Judges Commons^™

A Competency Model For Judges, Talip Aydin

SJD Dissertations

Throughout most modern and contemporary legal scholarship there appears an unbridgeable division between two dominant approaches to judicial decision making. Put succinctly, legal scholars argue that there exist either objective, foundational, ultimate groundings for legal theory and decisions or legal theory and practice inevitably follow a path to relativism and skepticism.

This dissertation argues for a theory of evaluation grounded in the Pragmatic, practical ontology and epistemology. Grounding the theory in this fashion avoids the philosophical views of extreme objectivism and extreme subjectivism. In contrast to these conventional stances, which are rooted in philosophical dualism, the view argued for in …

On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, And Judging, Richard L. O'Meara

Maine Law Review

If one were to ask the members of the Maine legal community to define the term “judicial temperament,” many would answer the question simply by referring to Frank Coffin. Judge Coffin's newest book, On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, and Judging, illustrates why the Judge has earned such overwhelming respect. This highly personal work permits readers a glimpse “behind the scenes” at the judicial life of a man who has forged a highly successful career of public service marked by sensitive, fair, and well-reasoned decision-making and by good-humored, collegial relationships with all of his colleagues in the legal community and beyond.

On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, And Judging, John P. Frank

Maine Law Review

Judge Coffin, a former Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, a former United States Congressman, a former Executive Department administrator, is -- despite those “formers” -- presently a very bright and engaging writer. This compact volume has worthwhile things to say on every aspect of appeals, briefing, argument, deciding the cases, and getting out the opinions. It crisply touches all the appeals phases in which we practitioners are interested.

Honorable John D. Clifford, Jr. A Memoir By His Three Law Clerks, Frank M. Coffin, L. Damon Scales Jr., Richard E. Poulos

Maine Law Review

The domain over which United States District Judge John D. Clifford, Jr. presided from 1947 until his death in 1956 was very different from what it is today. Anyone could walk into the federal courthouse in Portland. Security guards were unknown, and lawyers, litigants, and passers-by were free to come and go. A leisurely air pervaded all the court offices. There was no hurry. This was an era when there were only two lawyers in the United States Attorney's office: the United States Attorney and his one assistant.

Sidney W. Wernick: In Memoriam, Edward S. Godfrey

Maine Law Review

A common sentiment has it that we should bear the death of our elders with a kind of sensible equanimity. The idea seems to be that the old folks have had their turn, served out their usefulness, and, by their departure, have beneficently made more room for the rest of us. Or, more charitably, in a culture that still resonates now and then to Biblical thought, perhaps we are moved to that common sentiment by the mournful cadence of the Ninetieth Psalm, which warns us of the “labour and sorrow” attending survival of the “strong” beyond three score and ten. …

Slumping: The Eighth Circuit’S Supreme Court Batting Average In Federal-Sentencing Cases, Mark W. Bennett

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

The Pragmatism Of Interpretation: A Review Of Richard A. Posner, The Federal Judiciary, Amul R. Thapar, Benjamin Beaton

Michigan Law Review

A review of Richard A. Posner, The Federal Judiciary.

A Matter Of Interpretation: Federal Courts And The Law, Charles R. Priest

Maine Law Review

Justice Scalia's engaging essay, “Common-Law Courts in a Civil-Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts in Interpreting the Constitution and Laws,” and the four comments it provokes, should provide lawyers, judges, and other lawmakers with an interesting evening. Instead of presenting a theoretical view of the role of the federal courts in interpretation, Justice Scalia sketches out a case for “textualism.” “Textualism” is one of several currently contending methods of interpreting statutes and the United States Constitution, and is currently popular among federal judges who see their role as restricting government's powers to those expressly stated in the …

Sadomasochism: Descent Into Darkness, Annotated Accounts Of Cases, 1996-2014, Robert Peters

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

A collection of accounts of sadomasochistic sexual abuse from news reports and scholarly and professional sources about the dark underbelly of sadomasochism and the pornography that contributes to it. It focuses on crimes and other harmful sexual behavior related to the pursuit of sadistic sexual pleasure in North America and the U.K. It is intended to be a resource to educate people about how sadomasochism can lead to harmful and even deadly sadistic sexual behavior.

Newsroom: Court As Classroom 03-01-2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

A Non-Originalist Separation Of Powers, Eric J. Segall

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The President, Prosecutorial Discretion, Obstruction Of Justice, And Congress, Henry L. Chambers Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Delegation Enforcement By State Attorneys General, Jonathan David Shaub

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

States Suing The Federal Government: Protecting Liberty Or Playing Politics?, Elbert Lin

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Who Determines What Is Egregious? Judge Or Jury: Enhanced Damages After Halo V. Pulse, Brandon M. Reed

Georgia State University Law Review

Enhanced damages in patent law are a type of punitive damage that can be awarded in the case of “egregious misconduct” during the course of patent infringement. Authorization for enhanced damages comes from 35 U.S.C. § 284, which allows the district court to increase total damages up to three times the amount of actual damages found by the jury. It is well understood that, since enhanced damages are punitive in nature, enhancement should only be considered for cases of “wanton” or “deliberate” infringement. However, determining what constitutes this “egregious” misconduct has vastly transformed over time to include a negligence standard, …

Newsroom: A Mentor And A Friend 2-21-2018, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Maine's Overburdened Law Court: Has The Time Come For A Maine Appeals Court?, Peter L. Murray

Maine Law Review

For the entire 178 years of Maine's statehood, its Supreme Judicial Court, “sitting as the Law Court,” has served as Maine's appellate court of first and last resort for all appeals from its trial courts of general jurisdiction. Over this time span, and particularly over the last three decades, the growth in number and complexity of civil and criminal appeals has placed the Law Court under an extremely heavy burden of cases. The sheer number of the appeals which the Law Court is expected to consider and decide risks exceeding the capacity of the institution for careful, thorough, and deliberate …

Judicial Externships: Sharing Current Practices, Dinah Lennon Archambeault

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

The need for externships has risen over the years as the importance of providing experiential education to supplement traditional doctrinal law school education has become generally acknowledged. Despite the many articles on externships, few, if any, have addressed how judicial externs are selected and how judicial externships are structured in the courts.

It was necessary to conduct qualitative research to determine how various courts address their extern programs, if at all. Based on the research I have undertaken, practices vary among courts and judges. Not only is there no uniform practice with respect to which courts and even judges place …

Clerking For God’S Grandfather: Chauncey Belknap’S Year With Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Todd C. Peppers, Ira Brad Matetsky, Elizabeth R. Williams, Jessica Winn

Scholarly Articles

Most of what we know about law clerks comes from the clerks themselves, usually in the form of law review articles memorializing their Justices and their clerkships or in interviews with reporters and legal scholars. In a few instances, however, law clerks have contemporaneously memorialized their experiences in diaries. These materials provide a rare window into the insular world of the Court. While the recollections contained in the diaries are often infused with youthful hero worship for their employer—in contradistinction to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s claim that no man is a hero to his valet— they offer a real-time, …

Supreme Court Of The United States, October Term 2018 Preview, Georgetown University Law Center, Supreme Court Institute

Supreme Court Overviews

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 …

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 …

Without Evidence: Joel Richard Paul’S John Marshall, Kevin C. Walsh

Scholarly Articles

John Marshall—soldier, lawyer, legislator, statesman, and fourth chief justice of the United States—led a long public life that spanned from the American Revolution to the rise of Jacksonian democracy. Joel Richard Paul’s full-length biography takes the reader from Marshall’s birth on the Virginia frontier in 1755, to his death in 1835 at the head of an American judiciary that had gained significantly in power and respect because of Marshall’s leadership over the preceding 34 years.

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 …

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.

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 …

Rewriting Judicial Opinions And The Feminist Scholarly Project, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In 1995, the authors of a law review article examining “feminist judging” focused on the existing social science data concerning women judges and compared the voting records and opinions of the only female Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor. Based on this review, the authors concluded that appointing more women as judges would make little difference to judicial outcomes or processes. The authors accused those who advocated for more women on the bench of having a hidden feminist agenda and bluntly concluded that “[b]y any measure, feminist judges fit very uneasily in most …

The Origins And Development Of Judicial Tenure 'During Good Behavior' To 1485, Ryan Rowberry

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Rapid Dna Testing And Virginia's Rape Kit Backlog: A Double-Edged Sword Masquerading As A Miracle, Or The Future Of Forensic Analysis?, Emma C. Greger

Law Student Publications

While Rapid DNA technology has the potential to revolutionize every aspect of the criminal justice system, from arrest to the postconviction appeals process, there has been particular excitement centered around its potential to reduce the rape kit backlog.