Courts Commons^™

Why Don’T Judges Case Manage?, Hon. Jennifer D. Bailey

University of Miami Law Review

The problems of cost and delay experienced by parties seeking civil justice have been the subject of complaints for nearly one hundred years, going back to the days of Roscoe Pound. In the past few years, court leadership across the country has emphasized judicial case management as a significant tool for delivery of cost-effective, fair, and timely civil justice. The declining civil caseload has brought new urgency to these problems as evidence grows that litigants are deserting the civil justice system. Calls for case management to contain cost and delay have come from the Chief Justice of the United States, …

Thinking Slow About Abercrombie & Fitch: Straightening Out The Judicial Confusion In The Lower Courts, Bruce N. Cameron, Blaine L. Hutchison

Pepperdine Law Review

In Abercrombie & Fitch, the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed the way that Title VII religious accommodation cases are litigated and evaluated. This paper analyzes Abercrombie, explains how the Court eliminated religious accommodation as a freestanding cause of action, and suggests an altered proof framework for plaintiffs seeking an accommodation. The paper also explores the conflict between employee privacy rights and classic proof requirements for religious sincerity. The lower courts have largely failed to apprehend the change mandated by Abercrombie, with the result that their opinions are in disarray. The paper includes a chart organizing the diverse lower court opinions.

Judicial And Practitioner Perspectives On Adr, Young Hye Chun

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Institute Annual Report, 2018-2019, Georgetown University Law Center, Supreme Court Institute

SCI Papers & Reports

During the U.S. Supreme Court’s October Term (OT) 2018 – corresponding to the 2018-2019 academic year –the Supreme Court Institute (SCI) provided moot courts for advocates in 99% of the cases heard by the Supreme Court, offered a variety of programs related to the Supreme Court, and continued to integrate the moot court program into the education of Georgetown Law students. The varied affiliations of advocates mooted this Term reflect SCI’s firm commitment to provide assistance to advocates without regard to the party represented or the position advanced.

A list of all SCI moot courts held in OT 2018 – …

Chevron Deference In The States: Lessons From Three States, Carrie Townsend Ingram

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

The appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States has left many wondering if a change to the Chevron doctrine is impending. Justice Gorsuch’s colleague on the Court, Justice Clarence Thomas, shares similar views on Chevron. This article will compare the federal rule to three different states: Indiana, Delaware, and Arizona. Each state has taken a different path in determining that the judiciary should not give deference to an agency’s interpretation of the statutes that it is charged with enforcing. Delaware has affirmatively declared that the Chevron doctrine is not applicable in its state. A …

Restoring Effective Congressional Oversight: Reform Proposals For The Enforcement Of Congressional Subpoenas, Kia Rahnama

Journal of Legislation

This Article proposes possible legislative reforms to Congress’s exercise of its contempt power in combating non-compliance with subpoenas duly issued as part of congressional investigations. With the recent trends in leveraging congressional investigations as an effective tool of separation of powers, this Article seeks to explore the exact bounds of congressional power in responding to executive officers’ noncompliance with congressional subpoenas, and whether or not current practice could be expanded beyond what has historically been tried by the legislative branch. This Article provides a brief summary of the historic practice behind different options for responding to non-compliance with subpoenas (inherent …

Simplified Courts Can't Solve Inequality, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

State civil courts struggle to handle the volume of cases before them. Litigants in these courts, most of whom are unrepresented, struggle to navigate the courts to solve their problems. This access-to-justice crisis has led to a range of reform efforts and solutions. One type of reform, court simplification, strives to reduce the complexity of procedures and information used by courts to help unrepresented litigants navigate the judicial system. These reforms mitigate but do not solve the symptoms of the larger underlying problem: state civil courts are struggling because they have been stuck with legal cases that arise from the …

Gambling Addiction: Increasing The Effectiveness And Popularity Of Problem Gambling Diversion In Nevada Courts, Kimber Laux

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Case Against Absolute Judicial Immunity For Immigration Judges, Jacqueline Stevens

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

A federal regulation states that immigration hearings shall be open to the public. Courts and scholars also have located a right to observe these proceedings in the First Amendment. And yet immigration judges (IJ) have excluded members of the press and other observers from hearings for no stated legal reasons, thus effectively eliminating public scrutiny of proceedings that affect millions of citizens and non-citizens in the United States. In response to a lawsuit pursuing monetary, injunctive, and declaratory relief after an IJ ordered guards to remove a reporter from a federal building, an Eleventh Circuit panel held IJs have absolute …

Social Media, Venue And The Right To A Fair Trial, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Judicial failure to recognize social media's influence on juror decision making has identifiable constitutional implications. The Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial demands that courts grant a defendant's change of venue motion when media-generated pretrial publicity invades the unbiased sensibility of those who are asked to sit in judgment. Courts limit publicity suitable for granting a defendant's motion to information culled from newspapers, radio, and television reports. Since about 2014, however, a handful of defendants have introduced social media posts to support their claims of unconstitutional bias in the community. Despite defendants' introduction of negative social media in support …

Absurdity In Disguise: How Courts Create Statutory Ambiguity To Conceal Their Application Of The Absurdity Doctrine, Laura R. Dove

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Your Honor, On Social Media: The Judicial Ethics Of Bots And Bubbles, Katrina Lee

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Disabling Ada Retaliation Claims, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Hardship And Hard Drives: Artificial Intelligence, Judicial Decision-Making, And The Discharge Of Student Loan Debt, Forrest Finn

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Section 178(1.1) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act allows individuals to apply for discretionary relief from the non-dischargeable nature of student loan debts. Subparagraph (b) of this relief establishes a ‘‘hardship” requirement. The elements for this hardship requirement have been developed and applied by judges in the form of standards. The issue addressed in this paper is whether these standards are applied predictably. Using both statistical analysis and machine learning algorithms, this paper demonstrates that judicial decision-making on the hardship requirement is predictable. This predictability has significant implications. Most importantly it suggests that predictive software could be created for s. …

Singapore Court Of Appeal Affirms Party Autonomy In Choice Of Court Agreements, Tiong Min Yeo

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

“The Singapore Court of Appeal has recently affirmed the significance of giving effect to party autonomy in the enforcement of choice of court agreements under the common law in three important decisions handed down in quick succession, on different aspects of the matter: the legal effect of exclusive choice of court agreements, the interpretation and effect of non-exclusive choice of court agreements, and the effect of exclusive choice of court agreements on anti-suit injunctions.

Severance By Unilateral Declaration: Lessons From Singapore, Alvin W. L. See

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Thisarticle examines, in the context of Singapore law, unilateral declaration as amode of severing a joint tenancy. In particular, it considers if and in what exceptionalcircumstances should severance by unilateral declaration be allowed in equitynotwithstanding the lack of registration, the effect of such an unregisteredseverance with regards to third parties, as well as how the different modes ofseverance interact with one another.

Legal Area Classification: A Comparative Study Of Text Classifiers On Singapore Supreme Court Judgments, Jerrold Soh, How Khang Lim, Ian Ernst Chai

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper conducts a comparative study on the performance of various machine learning(“ML”) approaches for classifying judgments into legal areas. Using a novel dataset of 6,227 Singapore Supreme Court judgments, we investigate how state-of-the-art NLP methods compare against traditional statistical models when applied to a legal corpus that comprised few but lengthy documents. All approaches tested, including topic model, word embedding, and language model-based classifiers, performed well with as little as a few hundred judgments. However, more work needs to be done to optimize state-of-the-art methods for the legal domain.

Civil Rico: An Effective Deterrent To Fraudulent Asbestos Litigation?, Lester Brickman

Cardozo Law Review

In January 2014, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge George Hodges, presiding over the asbestos-related bankruptcy of Garlock Sealing Technologies, LLC, a manufacturer of gaskets containing asbestos, issued an order estimating Garlock's liability for pending and future mesothelioma cases. Judge Hodges, after hearing evidence discovered by Garlock in a sampling of settled cases, rejected using the usual bankruptcy court recourse to the debtor's historic settlement values as a valid basis for estimating Garlock's total future liability for asbestos-related injuries. He found that Garlock's prior mesothelioma settlements were not a reliable predictor of Garlock's liability because those settlements had been infected by misrepresentations by …

Individualized Sentencing, William W. Berry

Washington and Lee Law Review

In Woodson v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court proscribed the use of mandatory death sentences. One year later, in Lockett v. Ohio, the Court expanded this principle to hold that defendants in capital cases were entitled to “individualized sentencing determinations.” The Court’s reasoning in both cases centered on the seriousness of the death penalty. Because the death penalty is “different” in its seriousness and irrevocability, the Court required the sentencing court, whether judge or jury, to assess the individualized characteristics of the offender and the offense before imposing a sentence. In 2012, the Court expanded this Eighth Amendment concept …

The Federal Courts’ Rulemaking Buffer, Jordan M. Singer

William & Mary Law Review

Procedural rulemaking is often thought of as a second-order task for the federal court system, relevant to the courts’ work but not essential to their function. In reality, rulemaking plays an integral role in the court system’s operation by actively insulating the courts from environmental pressure. This Article explains how power over procedural rulemaking protects the federal courts from environmental uncertainty and describes the court system’s efforts to maintain the effectiveness of the rulemaking buffer in response to historical and contemporary challenges.

Sentencing Persons Convicted Of Minor Offences In Ghana: Reducing Judicial Over-Reliance On Imprisonment, Nenyo Kwasitsu

LLM Theses

This thesis argues that there is overuse of imprisonment for minor offenders in Ghana. These are offenders whose punishments go up to 3 years of jail time, essentially offending mainly for reasons of material poverty. Statutory sentencing provisions have essentially limited judges to impose jail terms. It is argued that one way to decongest Ghana’s prisons is to consider the institutionalization of a regime of community service orders and probation, the administration of which would equip the offenders with income-earning skills while they also reform. Drawing on Kenya, a country that has achieved reasonable success in this reform effort, this …

The Case For Contraceptives: The Legislative History Of The Aca’S Birth Control Mandate, Julia Grant

Venture: The University of Mississippi Undergraduate Research Journal

This paper seeks to outline the legislative and judicial history of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate. It begins by explaining the justifications and specifications of the provision. It then highlights the three phases of litigation that have surrounded the mandate: closely held, for-profit companies; religious nonprofit organizations; and state attorney generals. This paper provides context for the litigation by describing the opposing stances towards the mandate of the Obama and Trump Administrations and the different modifications to the provision made under each administration. In the wake of last week’s finalization of the controversial rules the Trump Administration issued, …

Military Rules: Expert Qualifications, Admissibility Of Expert Testimony, And Competency Hearings, Joshua E. Kastenberg

Faculty Book Display Case

This book provides a comprehensive review of the many valuable roles that psychologists can play in courts-martial and how they can collaborate with military attorneys to make effective trial teams.

Even though psychologists are becoming increasingly important in military trials, many are unfamiliar with the unique nature of this system. Likewise, lawyers often do not know how to effectively utilize psychologists' expertise.

This volume thus offers much-needed guidance for civilian psychologists and military counsel alike.

The chapter authors are forensic psychologists and military legal personnel — including defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges — who offer expert tips and strategies for …

Unintentional Irony In Landmark Decisions Of The Delaware Supreme Court Regarding Corporate Law, Steven J. Cleveland

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Three landmark decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court exhibit unintentional irony: Beam v. Stewart, Smith v. Van Gorkom, and Paramount Communications Inc. v. Time Inc. In Beam, the court concluded that, regarding the decision of whether to seek remedy against Martha Stewart, her fellow directors would not have jeopardized their reputations for the minimal gain of continuing their business and personal relationships with her. Ironically, the court failed to acknowledge that Martha Stewart—in trading on material nonpublic information, which gave rise to the corporate claim against her—jeopardized her reputation (ultimately losing hundreds of millions of dollars and her freedom) for …

The Ever-Changing Scope Of Insider Trading Liability For Tippees In The Second Circuit, Sari Rosenfeld

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Liability under insider trading law continues to change as federal courts attempt to find new ways to hold insiders liable under the law. As recently as two years ago, the Second Circuit—in analyzing past decisions regarding tipper-tippee insider trading violations—blurred the distinction between legal and illegal insider trading when it fundamentally altered the idea of “personal benefit.” These various decisions provide the basis for antifraud provisions of securities law applying to insider trading, the consequences of which can be detrimental. This Note will discuss the standard that the Second Circuit uses to hold tippees liable for insider trading violations under …

Commencement Calls For Review Of Annual Milestones, Austen L. Parrish

Austen Parrish (2014-2022)

This weekend is a time of celebration in Bloomington, as we welcome friends and family of the Class of 2019 for our annual commencement ceremony. It’s an important milestone in our students’ lives. Commencement is also a time for looking back. The past year saw several significant milestones for the IU Maurer School of Law. I’d like to touch on just a few of them in this month’s column.

Ohio's Targeted Community Alternative To Prison Program: How A Good Idea Is Implemented Through Bad Policy, Samantha Sohl

Cleveland State Law Review

Just because a legislature can make a law doesn’t mean that they should. The Ohio General Assembly enacted the Targeted Community Alternatives to Prison (T-CAP) program to decrease the number of convicted defendants sent to state prison and to increase funding for community control efforts. While the law may be upheld under the Ohio Constitution’s Uniformity Clause, the law should still be repealed because legislative control and financial influence have no place in the judicial branch, specifically the criminal sentencing process. However, the law is rooted in good intentions, and many judges have found the additional funding useful, but the …

Silence Of The Liberals: When Supreme Court Justices Fail To Speak Up For Lgbt Rights, David S. Cohen

University of Richmond Law Review

In 1985, Justice Brennan did something that had never been done before and has, surprisingly, never been done again—penned a separate opinion from the Court’s left vigorously arguing for the protection of gay rights under the Constitution. Since then, even though the Court has repeatedly protected gay rights, none of the Court’s liberal Justices have said a word on the topic. Rather, the liberal Justices have ceded the territory on the issue of the Constitution and gay rights almost entirely to Justice Kennedy’s notoriously flowery but somewhat vacuous statements about the issue, as well as the pointed and often homophobic …

Eliminating Liability For Lack Of Informed Consent To Medical Treatment, Valerie Gutmann Koch

University of Richmond Law Review

The legal doctrine of informed consent, which imposes tort liability for failure to disclose the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a proposed medical intervention, is often criticized for emphasizing ritual over relationships, contributing to the deterioration of the doctor-patient relationship by encouraging the practice of defensive medicine. This article considers a rather radical response to the allegations that the tort of lack of informed consent does not serve the lofty goal of protecting patient self-determination by ensuring that treatment decisions are voluntary and informed, namely the elimination of liability for failure to provide informed consent to medical treatment. In doing …

Transitional Equality, Suzanne A. Kim

University of Richmond Law Review

Legal discussions of inequality often focus on the virtues of one legal status or regulatory structure over another, but a guarantee of the right to a particular legal status does not ensure a lived experience of equality in that status. In moments of legal change, when a person or class of persons obtain a new status or gain rights that had previously been denied to them, the path from one legal status to another becomes critically important and may itself be impacted by race, gender, age, and other factors. The process of transitioning to a new status can be complex …