Courts Commons^™

Research On Self-Represented Litigation: Preliminary Results And Methodological Considerations, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Nicole Mott

Faculty Publications

As various programs for self-represented litigants proliferate and costs increase, fund­ing agencies are beginning to demand that programs demonstrate their effectiveness through empirical evaluation. This article recounts some of the lessons learned from a National Center for State Courts' research project on improving access to justice for self-represented litigants. First, the article briefly describes the problems faced by courts as a result of the influx of self-represented litigants. The article then describes automated case-level data and litigant self-reported data from five jurisdictions and some preliminary findings. We conclude with a discussion of problems that we encoun­tered in analyzing those data.

The Ftaia And Subject Matter Jurisdiction Over Foreign Transactions Under The Antitrust Laws: The New Frontier In Antitrust Litigation, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The aggressive antitrust enforcement activities by the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division against international cartels in the last decade, coupled with the increasingly global character of commercial markets, have spawned significant private antitrust treble damages litigation in American courts by foreign plaintiffs. Not surprisingly, the jurisdictional reach of the Sherman Act has been a threshold issue in these cases. While jurisdictional questions are not new to American courts, this latest round of antitrust cases has posed novel issues of subject matter jurisdiction, including the extent to which foreign plaintiffs claiming antitrust damages based on foreign transactions may …

Helping The Pro Se Litigant: A Changing Landscape, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

This article describes how the influx of self-represented litigants has forced many within the court and legal communities to reconsider some of the fundamental premises on which the civil justice system is based and to respond in new and creative ways to changing litigant demands on existing court and legal resources. It focuses on changes to the delivery of legal services to low- and moderate-income people, especially the emergence of “unbundled” legal services, and addresses the practical implications related to the distinction between legal information and legal advice. Finally, it describes how judges and court staff are rethinking the conceptual …

Nullification At Work? A Glimpse From The National Center For State Courts Study Of Hung Juries, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Valerie P. Hans

Faculty Publications

In 1998, the National Institute of Justice awarded a grant to the National Center for State Courts ("NCSC") to examine the frequency and various causes of hung juries. One of the factors that the NCSC project staff investigated was jurors' perceptions of the fairness of the law they were asked to apply in felony trials as well as jury and case characteristics that are often associated with jury nullification. The project also asked judges and other court actors to rate the strength of the evidence in the case. Thus, the project enabled researchers to examine jurors' views, the evidence, and …

Judicial Selection As War, Michael J. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Are Hung Juries A Problem?, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Valerie P. Hans, Nicole L. Mott, G. Thomas Munsterman

Faculty Publications

Providing an empirical picture of hung juries was the principal objective for this 4-year study by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) with funding by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). The research methodology was envisioned as a two-phase process. In the first phase, the NCSC proposed to conduct a broad-based survey of hung jury rates in state and federal courts while the second phase consisted of an in-depth examination of jury behavior in 10 jurisdictions to compare case and jury characteristics in felony trials that result in a verdict to those that result in jury deadlock. The types …

The Steel Seizure Case: One Of A Kind?, Neal Devins, Louis Fisher

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Symposium Précis, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

This article is an introduction and overview of the Drake University Law School symposium Judicious Choices: Nominating and Confirming Supreme Court Justices held in March of 2002. It identifies important constitutional law issues in nominating and confirming the President's appointments to Supreme Court Justices in the United States.

A Roundtable Discussion With Stephen L. Carter & Michael J. Gerhardt, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

Transcript of a discussion regarding the United States Supreme Court, the Supreme Court justices and justice nominees, the Senate process for confirming nominees and related issues such as fitness to serve on the court and judicial activism.

Insubstantial Questions And Federal Jurisdiction, Jonathan L. Entin

Faculty Publications

This article seeks to clear up the confusion over "substantial federal questions." Part I provides an overview of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, distinguishing between appeal and certiorari. Part II examines the precedential weight of the Court's summary dispositions, contrasting summary disposition of appeals with denials of certiorari. Part III explains why the suggestions that the lower courts lack jurisdiction over cases presenting issues in which the Supreme Court has dismissed appeals "for want of a substantial federal question" are mistaken.

The Role Of Jury In Modern Malpractice Law, Philip G. Peters Jr.

Faculty Publications

This article explores the policy issues raised by the choice between a custom-based standard of care and a jury-determined reasonability standard. The author examines not only traditional legal arguments but also the recent findings of cognitive psychology, jury performance studies, and health industry research. Not surprisingly, this analysis reveals that both options are imperfect. However, the author cautiously recommends the reasonable physician standard. The revolutionary transformation of the health care industry in last quarter of a century has transferred considerable power from physicians to the health insurance industry, an industry that has not yet earned the privilege of self-regulation. Unlike …

Disturbing And Inspiring, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

Book review of A Trial by Jury, by D. Graham Burnett, Knopf, 2001.

Past Violence, Future Danger?: Rethinking Diminished Capacity Departures Under Federal Sentencing Guidelines Section 5k2.13, Eva E. Subotnik

Faculty Publications

Under section 5K2.13 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, a judge is permitted to reduce a defendant's sentence on the grounds of diminished capacity. Most courts construing this provision have ruled that defendants whose offenses involved violence or the threat of violence are ineligible for a reduction in sentence. This Note argues that such an interpretation, which makes past violence a proxy for predicting future dangerousness, is problematic. Medically or psychologically treated, defendants may no longer pose a danger to society. This Note urges that, in accordance with section 5K2.13's language and history, courts should focus more broadly on whether the …

Access To Justice For The Self-Represented Litigant: An Interdisciplinary Investigation By Designers And Lawyers, Ronald W. Staudt, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

To assist courts, the National Center for State Courts, in partnership with the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design and the Chicago-Kent College of Law, launched a research project to examine court processes and recommend modifications to eliminate or reduce procedural barriers to access for self-represented litigants. The projects had three major tasks: (1) to identify major barriers to access to justice that self-represented litigants encounter due to court procedures and administrative requirements; (2) to employ system design methodology to redesign court processes to remove those barriers, and (3) to translate the conceptual model for redesigned court system into …

Speaking Rights: Evaluating Juror Discussions During Civil Trials, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Valerie P. Hans, G. Thomas Munsterman

Faculty Publications

The Arizona Supreme Court endorsed the objective that jury trials "allow for a more demo­cratic juror experience" and "are more educational and less adversarial" and urged judges and trial attorneys to be "open to doing some old things in new ways, to be more receptive to the jurors' needs to learn better and to actively par­ticipate to a greater degree in the fact-finding process. Acting on 55 recommendations of its Committee on the More Effective Use of Juries, the court enacted new rules. But one reform--permitting jurors in civil cases to discuss the evidence among themselves before final delib­erations--proved to …

Court Administration As A Tool For Judicial Reform, Christie S. Warren

Faculty Publications

This paper focuses on court administration as a component of judicial branch reform in the United States and other countries.

Over the past fifty years, state and federal court systems in the United States have undergone a process of significant change. At the beginning of the twentieth century, courts were largely dependent upon the executive branch of government for administrative support and were for the most part externally dominated, disorganized, and poorly managed. By the end of the century, they had undergone a process of administrative innovation and improvement that changed the way they were managed. In other countries, judicial …

Antitrust And The Information Age: Section 2 Monopolization Analyses In The New Economy, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

On April 3, 2000, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson declared that the Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") had maintained monopoly power in the personal computer operating system market by anticompetitive means, in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. A case of enormous significance, Microsoft raises difficult questions regarding how antitrust laws should be applied to information technology ("IT') companies. Specifically, many characteristics of what has come to be called the "New Economy" - and of the IT companies within it - suggest that traditional monopolization analysis may need modification. As the U.S. has moved toward an information- based …

Beyond Campaign Finance: The First Amendment Implications Of Nixon V. Shrink Missouri Pac, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

This essay, however, is less concerned with the campaign finance aspects of Shrink than with the decision's broader implications. In the course of its decision, the Shrink Court not only obfuscated the standard of scrutiny applicable to contribution regulations, it effectively ignored the government's lack of factual support for the law, instead accepting the state's assertions at face-value. Consequently, Shrink is far more than a simple application of Buckley. Rather, it reflects fundamental problems with the Court's standards of review in First Amendment cases generally. The more global nature of Shrink's problems suggest that, despite scholarly focus on the Buckley …

State Constitutional Restrictions On Legislative Procedure: Rethinking Analysis Of Original Purpose, Single Subject, And Clear Title Challenges, Martha Dragich

Faculty Publications

Recognizing that state courts are beginning to review procedural challenges more rigorously, this Article attempts to provide guidance for the resolution of such cases. Part I examines the history, purposes, and standards of original purpose, single subject, and clear title restrictions, using Missouri's provisions as examples. Part I also identifies paradigmatic cases of each of the procedural violations with the hope of more sharply differentiating the three claims. Parts II through V present a case study of ten Missouri cases decided since 1994, supplemented with notable cases from other states. Part II begins with a brief description of the Missouri …

Safeguarding Juror Privacy: A New Framework For Court Policies And Procedures, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

This article briefly discusses the difficulty courts face in balancing the privacy of citizens summoned for jury service with the rights of litigants and the public to information about those individuals. I propose that focusing on the content of the information re­quested of prospective jurors and the purposes for which juror infor­mation is used by courts provides a more helpful analysis than the legal framework traditionally employed in case law. Specifically, I argue that distinguishing between information that is relevant and information that is not relevant to the fairness or im­partiality of prospective jurors should be the primary analytical framework …

Book Review: We The People: The Fourteenth Amendment And The Supreme Court, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

Never one to shirk a challenge, Michael Perry has taken on the difficult task of investigating whether, as charged by a number of prominent social and legal commentators, "the modern Supreme Court, in the name of the Fourteenth Amendment [to the US Constitution], [has] usurped prerogatives and made choices that properly belong to the electorally accountable representatives of the American people," and if so, to what extent (p. 8). Perry makes no attempt to address every facet of Fourteenth Amendment doctrine, but instead focuses his discussion on some of the most controversial topics: racial segregation, affirmative action, discrimination on the …

Health Care Law: Breaking Down The Boundaries Of Malpractice Law, Philip G. Peters Jr.

Faculty Publications

Historically, courts have treated professional malpractice cases as unique. When disputes that would otherwise have been governed by tort rules of general application have arisen in the context of medical treatment, courts have routinely constructed special rules for the resolution of those disputes. Recent evidence suggests that this penchant for special rules may be weakening and that malpractice law may be slowly melting back into the sea of tort doctrine.The three Missouri health care law cases noted in this issue are the latest evidence that courts today are more willing to resolve medical negligence actions using tort rules of general …

Bringing Structure To The Law Of Injunctions Against Expression, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article reviews the Court's cases regarding injunctions against speech, focusing first on the increasing elevation of rhetoric (as opposed to analysis) in the Court's prior restraint decisions. Part I also reviews the Court's other decisions involving injunctions and demonstrates that they too contain little, if any, analysis concerning the appropriateness of injunctive relief against expression. Part II examines Madsen's interaction with the Court's previous decisions and discusses how Madsen furthers the incoherence of the Court's previous cases. Part III explains that content discrimination principles, although superficially attractive, are inappropriate with injunctive relief because the content-based/content-neutral distinction's …

The Effect Of Courtroom Technologies On And In Appellate Proceedings And Courtrooms, Fredric I. Lederer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Generation Spent Studying The U.S. Courts Of Appeals: A Chronology, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Timing Of Opinion Formation By Jurors In Civil Cases: An Empirical Examination, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Valerie P. Hans, Nicole L. Mott, G. Thomas Munsterman

Faculty Publications

Although researchers have thoroughly examined juror decision making in laboratory experiments, the point at which jurors form opinions in actual jury trials remains cloaked in mystery. Recently, however, that cloak was lifted enough to provide a glimpse at the timing of juror opinion formation. The opportunity to do so came in conjunction with an evaluation of a jury reform procedure implemented in Arizona civil trials in 1995. Data collected for the evaluation included the responses of 1,385 jurors from 172 civil trials concerning when they began to form opinions about the case, whether and when they changed their minds about …

On The Evolution Of The Canonical Dissent, Anita S. Krishnakumar

Faculty Publications

Legal theorists increasingly have come to recognize and study the existence of a constitutional canon composed of highly authoritative legal texts that command special reverence in the law. Among these highly authoritative texts are a series of dissenting opinions—e.g., Justice Holmes's in Lochner v. New York, and Justice Harlan's in Plessy v. Ferguson—that ironically are more famous than the majority opinions in most other cases. This Article examines the evolution of the dissenting canon, seeking to explain both the methods by which various dissenting opinions became canonized and the motivating factors behind these canonizations.

Specifically, the Article argues that the …

Special Division Agonistes, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

When the independent counsel law sank, the casualties included a special "division" of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. This division was the special court that Congress had created "for the purpose of appointing independent counsels." The now-expired 1994 independent counsel statute had, like its three predecessors, directed the Chief Justice of the United States to appoint three judges from the Supreme Court and/or the federal Courts of Appeals to serve on the special court for two-year terms. This independent counsel court, which was located for administrative purposes in the United States Court of …

Reanimator: Mark Tushnet And The Second Coming Of The Imperial Presidency, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Courtroom Technology, A Judicial Primer, Fredric I. Lederer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.