Courts Commons^™

Case Management In The Circuit Courts, Marin K. Levy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Elected Judges And Statutory Interpretation, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

This Article considers whether differences in methods of judicial selection should influence how judges approach statutory interpretation. Courts and scholars have not given this question much sustained attention, but most would probably embrace the “unified model,” according to which appointed judges (such as federal judges) and elected judges (such as many state judges) are supposed to approach statutory text in identical ways. There is much to be said for the unified model—and we offer the first systematic defense of it. But the Article also attempts to make the best case for the more controversial but also plausible contrary view: that …

Custody Rights Of Lesbian And Gay Parents Redux: The Irrelevance Of Constitutional Principles, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Disputes over custody and visitation can arise when a marriage ends and one parent comes out as gay or lesbian. the heterosexual parent may seek custody or may seek to restrict the activities of the gay or lesbian parent, or the presence of the parent's same-sex partner, during visitation. A gay or lesbian parent's assertion of constitutional rights has not been an effective response to such efforts. that is not likely to change. Advocates for gay and lesbian parents have argued forcefully for a nexus text, permitting consideration of a parent's sexual orientation only when there is evidence of an …

Does Ideology Matter In Bankruptcy? Voting Behavior On The Courts Of Appeals, Rafael I. Pardo, Jonathan Remy Nash

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article empirically examines the question of whether courts of appeals judges cast ideological votes in the context of bankruptcy. The empirical study is unique insofar as it is the first to specifically examine the voting behavior of circuit court judges in bankruptcy cases. More importantly, it focuses on a particular type of dispute that arises in bankruptcy - debt-dischargeability determinations. The study implements this focused approach in order to reduce heterogeneity in result. We find, contrary to our hypotheses, no evidence that circuit court judges engage in ideological voting in bankruptcy cases. We do find, however, non-ideological factors - …

Sex On The Bench: Do Women Judges Matter To The Legitimacy Of International Courts?, Nienke Grossman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article seeks to advance our understanding of international courts' legitimacy and its relationship to who sits on the bench. It asks whether we should care that few women sit on international court benches. After providing statistics on women's participation on eleven of the world's most important courts and tribunals, the article argues that under-representation of one sex affects normative legitimacy because it endangers impartiality and introduces bias when men and women approach judging differently. Even if men and women do not think differently, a sex un-representative bench harms sociological legitimacy for constituencies who believe they do nonetheless. For groups …

The Second-Class Class Action: How Courts Thwart Wage Rights By Misapplying Class Action Rules, Scott A. Moss, Nantiya Ruan

Publications

Courts apply to wage rights cases an aggressive scrutiny that not only disadvantages low-wage workers, but is fundamentally incorrect on the law. Rule 23 class actions automatically cover all potential members if the court grants plaintiffs' class certification motion. But for certain employment rights cases--mainly wage claims but also age discrimination and gender equal pay claims--29 U.S. C. § 216(b) allows not class actions but "collective actions" covering just those opting in affirmatively. Yet courts in collective actions assume a gatekeeper role just as they do in Rule 23 class actions, disallowing many actions by requiring a certification motion proving …

The New Old Legal Realsim, Tracey E. George, Mitu Gulati, Ann C. Mcginley

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Judges produce opinions for numerous purposes. A judicial opinion decides a case and informs the parties whether they won or lost. But in a common law system, the most important purpose of the opinion, particularly the appellate opinion, is to educate prospective litigants, lawyers, and lower court judges about the law: what it is and how it applies to a specific set of facts. Without this purpose, courts could more quickly and efficiently issue one-sentence rulings rather than set forth reasons. By issuing opinions, courts give actors a means of evaluating whether their actions are within the bounds of law. …

The Evolving International Judiciary, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Working Papers

This article explains the rapid proliferation in international courts first in the post WWII and then the post Cold War era. It examines the larger international judicial complex, showing how developments in one region and domain affect developments in similar and distant regimes. Situating individual developments into their larger context, and showing how change occurs incrementally and slowly over time, allows one to see developments in economic, human rights and war crimes systems as part of a longer term evolutionary process of the creation of international judicial authority. Evolution is not the same as teleology; we see that some international …

The Global Spread Of European Style International Courts, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Working Papers

Europe created the model of embedded international courts (IC), where domestic judges work with international judges to interpret and apply international legal rules that are also part of national legal orders. This model has now diffused around the world. This article documents the spread of European-style ICs: there are now eleven operational copies of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), three copies of the European Court of Human Rights, and a handful of additional ICs that use Europe's embedded approach to international law. After documenting the spread of European-style ICs, the article then explains how two regions chose European style …

The Oberlin Fugitive Slave Rescue: A Victory For The Higher Law, Steven Lubet

Faculty Working Papers

This article tells the story of the Oberlin fugitive slave rescue and the ensuing prosecutions in federal court. The trial of rescuer Charles Langston marked one of the first times that adherence to "higher law" was explicitly raised as a legal defense in an American courtroom. The article is adapted from my book -- Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial -- which tells this story (and several others) in much more detail.

In the fall of 1859, John Price was a fugitive slave living in the abolitionist community of Oberlin, Ohio. He was lured out of town and …

An Essay On Torts: States Of Argument, Marshall S. Shapo

Faculty Working Papers

This essay summarizes high points in torts scholarship and case law over a period of two generations, highlighting the "states of argument" that have characterized tort law over that period. It intertwines doctrine and policy. Its doctrinal features include the tradtional spectrum of tort liability, the duty question, problems of proof, and the relative incoherency of damages rules. Noting the cross-doctrinal role of tort as a solver of functional problems, it focuses on major issues in products liability and medical malpractice. The essay discusses such elements of policy as the role of power in tort law, the tension between communitarianism …

"Sweet Childish Days": Using Developmental Psychology Research In Evaluating The Admissibility Of Out-Of-Court Statements By Young Children, Lynn Mclain

All Faculty Scholarship

A three-year-old child, while being bathed by her babysitter, innocently mentions that her “pee-pee” hurts. When the babysitter asks the child how she hurt it, she says, “Uncle Ernie (her mother’s boyfriend) told me not to tell.” A subsequent medical examination reveals that the child has gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease.

By the time of trial, the child is four and-a-half-years old. When questioned by the trial judge, she cannot explain to the judge’s satisfaction, “the difference between the truth and a lie.” Moreover, she has no long term memory of the incident. The judge rules the child incompetent to …

Legal Integration In The Andes: Law-Making By The Andean Tribunal Of Justice, Laurence R. Helfer, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Scholarship

The Andean Tribunal of Justice (ATJ) is a copy of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and the third most active international court. This article reviews our findings based on an original coding of all ATJ preliminary rulings from 1984 to 2007, and over forty interviews in the region. We then compare Andean and European jurisprudence in three key areas: whether the tribunals treat the founding integration treaties as constitutions for their respective communities, whether the ATJ and ECJ have implied powers for community institutions that are not expressly enumerated in the founding treaties, and how the tribunals conceive of …

Forum, Federalism, And Free Markets: An Empirical Study Of Judicial Behavior Under The Dormant Commerce Clause Doctrine, Mehmet K. Konar-Steenberg, Anne F. Peterson

Faculty Scholarship

This study examines judicial behavior under the dormant Commerce Clause doctrine by drawing on an original database of 459 state and Federal appellate cases decided between 1970 and 2009. The authors use logit regression to show that state judges are more likely to uphold state and local laws against dormant Commerce Clause attack than their Federal judicial counterparts, a result that is consistent with the interstate rivalry issues animating the doctrine. The study also finds that Republican-dominated judicial panels at the state level are more likely to side with tax challengers invoking the dormant Commerce Clause doctrine than are Democratic …

Fragmented Lives: Disability Discrimination And The Role Of "Environment-Framing", Ani B. Satz

Faculty Articles

This Article presents a novel theory that courts undermine the purpose of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by implicitly embracing environment-frames that disfavor disability protections. Courts employ environment-frames at two stages of judicial analysis under the Act: the disability eligibility and remedy stages. In determining whether a plaintiff is in the statutorily protected class, courts typically use a broad environment-frame to assess limitation of a "major life activity. " The larger the environment-frame, the more likely a court will view an individual as able to perform a major life activity in some portion of her environment and deny her …

Judicial Retirement And Return To Practice, Mary Clark

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This Article engages recent scholarly debates about U.S. Supreme Court tenure and retirement practices, specifically those concerning the merits of adopting eighteen-year term limits or mandatory retirement for Supreme Court Justices. It broadens the discussion by including all Article III judges and by addressing former Article III judges’ return to practice following resignation or retirement, which has been largely ignored in the literature to date despite what I have found to be the return-to-practice rate of over forty percent in the last two decades.

This Article advocates retaining life tenure because it promotes institutional and individual judicial independence better than …

Choosing Justices: How Presidents Decide, Joel K. Goldstein

All Faculty Scholarship

Presidents play the critical role in determining who will serve as justices on the Supreme Court and their decisions inevitably influence constitutional doctrine and judicial behavior long after their terms have ended. Notwithstanding the impact of these selections, scholars have focused relatively little attention on how presidents decide who to nominate. This article contributes to the literature in the area by advancing three arguments. First, it adopts an intermediate course between the works which tend to treat the subject historically without identifying recurring patterns and those which try to reduce the process to empirical formulas which inevitably obscure considerations shaping …

Leading The Court: Studies In Influence As Chief Justice, Joel K. Goldstein

All Faculty Scholarship

Chief Justice Roberts has now completed five years of what is likely to be a lengthy tenure in the Court’s center seat. The quality of his institutional leadership, like that of his predecessors, resists confident contemporary assessment to a unique degree among principal offices of American government inasmuch as much of what a Chief Justice does is invisible to all but a relatively few observers, most or all of whom generally remain discreetly silent about such matters. Nonetheless, history counsels that the professional and interpersonal skill which a Chief Justice displays may substantially affect the Supreme Court and the quality …

Catching The Wave: State Supreme Court Outreach Efforts, Rebecca Green

Faculty Publications

State supreme courts have begun to grasp the many ways technology can connect the public with courts. This article will review some of the main trends in state supreme courts’ use of the Internet to educate the public about their work.

The Exclusionary Rule In Immigration Proceedings: Where It Was, Where It Is, Where It May Be Going, Irene Scharf

San Diego International Law Journal

The piece examines the treatment of the Fourth Amendment in immigration courts by surveying its jurisprudential history in those courts and then analyzes the judicial responses thereto. Disparities among circuit court rulings add to the confusion and unpredictability typical of Immigration Court decisions. Finally, the article discusses the difficulties raised by the divergent circuit court opinions and offers suggestions as to how we may resolve these difficulties in accordance with the Constitution's requirement of fair play.

Inherent Jurisdiction And Its Application By Nova Scotiacourts: Metaphysical, Historical Or Pragmatic?, William H. Charles

Dalhousie Law Journal

The author explores the concept of inherent jurisdiction in the context of its use and application by the courts of Nova Scotia. A general in-depth discussion ofthe nature and source(s) of the concept is followed by an examination of three recent Court of Appeal decisions in an effort to determine that court's understanding of inherent jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal's understanding and sense of the concept is then contrasted with its use and application by the trial courts of Nova Scotia over a period of 150 years. The approach of the two levels of court to inherent jurisdiction is compared …

Forward: Symposium On Broke And Broken: Can We Fix Our State Indigent Defense System?, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

The Symposium presenters and commentators, most of whom had worked at some point in their career as a public defender, brought a wealth of experience to the discussion. While the presentations and comments made that day, together with the articles that follow in this Symposium issue, do not provide any quick fix or easy solution, they do offer some important lessons for lawmakers to consider as states struggle to improve the plight of indigent defenders and their clients.

Did The Madisonian Compromise Survive Detention At Guantanamo?, Lumen N. Mulligan

Faculty Works

In this essay, I take up the Court’s less heralded second holding in Boumediene v. Bush - that a federal habeas court must have the institutional capacity to find facts, which in Boumediene itself meant that a federal district court must be available to the petitioners. Although this has gone largely unnoticed, I contend that this holding is inconsistent with the Madisonian Compromise - the standard view that the Constitution does not require jurisdiction in any federal court, except the Supreme Court. In fact, it appears that the Court adopted Justice Story’s position that the Constitution requires vesting of jurisdiction …

The Restrictive Ethos In Civil Procedure, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

Those of us who study civil procedure are familiar with the notion that federal civil procedure under the 1938 Rules was generally characterized by a "liberal ethos," meaning that it was originally designed to promote open access to the courts and to facilitate a resolution of disputes on the merits. Most of us are also aware of the fact that the reality of procedure is not always access-promoting or fixated on merits- based resolutions as a priority. Indeed, I would say that a "restrictive ethos" prevails in procedure today, with many rules being developed, interpreted, and applied in a manner …

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Jus Cogens!, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

What we require—like the third bowl of soup in the story of the three bears—is a theory of jus cogens that is Just Right. I do not know if such a theory is possible. I don't even know if one is conceivable. But if someone conceives it, that person deserves the very next International Oscar. To qualify for the award, the theory must answer the following questions:

Whales: Their Emerging Right To Life, Anthony D'Amato, Sudhir K. Chopra

Faculty Working Papers

We have contended in this article that the evolution of the opinio juris of nations has encompassed five, and perhaps six, inexorable qualitative stages: free resource, regulation, conservation, protection, preservation and entitlement. We have argued that assigning whales an entitlement to life is the consequence of an emerging humanist right in international law — an example of the merging of the "is" and the "ought" of the law in the process of legitimization

Defending A Person Charged With Genocide, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

I was asked to represent Dr. Milan Kovacevic who had been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia ("ICTY") for complicity in genocide. Had he lived through it, his trial would have been the first by the ICTY for the crime of genocide. I would like to describe some of the tribulations of defending clients accused of grave humanitarian offenses in the ICTY.

International Law And Rawls' Theory Of Justice, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

The complexity of present-day international law stands in an uneasy relation to the scheme of justice propounded by Rawls. The problems facing international lawyers may pose a conceptual threat to some of the fundamental bases upon which Rawls builds his entire theoretical edifice.

Restructuring Proposal For The Criminal Division Of The Circuit Court Of Cook County, Daniel T. Coyne

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Efficient, Fair, And Incomprehensible: How The State 'Sells' Its Judiciary, Keith J. Bybee, Heather Pincock

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Sociolegal scholars often approach dispute resolution from the perspective of the disputants, emphasizing how the resources on each side shape the course of conflict. We suggest a different, “supply-side” perspective. Focusing on the state’s efforts to establish centralized courts in place of local justice systems, we consider the strategies that a supplier of dispute resolving services uses to attract disputes for resolution. We argue that state actors often attempt to “sell” centralized courts to potential litigants by insisting that the state’s services are more efficient and fair than local courts operating outside direct state control. Moreover, we argue that state …