Judges Commons^™

The International Criminal Court: From Rome To Kampala, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 515 (2010), Philippe Kirsch

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introductory Note To The Supreme Court Of The United States: Noriega V. Pastrana, Kenneth Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Understanding Caperton: Judicial Disqualification Under The Due Process Clause, Dmitry Bam

Faculty Publications

It is virtually impossible to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. without hearing some variant of the following response: “I can’t believe it was as close as it was.” And it does not matter whether you are chatting with your next-door neighbor who had never thought about judicial ethics in his life or discussing the case with a judicial-recusal expert. Nearly everyone seems to agree: Caperton was an “easy” case and that four justices dissented is an indication that there is something terribly wrong. Not only has Caperton elevated the issue of judicial impartiality …

A Call For Judicial Scrutiny: How Increased Judicial Discretion Has Led To Disparity And Unpredictability In Federal Sentencings For Child Pornography, Loren Rigsby

Seattle University Law Review

The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) has made child pornography related crimes among the most harshly punishable federal offenses. Nevertheless, sentencing judges have regained the right to depart from the recommended Federal Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines). The Guideline range for child pornography reflects sound and clear congressional intent to impose harsh penalties on defendants to deter, and ultimately eliminate, the market for child pornography. For this reason, this Comment argues that sentences that fall outside the Guidelines range should be reviewed with much greater scrutiny and should not be used solely to reflect a judge’s view that the advised sentence is …

Refocusing Away From Rules Reform And Devoting More Attention To The Deciders, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

The issue of judicial competence and integrity is particularly troubling in the wake of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., where the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a state supreme court decision in which a justice—who had received at least $3 million in campaign support from a litigant—cast the deciding vote to relieve the litigant of a liability award of $50 million ($82 million with interest). The Court reached this result, one I view as compelled by common sense, through a 5-4 vote. The dissenters, led by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia, minimized the danger of biased judging presented by …

Judges And Their Editors, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

This essay discusses the roles of personal law clerks, central staff clerks, and Reporters of Decisions in editing judges’ opinions at the drafting stage. “The overarching lesson [is] that by submerging pride of authorship during an opinion’s gestation and by weighing editorial input with an open mind, judges secure in their craft advance the interests of justice.” The essay also discusses the constraints imposed by the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct on the circle of persons a judge may consult without giving the parties advance notice. The essay is adapted from Prof. Abrams’ address to the international meeting of …

Error Correction, Chad M. Oldfather

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Clinton, Ginsburg, And Centrist Federalism, Russell A. Miller

Indiana Law Journal

This Article examines Justice Ginsburg's overlooked federalism jurisprudence and concludes that it almost perfectly complements President Bill Clinton's New Democratic centrism, especially his pro-state federalism agenda. The Article concludes that their nuanced, "centrist" approach to federalism has two characteristics. First,t hey value the states 'governing autonomy and show respect for the state agents that realize that autonomy. Second, they credit the states as intersubjective actors engaged in the pursuit of their interests, albeit in political processes usually carried out at the federal level.

Ivan Rand's Ancient Constitutionalism, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Few names loom larger than Ivan Rand’s in the history of Canadian law. If anything, Rand has retained his image as a courageous judge willing to bend the law in creative ways to seek justice and protect the rights of oppressed minorities. But Rand’s legal ideas have not faired as well. Over the years, his theory of “implied rights,” and view of the judicial role, has been criticized as incoherent and indefensible. The central aim of this paper is to challenge these criticisms. I want to offer a solution by reconstructing an overlooked component of his legal thought: a form …

Watch Your Language: A Review Of The Use Of Stigmatizing Language By Canadian Judges, Jocelyn Downie, Michelle Black

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Despite ongoing advances in understanding the causes and prevalence of mental health issues, stigmatizing language is still often directed at people who have mental illness. Such language is regularly used by parties, such as the media, who have great influence on public opinion and attitudes. Since the decisions from Canadian courtrooms can also have a strong impact on societal views, we asked whether judges use stigmatizing language in their decisions. To answer this question, we conducted a qualitative study by searching through modern Canadian case law using search terms that were indicative of stigmatizing language. We found that, although judges …

Fourth Circuit Judicial Appointments, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Fourth Circuit judicial selection deserves an examination, which this Article undertakes. The first part investigates the background of the Fourth Circuit appointments process, emphasizing relevant developments throughout the Bush Administration. The second part descriptively and critically assesses nomination and confirmation in the Obama Administration. The third part derives lessons from the Fourth Circuit selection efforts by comparing them with Obama's national selection efforts and processes in other administrations. For example, all four Obama nominees are ethnic minorities or women and were sitting judges when nominated, and one is younger than fifty-five. Accordingly, their confirmation increases the appeals court's ethnic and …

Improving Federal Judicial Selection, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Review of Benjamin Wittes, Confirmation Wars: Preserving Independent Courts in Angry Times (2006).

Japan's New Lay Judge System: Deliberative Democracy In Action?, Zachary Corey, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reform In California's Immigration Enforcement And Immigration Court, Nelson E. Gil

CMC Senior Theses

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistic, California accounts for approximately 2,600,000 illegal immigrants in 2009. This number represents about 25 percent of the entire estimated illegal immigrant population in the United States, which is roughly 10.8 million. Between 2003 and 2008, the U.S. government removed 1,446,338 noncitizens from the United States. This rise in deportation is a result o the changes that have been enacted by the federal government over the years that transformed the nature of immigration enforcement. This thesis explores the California Immigration Enforcement system from the programs established to apprehend illegal aliens …

Judicial Disqualification: An Analysis Of Federal Law, Second Edition, Charles G. Geyh

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Judicial Disqualification: An Analysis of Federal Law (second edition) outlines the statutory framework of federal judicial disqualification law under the statutes, 28 U.S.C. §§ 455, 144, 47, and 2106. The monograph substantially revises and expands on the first edition, and analyzes the case law, with a focus both on substantive disqualification standards and procedural requirements. It features a revised organizational structure and includes new material, as well as updated cases.

Situating Inherent Power Within A Rules Regime, Samuel P. Jordan

All Faculty Scholarship

My goal in this short Essay is to describe the way that inherent power is understood and applied within our procedural framework, and to suggest the need for a more robust account of the contemporary relationship between inherent power and formal procedural rules. Part I describes two roles – one legitimate and one not – that inherent power can play vis-à-vis the rules. Part II examines how those roles are often confused or manipulated, with the result that inherent power remains available to justify judicial action in an undesirably large class of cases. Finally, Part III explores ways to clarify …

Judicial Elections In The Aftermath Of White, Caperton, And Citizens United, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Reply: Exploring Panel Effects, Pauline Kim

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Reply responds to methodological criticisms of an earlier empirical study of panel effects on the United States Court of Appeals, Deliberation and Strategy on the United States Courts of Appeals, which appeared in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. That study found that federal appellate judges appeared to be more or less open to influence by their panel colleagues depending upon how the preferences of the panel members align with the preferences of the circuit as a whole. On the other hand, their willingness to avoid dissents and go along with their panel colleagues seemed unaffected by their relative …

Countering The Majoritarian Difficulty, Stefanie A. Lindquist, Amanda Frost

Scholarship@WashULaw

Most state court judges are elected to office, and thus must be attentive to voter preferences just like other elected officials. Critics of judicial elections fear that subjecting judges to majoritarian pressures jeopardizes the rights of disfavored groups and undermines the rule of law, and accordingly call for their abolition. The reality, however, is that judicial elections are firmly entrenched in thirty-eight states, and thus appear to be a permanent part of the legal landscape.

This article suggests that the so-called “majoritarian difficulty” posed by elected judges can be tempered by regular interactions with appointed, life-tenured federal judges, who are …

Issue 2: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Statutory Interpretation In The Roberts Court's First Era: An Empirical And Doctrinal Analysis, Anita S. Krishnakumar

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the Roberts Court's statutory cases from its 2005-2008 Terms, beginning with cases decided after January 31, 2006, when Justice Alito joined the Court, and concluding with cases decided on June 29, 2009, when Justice Souter retired. The Article's approach is both empirical and doctrinal, in that it (1) presents descriptive statistics illustrating the Court's and individual Justices' rates of reliance on fourteen different tools of statutory construction, and (2) engages in doctrinal analysis of the Court's statutory cases, highlighting discernable patterns in the individual Justices' interpretive approaches. The Article makes two significant contributions to the field of …

In Defense Of Appearances: What Caperton V. Massey Should Have Said, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

In June of 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that an elected judge must recuse himself from a case that involves a major campaign contributor. In Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co., a coal company had been hit with a $50 million jury verdict. While appealing this verdict, the company's CEO, Don Blankenship, spent $3 million to help a challenger, Brent Benjamin, who had no judicial experience, defeat the incumbent, West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw. Blankenship funded political attack ads by a political organization (And for the Sake of the Kids) that …

Talking Judges, Mitu Gulati, Jack Knight

Faculty Scholarship

What kinds of empirical questions about themselves and their colleagues on the bench are judges interested in asking? This was the topic of a recent conference at the Duke Law School. Our Essay reflects on the ways in which the judges at this conference and at a prior one talked about the empirical study of their community. To put it mildly, most of the judges were not fans of the empirical research. Our interest in this Essay is not, however, in responding to the judicial criticisms. Rather it is in drawing insights about how judges view themselves and their profession …

Wrongful Convictions In Singapore: A General Survey Of Risk Factors, Siyuan Chen, Eunice Chua

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article seeks to raise awareness about the potential for wrongful convictions in Singapore by analysing the factors commonly identified as contributing towards wrongful convictions in other jurisdictions, including institutional failures and suspect evidence. It also considers whether the social conditions in Singapore are favourable to discovering and publicising wrongful convictions. The authors come to the conclusion that Singapore does well on a number of fronts and no sweeping reforms are necessary However there are areas of risk viz the excessive focus on crime control rather than due process, which require some tweaking of the system.

Defending The Majoritarian Court, Amanda Frost

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Review Of Labor And Employment Decisions From The United States Supreme Court’S 2008–2009 Term, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Todd C. Dvorak

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In its most recently completed Term, the United States Supreme Court decided eight labor and employment law cases of some consequence. The decided cases covered a broad array of labor and employment subjects, including: the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), public sector labor law, and private sector labor law. Practitioners who specialize in a particular area might be tempted to focus on only the cases in their area. Academics might be tempted to try to devise some economic or logical theory …

A Review Of Richard A. Posner, How Judges Think (2008), Jeffrey S. Sutton

Michigan Law Review

I was eager to enter the judiciary. I liked the title: federal judge. I liked the job security: life tenure. And I could tolerate the pay: the same as Richard Posner's. That, indeed, may have been the most flattering part of the opportunity-that I could hold the same title and have the same pay grade as one of America's most stunning legal minds. Don't think I didn't mention it when I had the chance. There is so much to admire about Judge Posner-his lively pen, his curiosity, his energy, his apparent understanding of: everything. He has written 53 books, more …

The Subjects Of The Constitution, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Two centuries after Marbury v. Madison, there remains a deep confusion about quite what a court is reviewing when it engages in judicial review. Conventional wisdom has it that judicial review is the review of certain legal objects: statutes, regulations. But strictly speaking, this is not quite right. The Constitution prohibits not objects but actions. Judicial review is the review of such actions. And actions require actors: verbs require subjects. So before judicial review focuses on verbs, let alone objects, it should begin at the beginning, with subjects. Every constitutional inquiry should begin with a basic question that has been …

Harvard And Yale Ascendant: The Legal Education Of The Justices From Holmes To Kagan, Patrick J. Glen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

With the nomination of Elena Kagan to be a justice of the United States Supreme Court, it is quite possible that eight of the nine justices will have graduated from only two law schools—Harvard and Yale. This article frames this development in the historical context of the legal education of those justices confirmed between 1902 and 2010. What this historical review makes clear is that the Ivy League dominance of the Supreme Court is a relatively recent occurrence whose beginnings can be traced to Antonin Scalia’s 1986 confirmation. Prior to that time, although Harvard and Yale were consistently represented among …

All Rise! Standing In Judge Betty Fletcher’S Court, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, based on a talk given at the Washington Law Review’s March 2009 symposium in honor of Senior Ninth Circuit Judge Betty Binns Fletcher and her three decades of service on that court, I selectively survey her opinions on justiciability issues: standing, ripeness, mootness, and political questions. A significant starting point for this survey is Professor Richard Pierce’s 1999 law review article, Is Standing Law or Politics?, arguing that many Supreme Court votes in standing cases generally, and appellate judges’ votes in environmental-standing cases specifically, can be explained better on the basis of politics than by reference to …