Courts Commons^™

Women In The Courts: An Old Thorn In Men's Sides, Nikolaus Benke

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article was inspired by the work of a series of state task forces on women in the courts. It examines the subject from a historical perspective, comparing ancient Rome, mainly during the period from the first century B.C. to the third A.D., with the United States, from its prerevolutionary beginnings to the present. The article's focus is gender bias against women acting in official court functions.

"What's So Magic[Al] About Black Women?" Peremptory Challenges At The Intersection Of Race And Gender, Jean Montoya

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article addresses the evolving constitutional restraints on the exercise of peremptory challenges in jury selection. Approximately ten years ago, in the landmark case of Batson v. Kentucky, the United States Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause forbids prosecutors to exercise race-based peremptory challenges, at least when the excluded jurors and the defendant share the same race. Over the next ten years, the Court extended Batson's reach.

Fact-Bargaining: An American Phenomenon, William T. Pizzi

Publications

No abstract provided.

Tour On The Prairies Or Washington Irving And The Horseless Headman: A Stroll With Congress, The Court And Indian Nations At The Turn Of The Century, Kirke Kickingbird

St. Thomas Law Review

The view of the sovereignty of Indian nations varies within the ever-changing cycles of policy spanning two or three decades. Often, the different branches of the United States government have had conflicting points of view regarding Indian sovereignty. One can see moments in the distant past when tribal authority was clearly recognized, then challenged, then ignored and recognized again, as the cycle of Indian policy returned to its beginnings. The clear manifestation of sovereign power is exhibited in the exercise of governmental authority. This exercise, in turn, involves the use of legislative, executive, and judicial powers. While these observations may …

Double Jeopardy—Civil Forfeitures And Criminal Punishment: Who Determines What Punishments Fit The Crime, Barbara A. Mack

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will attempt to distill from this confusion a meaningful double jeopardy policy, applicable to parallel civil and criminal proceedings, that takes into account the history of double jeopardy, recent changes in statutory law, and the contemporary chaotic state of parallel civil and criminal proceedings. Under current law, double jeopardy protects against three abuses: (1) a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, (2) a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and (3) multiple punishments for the same offense. This Article will show that the multiple punishments prong has little basis in law, other than reliance …

Doubting Thomas: Confirmation Veracity Meets Performance Reality, Joyce A. Baugh, Christopher E. Smith

Seattle University Law Review

At the close of the United States Supreme Court's 1994 term, Justice Clarence Thomas became the center of news media attention for his important role as a prominent member of the Court's resurgent conservative bloc. More frequently than in past terms, Thomas's opinions articulated the conservative position for his fellow Justices. According to one report, "The newly energized Thomas has shown little hesitancy this term in leading the conservative charge. Another article referred to Thomas's "full-throated emergence as a distinctive and articulate judicial voice." Thomas's new prominence, assertiveness, and visibility have been attributed to his emergence from the shadows of …

The Denial Of A State Constitutional Right To Bail In Juvenile Proceedings: The Need For Reassessment In Washington State, Kathleen A. Baldi

Seattle University Law Review

Article I, section 20 of the Washington Constitution states that "[a]ll persons charged with crimes shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, except for capital offenses when the proof is evident, or the presumption great." Despite seemingly unequivocal language that this constitutional provision is applicable to "all persons," the Washington Supreme Court, in Estes v. Hopp, declared that juveniles do not have a constitutional right to bail. The Estes court engaged in little constitutional analysis, but instead, reasoned that juvenile proceedings are civil in nature and that article 1, section 20 applies only in criminal proceedings. Central to the Estes …

Mistake Of Federal Criminal Law: A Study Of Coalitions And Costly Information, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, Richard S. Murphy

Scholarly Publications

This article analyzes Supreme Court and other federal court cases, to explain the seemingly disparate incorporation of mistake of law excuses into federal criminal statutes. Most of the cases can be explained from an information cost perspective. If an easily separable subset of the regulated population cannot be induced to learn their legal obligations given credibly low prior probabilities and high information costs, they are excused from criminal liability. Moreover, when criminal statutes are vulnerable to constituent protest, courts require that enforcers increase awareness of the law through information subsidies rather than convicting the ignorant. At least with mistake of …

Warren Burger And The Administration Of Justice, Carl Tobias

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Unemployment Compensation For Employees Of Educational Institutions: How State Courts Have Created Variations On Federally Mandated Statutory Language, Maribeth Wilt-Seibert

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Over the past sixty years, Congress has enacted a system of unemployment insurance for workers who have become unemployed through no fault of their own. While the Social Security Act of 1935 created much of the statutory framework for this system of insurance, Congress did not include employees of educational institutions within its system of unemployment insurance until 1970, when it amended the Federal Unemployment Tax Act of 1954 (FUTA). Since Congress enacted those amendments, each of the fifty states has passed legislation that substantially conforms to the FUTA amendments. Yet, despite the uniformity of state statutory language, state appellate …

Preface: Double Jeopardy In Washington And Beyond, Justice Philip A. Talmadge

Seattle University Law Review

The prohibition against double jeopardy is of ancient lineage in western civilization. In a ringing and scholarly dissent that rewards reflection, Justice Hugo Black said:

Fear and abhorrence of governmental power to try people twice for the same conduct is one of the oldest ideas found in western civilization. Its roots run deep into Greek and Roman times. Even in the Dark Ages, when so many other principles of justice were lost, the idea that one trial and one punishment were enough remained alive through the canon law and the teachings of the early Christian writers. By the thirteenth century …

Litigation Outcomes In State And Federal Courts: A Statistical Portrait, Theodore Eisenberg, John Goerdt, Brian Ostrom, David Rottman

Seattle University Law Review

"U.S. Juries Grow Tougher on Plaintiffs in Lawsuits," the New York Times page-one headline reads. The story details how, in 1992, plaintiffs won 52 percent of the personal injury cases decided by jury verdicts, a decline from the 63 percent plaintiff success rate in 1989. The sound-byte explanations follow, including the notion that juries have learned that they, as part of the general population, ultimately pay the costs of high verdicts. Similar stories, reporting both increases and decreases in jury award levels, regularly make headlines. Jury Verdict Research, Inc. (JVR), a commercial service that sells case outcome information, often is …

Excessive Criminal Justice Caseloads: Challenging The Conventional Wisdom, Jerold H. Israel

Articles

Since the mid-1960s, no element of the criminal justice environment has received more attention and been accorded greater importance, in both popular and professional commentary, than has the pressure of heavy caseloads. The lack of sufficient resources to deal with overbearing caseloads has been widely characterized as the most pervasive and most critical administrative challenge faced by police, prosecutors, public defenders, and courts.' National commissions have regularly complained that the criminal justice system is "overcrowded, overworked, [and] undermanned," and must be given "substantially more money" to cure those ills if it is ever to perform all of the tasks assigned …

Juror Empathy And Race, Douglas O. Linder

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Swearing In Ceremony: Investiture Of Beth Cozzolino As District Attorney Of Columbia County, Roger J. Miner '56

Induction Ceremonies and Investitures

No abstract provided.

Prior Restraints On The Media And The Right To A Fair Trial: A Proposal For A New Standard, 84 Ky. L.J. 259 (1996), Alberto Bernabe

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rights Of Subrogation In Letters Of Credit Transactions, James J. White

Articles

The past twenty years have seen more than a dozen cases, in which parties to letter of credit transactions have sought subrogation to the rights of the person they have paid or to the rights of the persons on behalf of whom, they have acted.' The most obvious case arises when the issuer of a standby letter of credit pays a beneficiary on a debt that is owed to the beneficiary by a bankrupt applicant. Having failed to take 'collateral from the applicant, the issuer seeks to be subrogated to the security interest of the beneficiary. Failing subrogation, the issuer …

A Sixth Circuit Story, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

At the May 4, 1994 regular meeting of the Judicial Council of the United States Courts for the Sixth Circuit, the Council voted to "suspend further review of local rules until it receives further guidance from Congress, the Judicial Conference of the United States or by case law on the question of whether provisions of the Civil Justice Reform Act take precedence over the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. " By so doing, the Council was ostensibly discharging responsibilities assigned to it by the Judicial Improvements and Access to Justice Act (JIA) of 1988. The JIA requires that every circuit …

Congress Considers Bill To Split Ninth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Late last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a measure that would divide the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The proposal, Senate Bill 956, would create a new Twelfth Circuit comprised of Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, leaving California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Ninth Circuit. The Judiciary Committee vote is significant because no bill to split the Ninth Circuit has ever received floor debate. The second session of the 104th Congress could well divide the court.

The Proposal To Split The Ninth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Individuals and organizations concerned about natural resources should be aware of the recent controversial proposal to divide the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. During the first session of the 104th Congress in the fall of 1995, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 956, a measure that would establish a new Twelfth Circuit consisting of Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, and that would leave California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Ninth Circuit. The Judiciary Committee vote was important for two reasons: the circuit's division could substantially affect …

Warren Burger And The Administration Of Justice, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias examines the career of Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger, emphasizing his "enormous contribution to improving the administration of Justice in the United States."

The Proposal To Split The Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Symposium introduction

Physician Assisted Suicide: A Bad Idea, Yale Kamisar

Articles

It would be hard to deny that there is a great deal of support in this country - and ever-growing support - for legalizing physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Why is this so? I believe there are a considerable number of reasons. I shall discuss five common reasons - and explain why I do not find any of them convincing.

The 'Right To Die': On Drawing (And Erasing) Lines, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Until this year, no state or federal appellate court had ever held that there was a right to assisted suicide no matter how narrow the circumstances or stringent the conditions. In 1996, however, within the span of a single month, two federal courts of appeals so held; in an 8-3 majority of the Ninth Circuit (sitting en banc) in Compassion in Dying v. Washington and a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit in Quill v. Vacco. What heartened proponents of a right to physician-assisted suicide even more, and pleased those resistant to the idea even less, was that the two …

Quality Of Mercy Must Be Restrained, And Other Lessons In Learning To Love The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

In the remarks that follow, I do four things. First, for those unfamiliar with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, I begin by explaining briefly how the Guidelines work. Second, I endeavor to show why Judge Cabranes is wrong, absolutely wrong in declaring the Guidelines a failure, and mostly wrong in the specific criticisms he and others level against the Guidelines. Third, after jousting with Judge Cabranes a bit, I discuss some problems with the current federal sentencing system, most notably the sheer length of narcotics sentences. Finally, I comment briefly on some of the implications of the Guidelines, and the principles …

Once A Century: Time For A Structural Overhaul Of The Federal Courts, Martha Dragich

Faculty Publications

In this Article, I describe a structure capable of accommodating growing caseloads in a manner consistent with basic values of appellate justice. Before doing so, I sketch in Part I the structural evolution of the federal courts. Part II describes the current pressures on the courts of appeals, while Part III examines the effects of internal reforms on the quality of appellate justice and the development of a coherent body of national law. Next, in Part IV, I posit requirements for the federal courts' third century. Part V reviews major proposals to address the caseload crisis in the courts of …

Trademark Parody: Lessons From The Copyright Decision In Campbell V. Acuff-Rose Music, Gary Myers

Faculty Publications

Parodies have long provided many of us with amusement, entertainment,and sometimes even information. An effective parody can convey one or more messages with powerful effect. The message may be a political statement, social commentary, commercial speech, a bawdy joke, ridicule of a brand name, criticism of commercialism, or just plain humor for its own sake. Often someone's ox is being gored, or someone feels that a property right has been infringed. The party so injured often contemplates a lawsuit, and an array of legal theories are available to further that impulse. Perhaps copyright infringement is the claim, if some protectable …

1995 Patent Law Decisions Of The United States Court Of Appeals For The Federal Circuit, Lawrence M. Sung

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Death Penalty And The Interstate Agreement On Detainers Act: A Proposal For Change, 29 J. Marshall L. Rev. 499 (1996), Edward G. Hild

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Toward The Abolition Of The Death Penalty, Shigemitsu Dando

Indiana Law Journal

This Article was delivered by Justice Dando as the Jerome Hall Lecture at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington on April 14, 1996.