have seen and experienced the act of police …

Supreme Verbosity: The Roberts Court's Expanding Legacy

Marquette Law Review

The link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court’s statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court’s authority.

It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, …

Rwu Law News: The E-Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law September 2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Judicial Disqualification: An Analysis Of Federal Law, Third Edition, Charles G. Geyh

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Judicial Disqualification: An Analysis of Federal Law outlines the statutory framework of federal judicial disqualification law under statutes 28 U.S.C. §§ 455, 144, 47, and 2106. The monograph revises and expands on the previous editions, and analyzes the case law, with a focus both on substantive disqualification standards and procedural requirements.

Georgia State Law Review Symposium Keynote Address: Uncovering Forensic Flaws - An Outside Perspective, Spencer S. Hsu

Georgia State University Law Review

This transcript is a reproduction of the Keynote Address by Spencer Hsu at the 2017–2018 Georgia State University Law Review Symposium — From the Crime Scene to the Court room: The Future of Forensic Science Reform — on April 6, 2018.

Spencer Hsu is an investigative reporter at the Washington Post, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a national Emmy Award nominee.

The History, Meaning, And Use Of The Words Justice And Judge, Jason Boatright

St. Mary's Law Journal

The words justice and judge have similar meanings because they have a common ancestry. They are derived from the same Latin term, jus, which is defined in dictionaries as “right” and “law.” However, those definitions of jus are so broad that they obscure the details of what the term meant when it formed the words that eventually became justice and judge. The etymology of jus reveals the kind of right and law it signified was related to the concepts of restriction and obligation. Vestiges of this sense of jus survived in the meaning of justice and judge. …

The Texas Standards For Appellate Conduct: An Annotated Guide And Commentary, Gina M. Benavides, Joshua J. Caldwell

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The legal profession is bound by ethical rules that govern and guide our conduct and actions as lawyers. One of the under-appreciated, but profoundly important set of guidelines is the Texas Standards for Appellate Conduct. These Standards serve as an excellent practice guide for appellate practitioners and appellate courts and as a model code of conduct for the Bar as a whole.

The goal of this Article is to dissect the Texas Standards for Appellate Conduct and provide useful commentaries for the readers to better appreciate and understand each element of the Standards. The commentaries provide direct case examples and …

The Paragraph 20 Paradox: An Evaluation Of The Enforcement Of Ethical Rules As Substantive Law, Donald E. Campbell

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

This Article addresses an issue courts across the country continue to struggle with: When are ethics rules appropriately considered enforceable substantive obligations, and when should they only be enforceable through the disciplinary process? The question is complicated by the ethics rules themselves. Paragraph 20 of the Scope section of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct includes seemingly contradictory guidance; it states the Rules are not to be used to establish civil liability, but also that they can be “some evidence” of a violation of a lawyer’s standard of care. Most states have adopted this paradoxal Paragraph 20 language. Consequently, courts …

Causation And "Legal Certainty" In Legal Malpractice Law, Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

A line of California cases holds that causation of damages in legal malpractice actions must be proven with “legal certainty.” This Article argues that judicial references to legal certainty are ambiguous and threaten to undermine the fairness of legal malpractice litigation as a means for resolving lawyer-client disputes. Courts should eschew the language of legal certainty and plainly state that damages are recoverable if a legal malpractice plaintiff proves, by a preponderance of the evidence, that those losses were factually and proximately caused by the defendant’s breach of duty.

"Dirty" Experts: Ethical Challenges Concerning, And A Comparative Perspective On, The Use Of Consulting Experts, David S. Caudill

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

U.S. attorneys often hire consulting experts who potentially never get named as testifying experts. The same practice is evident in Australia, where the colloquial distinction is between a “clean” and a “dirty” expert, the latter being in the role of a consultant who is considered a member of the client’s “legal team.” A “clean” expert named as a witness is then called “independent,” signaling that he or she is not an advocate. In contrast to the U.S. discourse concerning consulting and testifying experts, focused on discovery issues, the conversation in Australia betrays immediate ethical concerns that both (i) explain why …

Law School News: Dean Yelnosky Applauds Uniform Bar Exam Decision 06-08-2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

A Status Update For Texas Voir Dire: Advocating For Pre-Trial Internet Investigation Of Prospective Jurors, Luke A. Harle

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Internet provides trial attorneys an additional tool to investigate the backgrounds of prospective jurors during voir dire. Online searches of a person’s name and social media accounts can reveal information that could be used as grounds for a challenge for cause or to facilitate intelligent use of peremptory strikes. Texas lawmakers have not yet provided any official guidance as to whether attorneys can investigate prospective jurors online or how they might do so, should it be allowed. Texas’s current voir dire structure, judicial opinions, and ethics opinions, together, support the notion that Texas trial attorneys should be given opportunities …

"It's Not You, It's Your Caseload": Using Cronic To Solve Indigent Defense Underfunding, Samantha Jaffe

Michigan Law Review

In the United States, defendants in both federal and state prosecutions have the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. That right is in jeopardy. In the postconviction setting, the standard for ineffective assistance of counsel is prohibitively high, and Congress has restricted federal habeas review. At trial, severe underfunding for state indigent defense systems has led to low pay, little support, and extreme caseloads—which combine to create conditions where lawyers simply cannot represent clients adequately. Overworked public defenders and contract attorneys represent 80 percent of state felony defendants annually. Three out of four countywide public defender systems and fifteen …