Courts Commons^™

If We Don’T Bring Them To Court, The Terrorists Will Have Won: Reinvigorating The Anti-Terrorist Act And General Jurisdiction In A Post-Daimler Era, Stephen J. Digregoria

Brooklyn Law Review

Prior to the Supreme Court's recent general personal jurisdiction decisions in Daimler AG v. Bauman and Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations S.A. v. Brown American terror victims, injured in terror attacks abroad, were able to bring their attackers and those who sponsor them into United States courts for relief. Specifically, groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization (the PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (the PA) had a history of being sued by American victims of terror. In the course of these suits, the PLO and the PA were regularly found subject to the personal jurisdiction of U.S. courts under a theory of …

The Amicus Machine, Allison Orr Larsen, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court receives a record number of amicus curiae briefs and cites to them with increasing regularity. Amicus briefs have also become influential in determining which cases the Court will hear. It thus becomes important to ask: Where do these briefs come from? The traditional tale describes amicus briefs as the product of interest-group lobbying. But that story is incomplete and outdated. Today, skilled and specialized advocates of the Supreme Court Bar strategize about what issues the Court should hear and from whom they should hear them. They then “wrangle” the necessary amici and “whisper” to coordinate the message. …

Private Actors And Public Corruption: Why Courts Should Adopt A Broad Interpretation Of The Hobbs Act, Megan Demarco

Michigan Law Review

Federal prosecutors routinely charge public officials with “extortion under color of official right” under a public-corruption statute called the Hobbs Act. To be prosecuted under the Hobbs Act, a public official must promise official action in return for a bribe or kickback. The public official, however, does not need to have actual authority over that official action. As long as the victim reasonably believed that the public official could deliver or influence government action, the public official violated the Hobbs Act. Private citizens also solicit bribes in return for influencing official action. Yet most courts do not think the Hobbs …

Summary Reversals In The Roberts Court, Edward A. Hartnett

Cardozo Law Review

The article examines the use of summary reversals by the Roberts Court, arguing that these decisions—where the Court reverses lower court rulings without full briefing or oral argument—serve important administrative functions and address specific types of errors, despite longstanding criticism. The author identifies patterns in the areas of law and types of errors targeted by these reversals, concluding that the practice persists due to its utility in maintaining judicial hierarchy and efficiency, even as critics question its propriety.

Anti-Disruption Statutory Construction, Jonathan H. Adler

Cardozo Law Review

The article examines Chief Justice John Roberts' approach to statutory interpretation, characterizing it as a form of "Burkean minimalism." This approach prioritizes judicial restraint, avoiding disruptive outcomes and maintaining stability in the law, even if it requires departing from the plain meaning of statutory text. Roberts' decisions often reflect a pragmatic willingness to reinterpret statutes to prevent significant disruptions, uphold legislative enactments, and preserve constitutional harmony, rather than adhering strictly to textualist or doctrinal purity.

The Chief Justice And Statutory Construction: Holding The Government's Feet To The Fire, Pratik A. Shah

Cardozo Law Review

The article examines Chief Justice John Roberts' approach to statutory construction, highlighting his tendency to limit government overreach by narrowly interpreting statutes, particularly in federal criminal law and agency deference cases. His decisions reflect a commitment to curbing prosecutorial and agency discretion, ensuring the government operates within legal boundaries.

Where Techs Rush In, Courts Should Fear To Tread: How Courts Should Respond To The Changing Economics Of Today, Melanie Defiore

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Government By Injunction,” Legal Elites, And The Making Of The Modern Federal Courts, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

The tendency of legal discourse to obscure the processes by which social and political forces shape the law’s development is well known, but the field of federal courts in American constitutional law may provide a particularly clear example of this phenomenon. According to conventional accounts, Congress’s authority to regulate the lower federal courts’ “jurisdiction”—generally understood to include their power to issue injunctions— has been a durable feature of American constitutional law since the founding. By contrast, the story I tell in this essay is one of change. During the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, many jurists considered the federal …

Taxation – Selection Of Exchange Rate For Translation Purposes -- Where Multiple Exchange Rates Exist For A Foreign Currency And The Underlying Transaction Is Financial In Nature, The Proper Rate For Translation Components Of Taxable Income Is The "Free" Market Rate (Durovic V. Commissioner Of Internal Revenue, 7th Cir. 1976), Tim J. Floyd

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The Advocate, Dr. Piero L. Frattin

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The Civil Lawyer In Church Courts, Lawrence X. Cusack

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Results Of Deliberation, Maggie Wittlin

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

When evaluating whether to sue, prosecute, settle, or plead, trial lawyers must predict the future—they need to estimate how likely they are to win a given case in a given jurisdiction. Social scientists have used mock juror studies to produce a vast body of literature showing how different variables influence juror decision making. But few of these studies account for jury deliberation, so they present an impoverished picture of how these effects play out in trials and are of limited usefulness.

This Article helps lawyers better predict the future by presenting a novel computer model that extrapolates findings about jurors …

Unconventional Methods For A Traditional Setting: The Use Of Virtual Reality To Reduce Implicit Racial Bias In The Courtroom, Natalie Salmanowitz

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial lie at the core of the United States justice system. While existing rules and practices serve to uphold these principles, the administration of justice is significantly compromised by a covert but influential factor: namely, implicit racial biases. These biases can lead to automatic associations between race and guilt, as well as impact the way in which judges and jurors interpret information throughout a trial. Despite the well-documented presence of implicit racial biases, few steps have been taken to ameliorate the problem in the courtroom setting. This Article discusses the …

Taking Stock: Why The Supreme Court’S Decision To Apply The Market-Value Standard In Horne Ii Further Complicates The Just Compensation Requirement, Greg Seidner

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause does not prevent the federal (or a state) government from taking private property. It merely sets as a condition that the government pay the owner “just compensation” for the taking. Precisely what constitutes just compensation, however, is a tricky matter. One method for determining just compensation is the “market-value” method, which requires the government to pay the owner the property’s market value. But where a taking is only partial, that is, where the government takes only a portion of private property, the property that remains with the owner may see an increase or decrease in …

Innocent Suffering: The Unavailability Of Post-Conviction Relief In Virginia Courts, Kaitlyn Potter

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment examines actual innocence in Virginia: the progress it has made, the problems it still faces, and the possibilities for reform. Part I addresses past reform to the system, spurred by the shocking tales of Thomas Haynesworth and others. Part II identifies three of the most prevalent systemic challenges marring Virginia's justice system: (1) flawed scientific evidence; (2) the premature destruction of evidence; and (3) false confessions and guilty pleas. Part III suggests ways in which Virginia can, and should, address these challenges to ensure that the justice system is actually serving justice.

Grow Up Virginia: Time To Change Our Filial Responsibility Law, Sylvia Macon

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tenure Wars: The Litigation Continues, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Teacher tenure is a controversial topic that continues to generate litigation. Parents and advocates of educational reform have filed claims alleging, in part, that school officials violate the rights of students who are not achieving academically largely because of the ineffective instruction the students receive from teachers.

Typically, these suits also claim that conditions in districts where students perform poorly on academic measures are exacerbated by the protection that state tenure laws—in conjunction with union efforts—afford ineffective teachers, thereby making it difficult to dismiss the teachers for incompetence.

In North Carolina Association of Educators v. State (2016), a North Carolina …

Designing Administrative Justice: Draft, Lorne Sossin

All Papers

This study explores the adaptation of design thinking to administrative justice. Design thinking – or human centred design – approaches services and products from the perspective of the user. This perspective too often is missing in the design of administrative tribunals, most of which have been developed top-down to serve the needs of a particular policy interest of the Government of the day.

This paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, I review the development of design thinking in the context of legal services and legal organizations. In the second part, I explore the implications of this …

Issue 1: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Our Prescriptive Judicial Power: Constitutive And Entrenchment Effects Of Historical Practice In Federal Courts Law, Ernest A. Young

William & Mary Law Review

Scholars examining the use of historical practice in constitutional adjudication have focused on a few high-profile separation of powers disputes, such as the recent decisions in NLRB v. Noel Canning and Zivotofsky v. Kerry. This Article argues that “big cases make bad theory”—that the focus on high-profile cases of this type distorts our understanding of how historical practice figures into constitutional adjudication more generally. I shift focus here to the more prosaic terrain of federal courts law, where practice plays a pervasive role. That shift reveals two important insights: First, while historical practice plays an important constitutive role structuring and …

(In)Valid Patents, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

Increasingly, accused infringers challenge a patent’s validity in two different forums: in litigation in federal court and in post-issuance review at the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). These parallel proceedings have produced conflicting and controversial results. For example, in one recent case, a district court rejected a challenge to a patent’s validity and awarded millions of dollars in damages for infringement. The Federal Circuit initially affirmed those rulings, ending the litigation over the patent’s validity. In a subsequent appeal about royalties owed by the infringer, however, the Federal Circuit vacated the entire judgment — including the validity ruling and damages …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Brittani Mulholland's Post: Women In Robes: Bigger And Better Than Ever: October 12, 2016, Brittani Mulholland

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Compulsory Medical Treatment - A Moral Evaluation, Robert H. Springer, S.J.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Brief For Amici Curiae Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, Citizen, And Remedies Scholars In Support Of Respondent: Lynch V. Morales-Santana, Judith Resnick, Stephen I. Vladeck, Mier Feder, Muneer I. Ahmad, Erwin Chemerinsky, Gillian E. Metzger, Gerald L. Neuman, Linda Bosniak, Michael C. Dorf, Burt Neuborne, Doug Rendleman, David L. Shapiro, Michael J. Wishnie

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Honoring Dan Meltzer, Bradford R. Clark

Notre Dame Law Review

Dan Meltzer was a giant in the field of Federal Courts, and it is hard to overstate his influence on its development. He taught Federal Courts at Harvard Law School and was a long-time co-author of Hart & Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System (“Hart & Wechsler ”), the casebook that created the field and shaped how generations of judges, lawyers, and scholars think about complex questions of federal jurisdiction. In addition, Dan enriched the field immeasurably by writing seminal articles on a wide range of Federal Courts topics. His work was characterized by deep knowledge of the …

Weapons Of The Weak: The Prosecutor Of The Icc's Power To Engage The Un Security Council, C. Cora True-Frost

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

On Viewing The Courts As Junior Partners Of Congress In Statutory Interpretation Cases: An Essay Celebrating The Scholarship Of Daniel J. Meltzer, Richard H. Fallon Jr

Notre Dame Law Review

In this Essay, written in tribute to Dan Meltzer, I shall attempt to explicate his views regarding statutory interpretation in general, thematic terms. In doing so, I shall register my agreement with virtually all of Dan’s conclusions and frequently echo his practically minded arguments in support of them. But I shall also advance arguments—with which I cannot be entirely sure he would have agreed—that seek to show that his position reflected theoretical insights about how language works, not only in law, but also more generally in life. By seeking simultaneously to defend Dan’s views and to build on them, this …

Honoring Dan Meltzer—Congressional Standing And The Institutional Framework Of Article Iii: A Comparative Perspective, Vickie C. Jackson

Notre Dame Law Review

In this short Essay, I focus on only one aspect of the broader question of government standing to sue: congressional standing. For one thing, separation of powers problems are more acutely presented in federal level disputes.

Given an increased interest by parts of the Congress, especially the House of Representatives, in seeking to intervene in ongoing litigation, there are pressing new issues in the lower federal courts: U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer recently upheld congressional standing to challenge an asserted violation of the Appropriations Clause in connection with spending under the Affordable Care Act, while rejecting the House’s standing …

A Cause Of Action, Anyone?: Federal Equity And The Preemption Of State Lalw, Henry Paul Monaghan

Notre Dame Law Review

In this very brief Essay, I focus on aspects of a topic on which both Danny and I have written and on which our reasoning differed: federal court authority, “sitting in equity,” to enjoin enforcement of state law on federal preemption grounds. In a coercive action brought by the state to enforce the state law, the federal act could of course be set up as a defense. Suppose, however, that alleging “arising under” subject-matter jurisdiction, the plaintiff sues the appropriate state officials to restrain enforcement of the state statute. Many such challenges are readily entertained on the merits, often because …

Revising Our “Common Intellectual Heritage”: Federal And State Courts In Our Federal System, Judith Resnik

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay pays tribute to Daniel Meltzer’s insight that, to the extent “lawyers have a common intellectual heritage, the federal courts are its primary source.” I do so by analyzing how that heritage is made and remade, as political forces press Congress to deploy federal courts to protect a wide array of interests and state courts absorb the bulk of litigation. The heritage that Meltzer celebrated and to which he contributed was the outcome of twentieth-century social movements that focused on the federal courts as hospitable venues, serving as vivid sources of rights and remedies. A competing heritage has since …