Courts Commons^™

Cooperative Federalism In Class Actions, Jordan Elias

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Savings—The Missing Element In Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Cases?, David R. Jones

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

This paper examines the effects of debtor savings on the viability of chapter 13 bankruptcy plans. The paper further examines the impact of lawyer culture, debtor participation in the bankruptcy process and judicial activism on the use of the savings program by chapter 13 debtors. Using a data set of randomly selected chapter 13 bankruptcy cases filed in the Southern District of Texas, the analysis demonstrates that while savings has a direct positive impact on the success of chapter 13 plans, the degree of that success is significantly influenced by the views held by debtors’ lawyers, chapter 13 trustees and …

Determining Enhanced Damages After Halo Electronics: Still A Struggle?, Veronica Corcoran

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

35 U.S.C. § 284 of the Patent Act allows district courts to use their discretion to award enhanced damages up to three times the amount found or assessed in the case of patent infringement. This Comment will consider how the Supreme court of the United States’ holding in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse electronics, Inc. changed the landscape of enhanced damages awards in light of willful infringement.

First, this Comment will examine the Federal Circuit’s approach that now embraces both an objective and subjective inquiry in determining enhanced damages, which may resolve the concern over the rigidity in the Seagate …

State Standing In United States V. Texas: Opening The Floodgates To States Challenging The Federal Government Or Proper Federalism?, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In United States v. Texas, the Supreme Court by an equally divided vote, 4 to 4, affirmed the decision of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the State of Texas had Article III standing to challenge in federal court the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) directive establishing a Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (“DAPA”) program to grant lawful immigration status to millions of undocumented immigrants. A serious question is whether state standing in this case will open the floodgates to allow states to challenge virtually every federal executive action. On the other hand, …

The African Court And Human Rights: What Lies Ahead For The Merged Court?, Florence Shu-Acquaye

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the African Court of People’s and Human Rights, the historical evolution, criticism, and explores issues that the Court may deal with as it assumes its new and envisioned role and form as the Merged Court.

Why The Categorical Approach Should Not Be Used When Determining Whether An Offense Is A Crime Of Violence Under The Residual Clause Of 18 U.S.C. § 924 (C), Mary Frances Richardson

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Defendant Characteristics Affect Sentencing And Conviction In The Us, Payton Kuenzli

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research study analyzes whether or not there is any relationship between sentencing and conviction and certain defendant characteristics in the US legal system. In the midst of a time where the nation is strongly divided politically, the topic is often the center of research projects and discussions in academic journals. Specifically, this research explores the 3 characteristics- race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Within this article, multiple case studies from other journals are cited in which research and experiments have suggested that these factors do have influence on both whether or not a defendant gets convicted or for how long …

Expert Report Of Catherine Smith, J.D.: Juliana V. United States, Catherine Smith

Scholarly Articles

The Founders created the architecture for the rights of children to self-determination and protection from the sins of their forebears. A central tenet of our democracy is that government, including these federal defendants, should not deprive children (the next generation) of the foundational elements of their lives, liberties or property and should not impose hardships on them for matters of which they have no control. This historical tradition and intent of the Founders of our nation has not always been realized, but has evolved over time as our society gains new insights and understandings of children and our notions of …

A Comparison Of The American Model And French (-Inspired) Appellate Model, Frederic Blockx

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

Both the American and the French legal system have a three-tiered structure. However, the respective roles and functions of the courts on each step of the ladder is vastly different in both. Whereas the general system in the U.S. is to have one trial court and two ‘higher’ courts (a court of appeals and a supreme court), the French / European continental system consists of two ‘factual’ courts (the basic level and the court of appeals), and one ‘legal’ (the supreme court) with limited or even inexistent possibilities to look at the facts.

The purpose of this thesis is to …

Certification Of Legal Questions To The Utah Supreme Court, David Nuffer

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

For 30 years, federal courts have certified questions of state law to the Utah Supreme Court. This thesis examines the history and utility of the process and recommends changes to the process in the federal district court and in the Utah Supreme Court.

The current focus of federal judges in certifying questions is on utility for the case before the court. But certification of questions from a federal court to a state court is an expression of federalism—a humble acknowledgment by a federal authority which is often regarded as supreme that the state is the proper and best authority to …

What Kind Of Judge Is Brett Kavanaugh?, Elliott Ash, Daniel L. Chen

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

This article reports the results of a series of data analyses of how recent Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh compares to other potential Supreme Court nominees and current Supreme Court Justices in his judging style. The analyses reveal a number of ways in which Judge Kavanaugh differs systematically from his colleagues. First, Kavanaugh dissents and is dissented against along partisan lines. More than other Judges and Justices, Kavanaugh dissents at a higher rate during the lead-up to elections, suggesting that he feels personally invested in national politics. Far more often than his colleagues, he justifies his decisions with conservative doctrines, …

Weighing Democracy And Judicial Legitimacy In Judicial Selection, Kenneth S. Klein

Faculty Scholarship

For over two centuries Americans have debated whether judges should be elected or appointed. While the explicitly-framed tension has been about the relative importance of judicial independence and judicial accountability in a democracy, the underlying issue has been about which structure better promotes the legitimacy of the judiciary. An institution has legitimacy when it enjoys diffuse support even for controversial decisions. Judicial legitimacy is in inherent tension with a judiciary in a democracy, since democracy implicitly assumes political elements to selection of all leaders (including judges), while judicial legitimacy is undermined by politics. The contemporary work on the relationship between …

International Judicial Practices: Opening The "Black Box" Of International Courts, Jeffrey L. Dunoff, Mark A. Pollack

Michigan Journal of International Law

This paper utilizes “practice theory” to identify and analyze the everyday practices of international judges, with particular focus on practices associated with judicial decision-making. Examining judicial practices illuminates a wide range of otherwise hidden activities that shape international judicial opinions; provides a pathway toward uncovering the subjective understandings that international judges attach to their own behaviors; and reveals underlying causal processes and mechanisms that influence tribunal decisions. By opening the “black box” of international courts, the practice turn permits us to shed light on their inner workings, and thereby enrich our understanding of these increasingly important bodies.

Justice Outside Of Criminal Courtrooms And Jailhouses, In Arcs Of Global Justice: Essays In Honour Of William A. Schabas (Margaret M. Deguzman & Diane Marie Amann Eds., 2018), Mark A. Drumbl

Books and Chapters

This chapter examines alternate forms of transitional justice, notably, customary forms of dispute resolution, restitution, reparations, amnesties, and civil sanctions. It suggests that the international community’s preference for criminal trials as accountability mechanisms in the aftermath of genocide results in the ‘othering’ of these alternate forms of justice. Such ‘othering’ narrows legal pluralism to questions of the location of criminal process and the imposition of custodial punishment (who prosecutes, who sentences?), rather than a richer examination of how deployment of a conceptual diversity of overlapping mechanisms could promote shared objectives of accountability, justice, and transition.

Bias On Trial: Toward An Open Discussion Of Racial Stereotypes In The Courtroom, Mikah K. Thompson

Faculty Works

In the 2017 case Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the U.S. Supreme Court discussed several safeguards that are in place to assist the trial court in identifying racial bias among jurors. These safeguards include voir dire examination regarding racial bias, observation of juror demeanor and conduct that might demonstrate racial bias, reports of racially biased comments or actions by jurors during trial, and non-juror evidence of racial bias after trial. The Court acknowledged that these safeguards may be insufficient at times and therefore added a fifth one, holding that trial courts may review evidence suggesting that racial bias was a motivating factor …

Remedial Reading: Evaluating Federal Courts’ Application Of The Prejudice Standard In Capital Sentences From “Weighing” And “Non-Weighing” States, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Articles

On March 31, 2016, the State of Georgia executed my client, Joshua Bishop. Until the time of his execution, several successive legal teams challenged his conviction and sentence through the usual channels: direct appeal, state habeas corpus proceedings, and federal habeas corpus proceedings. The last hearing on the merits of his case was before a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which accepts appeals from death penalty cases out of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. In a lengthy opinion describing the many mitigating circumstances present in Mr. Bishop’s case, the Eleventh Circuit denied relief. This …

Justice As Fair Division, Ian C. Bartrum

Scholarly Works

The current hyperpoliticization of the Court grows out of a feedback loop between politicized appointments and politicized decision-making. This Article suggests a change in the internal procedures by which the Court hears and decides particular cases. A three-Justice panel hears and decides each case. Appeal to an en banc sitting of the entire Court would require a unanimous vote of all non-recused Justices. This Article explores several possible approaches in selecting the three-Justice panel. This Article proposes that applying a fair division scheme to the Court's decision-making process might act to reverse this loop and work to depoliticize the Court …

Invisible Adjudication In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Michael Kagan, Rebecca Gill, Fatma Marouf

Scholarly Works

Non-precedent decisions are the norm in federal appellate courts, and are seen by judges as a practical necessity given the size of their dockets. Yet the system has always been plagued by doubts. If only some decisions are designated to be precedents, questions arise about whether courts might be acting arbitrarily in other cases. Such doubts have been overcome in part because nominally unpublished decisions are available through standard legal research databases. This creates the appearance of transparency, mitigating concerns that courts may be acting arbitrarily. But what if this appearance is an illusion? This Article reports empirical data drawn …

Assessing Access-To-Justice Outreach Strategies, J. J. Prescott

Articles

The need for prospective beneficiaries to “take up” new programs is a common stumbling block for otherwise well-designed legal and policy innovations. I examine the take-up problem in the context of publicly provided court services and test the effectiveness of various outreach strategies that announce a newly available online court access platform. I study individuals with minor arrest warrants whose distrust of courts may dampen any take-up response. I partnered with a court to quasi-randomly assign outreach approaches to a cohort of individuals and find that outreach improves take-up, that the type of outreach matters, and that online platform access …

Studying The "New" Civil Judges, Anna E. Carpenter, Jessica K. Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark

Faculty Scholarship

We know very little about the people and institutions that make up the bulk of the United States civil justice system: state judges and state courts. Our understanding of civil justice is based primarily on federal litigation and the decisions of appellate judges. Staggeringly little legal scholarship focuses on state courts and judges. We simply do not know what most judges are doing in their day-to-day courtroom roles or in their roles as institutional actors and managers of civil justice infrastructure. We know little about the factors that shape and influence judicial practices, let alone the consequences of those practices …

Appointing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender And Queer Judges In The Trump Administration, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

President Donald Trump incessantly brags that American citizens selected him to “Make the Judiciary Great Again” and constantly reminds the public that the huge number of federal jurists whom Trump has appointed will be deciding cases decades after his tenure is over. Trump has rapidly submitted many circuit and district court candidates, but not one of his 123 nominees has been openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ). The White House has also instituted endeavors, specifically regarding transgender people, which seem discriminatory. Indeed, a third of the judicial nominees whom the President has appointed have compiled anti-LGBTQ records. Because …

Severability, Separation Of Powers, And Agency Design, Kevin C. Walsh

Law Faculty Publications

Kristin Hickman pursues a “modest” goal in Symbolism and Separation of Powers in Agency Design: “to raise a few reservations regarding judicial refashioning of agency design via [a] severance remedy for separation of powers violations.” This understated approach commands attention to Hickman’s analysis. In this contribution to a Notre Dame symposium on “Administrative Lawmaking in the Twenty-First Century,” Hickman clearly identifies and carefully analyzes problems arising out of what might otherwise have passed as unremarkable applications of existing severability doctrine. With an eye toward big-picture legitimacy of courts and agencies, and with attention toward doctrinal and statutory detail, Hickman …

Rethinking Family-Court Prosecutors: Elected And Agency Prosecutors And Prosecutorial Discretion In Juvenile Delinquency And Child Protection Cases, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

Like criminal prosecutors, family-court prosecutors have immense power. Determining which cases to prosecute and which to divert or dismiss goes to the heart of the delinquency system’s balance between punishment and rehabilitation of children and the child protection system’s spectrum of family interventions. For instance, the 1990s shift to prosecute (rather than dismiss or divert) about 10 percent more delinquency cases annually is as significant a development as any other. Yet scholars have not examined the legal structures for these charging decisions or family-court prosecutors’ authority in much depth.

This Article shows how family-court prosecutors’ roles have never been fully …

Learned Hand On Statutory Interpretation: Theory And Practice, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

It is a great honor to take part in the celebration of the Second Circuit’s 125th anniversary and in particular to present the Hands Lecture. The Second Circuit in the 1930s and 1940s came to be called the “Hand Court,” and during those years it established its reputation as the most admired of the U.S. circuit courts of appeals. It was called the Hand Court because two of its judges, who often formed the majority on three-judge panels, bore the surname Hand. They were cousins. Augustus Hand was a few years older than Learned Hand but was appointed to the …

Chevron On Stilts: A Response To Jonathan Siegel, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

Whither Chevron? For several years, some justices of the Supreme Court have been questioning Chevron deference, partly on the basis of my constitutional critique of it. It was inevitable that someone would stand up in defense of that doctrine, and I am glad to say that my estimable former colleague Jonathan Siegel has stepped up to the plate. But the defense of the indefensible is not easy.

Although the long-standing conventional critique of Chevron was that it violates the separation of powers and federalism, my criticism is that Chevron deference corrupts the judicial process. As adumbrated in my 2014 …

Family Justice Initiative: The Landscape Of Domestic Relations Cases In State Courts, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Lydia Hamblin, Brittney Via, Natalie Anne Knowlton

Faculty Publications

The Family Justice Initiative (FJI) Landscape study represents the first large, aggregate examination of how family court cases are litigated in the state courts. Much of the findings confirmed conventional wisdom about family court litigation, though several offered new insights into the typical domestic relations case. The study findings also raise questions both of how domestic relations cases should be managed and whether the judicial branch is still the most appropriate forum for such cases.

This report documents the caseload characteristics of domestic relations cases disposed between July 1, 2016, and June 30, 2017, across eleven large, urban courts. Three …

Changing Times, Changing Relationships For The Bench And Civil Bar, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

For the past century, the interests of the bench and bar in delivering justice to civil litigants were closely aligned. As civil litigants’ needs change, courts recognize they must lead the way on civil justice reforms both for their own sake and to encourage productive change in civil legal practice.

Welcome To The Jungle: The Application Of Foreign Law In Aircraft Accident Litigation, Bryan S. David

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Ordinarily, all legally significant aspects pertaining to a lawsuit emanate from a single state (usually the state where the lawsuit was filed), and the court assigned to the lawsuit decides the case based strictly upon the laws of that state. However, by its very nature, aircraft accident litigation often arises from factual scenarios involving people and aircraft emanating from multiple states and even multiple nations. And those scenarios often raise questions regarding which law will apply. The body of law known alternatively as “conflict of laws” or “choice of laws” was specially designed to answer those questions.

However, over the …

Studying The "New" Civil Judges, Anna E. Carpenter, Jessica K. Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

We know very little about the people and institutions that make up the bulk of the United States civil justice system: state judges and state courts.Our understanding of civil justice is based primarily on federal litigationand the decisions of appellate judges. Staggeringly little legalscholarship focuses on state courts and judges. We imply do not know what mostjudges are doing in their day-to-day courtroom roles or in their roles asinstitutional actors and managers of civil justice infrastructure. We know little about the factors that shape and influence judicial practices, let alone the consequences of those practices for courts, litigants, and the …

Patent Pilot Program Perspectives: Patent Litigation In The Northern District Of Illinois, 17 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 348 (2018)

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

A Patent Pilot Program, or PPP, is geared towards giving designated judges in various districts more experience with patent cases. The Volume 17 RIPL Executive Board interviewed several participating judges in the Northern District of Illinois’ PPP.

This note is comprised of interviews with Judge Thomas M. Durkin, Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, and Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer of the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois; taken over the course of May and June of 2017 by the Volume 17 RIPL Board members Kaylee Willis and Benjamin Lockyer. Its contents compile a uniform effort by both the judges interviewed …