Judges Commons^™

The Rise Of Managerial Judging In International Criminal Law, Maximo Langer

ExpressO

Abstract This article puts the procedure of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in a completely new and previously unexplored light. Rejecting the predominant view of ICTY procedure as a hybrid between the adversarial system of the U.S. and the inquisitorial system of civil law jurisdictions, this article shows that ICTY procedure is best described through a third procedural model that does not fit in either of the two traditional systems. This third procedural model is close to the managerial judging system that has been adopted in U.S. civil procedure. The article then explores some of the …

Contaminating The Verdict: The Problem Of Juror Misconduct, Bennett L. Gershman

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Does Time Eclipse Crime? Stogner V. California And The Court's Determination Of The Ex Post Facto Limitations On Retroactive Justice, Ryan D. Frei

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Death Penalty: Conceptual And Empirical Issues, Jason Borenstein

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article argues that the death penalty in the United States is plagued by significant conceptual and empirical flaws, particularly regarding its reliability and fairness. The author advocates for a moratorium on the death penalty until these issues are addressed, emphasizing the risk of executing innocent individuals and the lack of sufficient safeguards in capital proceedings. While not calling for outright abolition, the article contends that the current system is too flawed to continue without substantial reforms.

Judicial Perspectives On The Federal Sentencing Guidelines And The Goals Of Sentencing: Debunking The Myths, Michael E. O'Neill

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Windfall Justice: Sentences At The Mercy Of Hypertechnicality, Jack Nordby

William Mitchell Law Review

Once upon a time (a time not so remote as to be beyond the memories of many of us who still toil in the vineyards of justice), the severity of a criminal sentence was determined largely at the whim of the trial judge, who was guided only by vague considerations of suitability. Non-premeditated murder, for example, might be punished by anything from probation to forty years in prison. A parole board exercised a similarly subjective power to temper the term with early release. Then, about a quarter century ago, the legislature created a commission to establish sentencing “guidelines,” said to …

Lawrence V. Texas: When "Profound And Deep Convictions" Collide With Liberty Interests, Nancy J. Knauer

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned Bowers v. Hardwick and invalidated a Texas sodomy law criminalizing same-sex intimacy. The author argues that Lawrence not only advanced individual liberty interests but also marked a significant shift in the legal and cultural recognition of homosexuality, moving beyond earlier frameworks that criminalized or marginalized gay individuals. The decision reflects broader societal changes in understanding same-sex relationships and challenges the use of moral disapproval as a basis for legal restrictions on consensual adult conduct.

Defense-Oriented Judges, Abbe Smith

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I argue in favor of so-called "defense-oriented judges." Instead of the increasingly prosecution-oriented judicial aspirants who ascend to the bench, we need more judges who care about protecting the rights of the accused, who will put the government to the test, and who have some compassion for those who come before them. Instead of judges who are nothing more than rubber-stamps for prosecutors, deferring to prosecutors at every step because they believe most defendants are in fact guilty, or because they dislike defense lawyers, we need judges who are truly neutral and disinterested. Instead of judges who …

Exonerations Change Judicial Views On Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel, Adele Bernhard

Articles & Chapters

Law evolves more slowly than pop culture or public attitude. Because most exonerations have not resulted in written legal opinions, their impact is slowly seeping into case law. However, courts are influenced by the same news that sways the rest of us. Even without explicitly referring to innocence or wrongful convictions, modern trial courts are undoubtedly more likely to admit expert testimony on the question of eyewitness identification because they are painfully aware of just how easily such witnesses - no matter how honest or passionate - can be wrong. They are certainly more inclined to view confessions suspiciously, especially …

A Practice Commentary To Judiciary Law Article 19, Lawrence N. Gray

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article critically examines New York’s Judiciary Law Article 19, which governs contempt powers, highlighting its complexities, contradictions, and need for reform. It argues that the law conflates criminal and civil contempt, creating confusion in procedure and substance, and that the judiciary’s inherent power to define crimes undermines legislative authority. Additionally, the article addresses the intersection of contempt law with constitutional rights, particularly the Sixth Amendment and news media privileges, emphasizing the need for clarity and modernization of the statute.

The Politics Of Crime And The Threat To Judicial Independence, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Dialectic And Revolution: Confronting Kelsen And Gadamer On Legal Interpretation, Hans Lindahl

Cardozo Law Review

This paper examines the general structure and conditions of legal interpretation that arise from confronting Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics with a determinate conception of legal interpretation suggested by Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law. The Gadamerian question, "What defines legal interpretation as interpretation?", suggests that Kelsen's reference to legal norms as "schemes of interpretation" must be radicalized: a hermeneutic circularity or dialectic is at work in the law, such that the legal interpretation of reality also changes, to a lesser or greater extent, the principle of interpretation - the legal norm. The Kelsenian question, "What defines interpretation as legal interpretation?", suggests …

Constitutional Dignity And The Criminal Law, James E. Baker

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Criminal law is important because it helps to define who we are as a constitutional democracy. There is much that distinguishes our form of government from others, but certainly much of that distinction is found in the Bill of Rights and in two simple words: due process. All of which help to affirm the value and sanctity of the individual in our society. Broadly then, criminal law helps to define who we are as a nation that values both order and liberty.

That is what many of the greatest judicial debates are about, like those involving Holmes, Hand, Jackson, and …

Reviving Tocqueville's America: The Rehnquist Court's Jurisprudence Of Social Discovery, John O. Mcginnis

Articles

This Article offers a retrospective on the Rehnquist Court. It argues that the Rehnquist Court has been pursuing a coherent jurisprudence that invigorates decentralization and the private ordering of social norms that Alexis De Tocqueville celebrated in Democracy in America as being the essence of the social order generated by our original Constitution. In four disparate areas-federalism, freedom of association, the religion clauses, and the balance of power between juries and judges-the Court is helping sustain a civil order that bubbles up from state governments or from citizens voluntarily gathered together or randomly selected. The Article is the first to …

Quiet Rebellion Ii: An Empirical Analysis Of Declining Federal Drug Sentences Including Data From The District Level, Frank O. Bowman, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This is the second of two articles in which we seek an explanation for the hitherto unexamined fact that the average length of prison sentences imposed in federal court for narcotics violations declined by more than 15% between 1991-92 and 2000.

Our first article, Quiet Rebellion? Explaining Nearly a Decade of Declining Federal Drug Sentences, 86 Iowa Law Review 1043 (May 2001) ( "Rebellion I" ), examined national sentencing data in an effort to determine whether the decline in federal drug sentences is real (rather than a statistical anomaly), and to identify and analyze possible causes of the decline. We …

Experimenting With Death: An Examination Of Colorado's Use Of The Three-Judge Panel In Capital Sentencing, Robin Lutz

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Chinese Population Transfer In Tibet, John S. Hall

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note examines the impact of China's population transfer policies in Tibet since the 1950 invasion, arguing that these policies have led to the marginalization of Tibetans, significant environmental degradation, and human rights abuses. It explores various legal and diplomatic strategies to address these issues, including the Dalai Lama's Five Point Plan, human rights law, environmental law, and international negotiations.

Conjunction And Aggregation, Saul Levmore

Michigan Law Review

This Article begins with the puzzle of why the law avoids the issue of conjunctive probability. Mathematically inclined observers might, for example, employ the "product rule," multiplying the probabilities associated with several events or requirements in order to assess a combined likelihood, but judges and lawyers seem otherwise inclined. Courts and statutes might be explicit about the manner in which multiple requirements should be combined, but they are not. Thus, it is often unclear whether a factfinder should assess if condition A was more likely than not to be present - and then go on to see whether condition B …

The William S. Boyd School Of Law Juvenile Justice Clinic, Mary E. Berkheiser

Scholarly Works

This article reviews the work of the Juvenile Justice Clinic at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

My Lai: An American Tragedy, William G. Eckhardt

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Kumho Tire Co. V. Carmichael: The Supreme Court Follows Up On The Daubert Test, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judicial Lobbying At The Wto: The Debate Over The Use Of Amicus Curiae Briefs And The U.S. Experience, Padideh Ala'i

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The continuing debate over the use of amicus curiae briefs at the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) raises interesting questions about the influence of the U.S. legal system on the WTO dispute settlement process. Specifically, it brings to the surface differences between legal cultures and the fact that the U.S. legal culture with its emphasis on procedure is not readily transferable to the WTO. Comparing the controversy regarding the use of amicus curiae briefs before WTO Panels and the Appellate Body with the history and evolution of the institution of amicus curiae before the U.S. Supreme Court may help explain the …

Too Much (Legislation) Is Never Enough: Utilizing A Court's Equity Power To Enjoin Lawful Firearm Sales, 32 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1225 (1999), Edward G. Renner

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federal Bribery Statute And The Ethics Of Purchasing Testimony, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 209 (1999), Camille Knight

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is The Excessive Fines Clause Excessively Kind To Money Launderers, Drug Dealers, And Tax Evaders, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 243 (1999), Ann Jennings Maron

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Restorative Justice: A Conceptual Framework, Jennifer Llewellyn, Robert L. Howse

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Restorative justice has become a fashionable term both in Canadian and foreign legal and social policy discourse. Restorative justice is certainly not a new idea. In fact, it is foundational to our very ideas about law and conflict resolution. There is, nevertheless, a lack of clarity about the meaning of this term. Often it is used as a catchall phrase to refer to any practice which does not look like the mainstream practice of the administration of justice, particularly in the area of criminal justice. Little attention has been spent attempting to articulate what distinguishes a practice as restorative. Rather, …

Book Review, David S. Tanenhaus

Scholarly Works

In his engaging The Supreme Court and Juvenile Justice, political scientist Christopher P. Manfredi argues that Americans in the 1990s are still feeling the powerful and unintended consequences of a trilogy of Supreme Court decisions, Kent v. United States (1966), In re Gault (1967), and In re Winship (1970). In Gault, the most famous of these cases, Justice Abe Fortas announced that it was time for the “constitutional domestication” of the nation’s juvenile courts and began this process by extending limited due process protection to offenders during adjudicatory hearings. Fortas believed that these protections would shield juveniles from unlimited …

Coping With "Loss": A Re-Examination Of Sentencing Federal Economic Crimes Under The Guidelines, Frank O. Bowman, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

The primary determinant of sentence length for federal economic criminals is the amount of "loss" resulting from an offender's conduct.' The idea of basing sentences for economic crimes primarily on "loss" has become the source of ongoing, complex, and proliferating disputes about what the term "loss" really means and how it should be interpreted in particular cases. The "loss" calculation is one of the most frequently litigated issues in federal sentencing law. There are at present splits of opinion between the federal circuits on at least eleven analytically distinct issues concerning the meaning and application of the "loss" concept. Even …

La Preuve Pénale Et Des Tests Génétiques: United States Report, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

A major problem for those analyzing U.S. criminal law and procedure is that it does not fit the Continental or British mold. There is no one single system, but parallel federal and 50 state systems each with its own legislature, laws, courts (including trial, appellate, and supreme courts), police, prosecutors and prisons. The authorities who enact and implement these laws are sovereign within their respective jurisdictions. Each state has police power over its people. The 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution controls allocation of federal and state authority. It provides that whatever the Constitution has not designated as being within …

Deciding The Stop And Frisk Cases: A Look Inside The Supreme Court's Conference, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

In our system of constitutional decision-making, the Supreme Court makes law as an institution in its formal written opinions. The Court and its individual members make their official legal marks in the printed pages of the United States Reports. In June 1968, in Terry v. Ohio and Sibron v. New York, the two decisions that approved the constitutionality under the Fourth Amendment of police stop and frisk practices, the Court filled many official pages with rich discussion. Over the ensuing thirty years, these Court and individual opinions have shaped the course of constitutional analysis in our courts and guided the …