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2006

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Articles 301 - 322 of 322

Full-Text Articles in Courts

Beyond Coercion: Justice Kennedy's Aversion To Animus, Steven Goldberg Jan 2006

Beyond Coercion: Justice Kennedy's Aversion To Animus, Steven Goldberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In evaluating the constitutionality of religious displays, Justice Kennedy adheres to the coercion test. A crèche on the courthouse steps is acceptable because it does not coerce anyone to support or participate in a religious exercise. He rejects the endorsement test, which asks whether the display makes reasonable nonadherents feel like outsiders, finding it to be “flawed in its fundamentals and unworkable in practice.” Yet in the free exercise context, Kennedy has focused on whether a community shows hostility to minority faiths, and his opinions in Romer and Lawrence stress that legislatures acted unconstitutionally in showing animus to gays. Suppose …

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Assessing Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Erwin Chemerinsky Jan 2006

Assessing Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Erwin Chemerinsky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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A Look Back At The Rehnquist Era And An Overview Of The 2004 Supreme Court Term, Erwin Chemerinsky Jan 2006

A Look Back At The Rehnquist Era And An Overview Of The 2004 Supreme Court Term, Erwin Chemerinsky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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The Conservative Case For Federalism, Ernest A. Young Jan 2006

The Conservative Case For Federalism, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Conditions For Judicial Independence, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger Noll, Barry R. Weingast Jan 2006

Conditions For Judicial Independence, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger Noll, Barry R. Weingast

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Courts, Congress, And Public Policy, Part I: The Fda, The Courts, And The Regulation Of Tobacco, Jeffrey R. Lax, Mathew D. Mccubbins Jan 2006

Courts, Congress, And Public Policy, Part I: The Fda, The Courts, And The Regulation Of Tobacco, Jeffrey R. Lax, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Checks And Balances: Congress And The Federal Court, Paul D. Carrington Jan 2006

Checks And Balances: Congress And The Federal Court, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Scholarship

This essay was published as a chapter in Reforming the Supreme Court: Term Limits for Justices (Paul D. Carrington & Roger Cramton eds, Carolina Academic Press 2006). Its point is that Congress has long neglected its duty implicit in the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers to constrain the tendency of the Court, the academy and the legal profession to inflate the Court's status and power. The term "life tenure" is a significant source of a sense of royal status having not only the adverse cultural effects noted by Nagel, but also doleful effects on the administration and enforcement of …

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The Paradox Of Omnipotence: Courts, Constitutions, And Commitments, David S. Law Jan 2006

The Paradox Of Omnipotence: Courts, Constitutions, And Commitments, David S. Law

Georgia Law Review

Sovereigns, like individuals, must sometimes make commitments that limit their freedom of action in order to accomplish their goals. Scholars have observed that constitutional arrangements can, by restricting a sovereign's power, enable the sovereign to make such commitments. The opposite, however, can also be true: constitutional arrangements can and do impede sovereign commitment by entrenching inalienable governmental powers and immunities. This Article explores the nature and origins of the commitment problems that sovereigns face, and the role of courts in solving such problems. It begins by setting forth an analytical distinction between effective and persuasive commitments. Effective commitments are made …

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"If The Train Should Jump The Track.. .": Divergent Interpretations Of State And Federal Employment Discrimination Statutes, Alex B. Long Jan 2006

"If The Train Should Jump The Track.. .": Divergent Interpretations Of State And Federal Employment Discrimination Statutes, Alex B. Long

Georgia Law Review

As interpretational issues surrounding federal employment discrimination statutes have become more complex and controversial, there have arisen more opportunities for parallel state anti-discrimination law to jump the track" and take alternative courses. Not surprisingly, when dealing with their own parallel state statutes, a number of state appellate courts in recent years have chosen this course of action. Even where state and federal employment discrimination have not yet taken different paths, the potential for such divergent interpretations of state and federal anti-discrimination law has increased in recent years to the point where we may enter an era not unlike that of …

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A Tragedy Of The Common: The Common Interest Rule, Its Common Misuses, And An Uncommon Solution, Nicole Garsombke Jan 2006

A Tragedy Of The Common: The Common Interest Rule, Its Common Misuses, And An Uncommon Solution, Nicole Garsombke

Georgia Law Review

Almost every state allows some form of the common interest rule, which protects communications and documents exchanged between attorney, client, and certain third parties from waiver of the attorney-client privilege. This Note is a critique of two important exceptions to privilege waiver, the common interest and coclient rules, and discusses the rationales and justifications for the exceptions, scenarios to which the exceptions apply, and other confusing elements of courts' applications and interpretations.An examination of the common interest and coclient rules in Georgia is provided to give a particular case study of the development and use of these two exceptions. Finally, …

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The Swift, Silent Sword Hiding In The (Defense) Attorney's Arsenal: The Inefficacy Of Georgia's New Offer Of Judgment Statute As Procedural Tort Reform, Merritt E. Mcalister Jan 2006

The Swift, Silent Sword Hiding In The (Defense) Attorney's Arsenal: The Inefficacy Of Georgia's New Offer Of Judgment Statute As Procedural Tort Reform, Merritt E. Mcalister

Georgia Law Review

Offer of judgment provisions, initially creatures of state law but codified in 1938 as Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, are neither widely used nor widely understood. Both federal and state offer of judgment rules operate to penalize a plaintiff who fails to accept, in light of the ultimate judgment, a reasonable settlement offer. Scholars have often criticized the federal rule's minimal impact as a tool to encourage settlement, and several states, including Georgia in a recent enactment, have made efforts to create offer of judgment provisions that provide severe penalties-attorney's fees and costs-for an offeree who …

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The Future Of The Lemon Test: A Sweeter Alternative For Establishment Clause Analysis, Marcia S. Alembik Jan 2006

The Future Of The Lemon Test: A Sweeter Alternative For Establishment Clause Analysis, Marcia S. Alembik

Georgia Law Review

For over three decades the Supreme Court has applied the three-pronged Lemon test to determine whether state actions violate the Establishment Clause. While the Lemon test remains the most widely accepted test for Establishment Clause analysis,the recent Supreme Court decisions of Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky have highlighted the Court's ongoing unrest with its application. Although attempts at total replacement of the test have thus far proved unsuccessful, modifications and alternatives to the test and its individual prongs are continually introduced and applied. The Court's lack of a consistent, definite test for Establishment Clause …

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Continued Vitality Of Structured Sentencing Following Blakely: The Effectiveness Of Voluntary Guidelines, The , John F. Pfaff Jan 2006

Continued Vitality Of Structured Sentencing Following Blakely: The Effectiveness Of Voluntary Guidelines, The , John F. Pfaff

Faculty Scholarship

In two recent opinions, Blakely v. Washington and United States v. Booker, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively invalidated the binding nature of sentencing guidelines used by many states and the federal government over the past thirty years. Not surprisingly, numerous commentators have asserted that Blakely and Booker profoundly altered the nature of sentencing in the United States. But these claims have been made without any meaningful empirical consideration of whether viable alternatives exist. This Article fills that gap. It explores the extent to which voluntary, nonbinding criminal sentencing guidelines influence the sentencing behavior of state trial judges. In particular, it …

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Vitality Of Voluntary Guidelines In The Wake Of Blakely V. Washington: An Empirical Assessment, The Articles On Guideline Operation Issues, John F. Pfaff Jan 2006

Vitality Of Voluntary Guidelines In The Wake Of Blakely V. Washington: An Empirical Assessment, The Articles On Guideline Operation Issues, John F. Pfaff

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the extent to which voluntary, non-binding criminal sentencing guidelines influence the sentencing behavior of state trial judges. In particular, it focuses on the ability of such guidelines to encourage judges to sentence consistently and to avoid improperly taking into account a defendant's race or sex. It also compares such guidelines to more-binding presumptive guidelines, which were recently found constitutionally impermissible in Blakely v. Washington. In general, the results indicate that voluntary guidelines are able to accomplish much, though not all, that presumptive guidelines were able to, especially with respect to sentence variation. For example, voluntary guidelines appear …

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Celebrities In The Courtroom: Legal Responses, Psychological Theory And Empirical Research, Jared Chamberlain, Monica K. Miller, Alayna Jehle Jan 2006

Celebrities In The Courtroom: Legal Responses, Psychological Theory And Empirical Research, Jared Chamberlain, Monica K. Miller, Alayna Jehle

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This article sets out to answer a basic question about celebrities in the legal system: does celebrity status influence the outcome of a trial? Part I focuses on the legal aspects surrounding the treatment of celebrities in the courtroom. For example, there is some evidence that celebrities receive preferential treatment in court, while there is other evidence that celebrities are held to higher standards than non-celebrities. Part II examines psychological theories suggesting that status and authority influence jurors' decision-making processes. In Part III, a review of relevant past psychological research provides an empirical basis to make conclusions about celebrity influence …

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The Merger Of Common-Law And Equity Pleading In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 2006

The Merger Of Common-Law And Equity Pleading In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

This article describes the separation of common law and equity in Virginia leading up to the 2006 merger of common law and equity pleading and the problems that remain to be solved by the courts.

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Viewpoint: Legislating Without Deliberation, Carl W. Tobias Jan 2006

Viewpoint: Legislating Without Deliberation, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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The Federal Constitutional Court: Guardian Of German Democracy, Donald P. Kommers Jan 2006

The Federal Constitutional Court: Guardian Of German Democracy, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court rivals the Supreme Court of the United States in protecting political democracy. Its jurisprudence of democracy has shaped the course and character of German politics while upholding the rule of law and defending the constitutionally prescribed “free democratic basic order.” In furtherance of these objectives, the Constitutional Court has invalidated regulations limiting the rights of minor parties and constitutionalizing measures designed to stabilize Germany’s system of parliamentary government. These purposes have been served by constitutional decisions on voting rights, public funding of election campaigns, dissolution of Parliament, and proportional representation, including the limiting 5 percent clause. …

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Double Jeopardy And Multiple Punishment: Cutting The Gordian Knot, Anne Bowen Poulin Jan 2006

Double Jeopardy And Multiple Punishment: Cutting The Gordian Knot, Anne Bowen Poulin

University of Colorado Law Review

Courts treat as axiomatic that the Double Jeopardy Clause protects against both multiple punishment and successive prosecution. Unfortunately, applying the same rules to both multiple punishment and successive prosecution undermines double jeopardy protection. Instead, protection from multiple punishment should not be treated as a double jeopardy problem. This Article examines how multiple punishment analysis became entangled with successive prosecution protection. After considering the foundation of the axiom that double jeopardy protects against multiple punishment, it concludes that the axiom must be rejected. Multiple punishment analysis should be disentangled from double jeopardy rules governing successive prosecution and double jeopardy should play …

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The Crime Of Economic Radicalism: Criminal Syndicalism Laws And The Industrial Workers Of The World, 1917-1927, Ahmed A. White Jan 2006

The Crime Of Economic Radicalism: Criminal Syndicalism Laws And The Industrial Workers Of The World, 1917-1927, Ahmed A. White

Publications

No abstract provided.

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The Supervisory Power Of The Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett Jan 2006

The Supervisory Power Of The Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett

Journal Articles

Relying on something it calls supervisory power or supervisory authority, the Supreme Court regularly prescribes rules of procedure and evidence for inferior courts. Both scholars and the Court have treated the Court's exercises of this authority as unexceptional exercises of the inherent authority that Article III grants every federal court to regulate procedure in the course of adjudication. Article III's grant of inherent authority, however, is conventionally understood as permitting a federal court to regulate its own proceedings. When the Supreme Court exercises supervisory power, it regulates the proceedings of other federal courts. More than a reference to every court's …

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State Courts And The Interpretation Of Federal Statutes, Anthony J. Bellia Jr. Jan 2006

State Courts And The Interpretation Of Federal Statutes, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.

Journal Articles

Scholars have long debated the separation of powers question of what judicial power federal courts have under Article III of the Constitution in the enterprise of interpreting federal statutes. Specifically, scholars have debated whether, in light of Founding-era English and state court judicial practice, the judicial power of the United States should be understood as a power to interpret statutes dynamically or as faithful agents of Congress. This Article argues that the question of how courts should interpret federal statutes is one not only of separation of powers but of federalism as well. State courts have a vital and often …

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