Judges Commons^™

New Certiorari And A National Study Of The Appeals Courts, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Elitism, Expediency, and the New Certiorari: Requiem for the Learned Hand Tradition is a thought-provoking critique of the United States Courts of Appeals. Professors William Richman and William Reynolds maintain that dramatic increases in appellate filings have transformed the appeals courts during the last quarter-century, prompting systemic constriction of procedural opportunities, particularly for parties with few resources or little power. The authors find these changes profoundly troubling and propose that Congress radically expand the number of appellate judges.

Individuals and institutions, such as expert study committees, which have analyzed the federal courts, agree with much of the authors' descriptive assessment. …

The Judiciary And Presidential Power In Foreign Affairs: A Critique, David Gray Adler

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

The aim of the first section is to examine the judiciary's contribution to executive hegemony in the area of foreign affairs as manifested in Supreme Court rulings regarding executive agreements, travel abroad, the war power, and treaty termination. In the second section of this article, I provide a brief explanation of the policy underlying the Constitutional Convention's allocation of foreign affairs powers and argue that those values are as relevant and compelling today as they were two centuries ago. In the third section, I contend that a wide gulf has developed in the past fifty years between constitutional theory and …

An Unsuccessful Attempt To Restore Justice George Sutherland's Tarnished Reputation: A Review Essay, Gary C. Leedes

University of Richmond Law Review

Justice George Sutherland (1862-1942) is the subject and hero of Professor Hadley Arkes's laudatory new biography. Arkes portrays Sutherland as a judge "who had found the ground of [his] jurisprudence in 'natural rights." Although history has not treated the Justice kindly, Arkes attempts to reverse history's verdict.

Standards Of Judicial Review In The Virginia Administrative Process Act, Mary Renae Carter

University of Richmond Law Review

Section 9-6.14:17 of the Virginia Administrative Process Act sets forth two standards by which courts may review the validity of a state agency's decisions. In formal rulemaking and adjudicatory proceedings, the statute requires an agency to keep a record of all evidence it receives and to make decisions based on this record. Upon review, a court will look to see if there is "substantial evidence" in the record to support the agency's findings of fact. In informal rulemaking and adjudicatory proceedings, the statute does not require an agency to keep an evidentiary record. If the agency has not voluntarily made …

The Judiciary And Presidential Power In Foreign Affairs: A Critique, David Gray Adler

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

The aim of the first section is to examine the judiciary's contribution to executive hegemony in the area of foreign affairs as manifested in Supreme Court rulings regarding executive agreements, travel abroad, the war power, and treaty termination. In the second section of this article, I provide a brief explanation of the policy underlying the Constitutional Convention's allocation of foreign affairs powers and argue that those values are as relevant and compelling today as they were two centuries ago. In the third section, I contend that a wide gulf has developed in the past fifty years between constitutional theory and …

Judge William W. Schwarzer And Automatic Disclosure, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Tribute to Senior United States District Judge William W. Schwarzer upon his retirement as Director of the Federal Judicial Center.

Increasing Balance On The Federal Bench, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

In President Bill Clinton's first year of service, he nominated unprecedented numbers and percentages of highly qualified women and minorities to the federal judiciary. The Clinton Administration correspondingly employed an effective process for choosing potential jurists that generated relatively little controversy.

Some wondered whether President Clinton could improve his first year judicial selection record during his second year in office, especially given the number of international conflicts and pressing domestic matters that faced the Administration. These complications threatened to deflect the Administration's attention from naming judges.

Now that the 103d Congress has adjourned and President Clinton has reached mid-term, the …

Liteky V. United States: The Supreme Court Restricts The Disqualification Of Biased Federal Judges Under Section 455(A), Lori M. Mcpherson

University of Richmond Law Review

One of the basic tenets of our judicial system is the right of litigants to have a neutral and impartial judge preside over their case. Over the last two hundred years, American legislatures and courts have sought to "secure the impartiality of trial judges by requiring judges to disqualify themselves in various circumstances." The latest Supreme Court case to consider the issue of judicial disqualification was Liteky v. United States.

A Typology Of Transjudicial Communication, Anne-Marie Slaughter

University of Richmond Law Review

Courts are talking to one another all over the world. Mary Ann Glendon describes a "brisk international traffic in ideas about rights," conducted by judges. "In Europe generally," she adds, "and in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, national law is increasingly caught up in a process of cross-fertilization among legal systems."

Diversifying The Judiciary: The Influence Of Gender And Race Of Judging, Susan Moloney Smith

University of Richmond Law Review

In 1978, political scientist Beverly Blair Cook wrote Women Judges: The End of Tokenism for a publication of the National Center for State Courts. She observed that the "national proportion of women judges has matched the national proportion of women lawyers on a time lag basis." She compared the number of women law graduates with the number of women judges, finding that in the 1960s, women composed 1-2% of the legal profession and accounted for 1-2% ofjudges. With women repre- senting 4% of all law graduates in the 1960s, the number of women judges increased to 4% in the 1970s. …

Dear Judge Mikva, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

I am writing to urge that you apply in the executive branch the considerable expertise which you attained and honed over a lifetime of service in the legislative and judicial branches of our tripartite system of government, to the critical task of federal judicial selection that uniquely partakes of those coordinate branches.

The D.C. Circuit As A National Court, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Every President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has appointed lawyers from across the country to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ("D.C. Circuit") and has been accused of ignoring the members of the D.C. Bar. The tradition of nationwide recruitment for appointment to the D.C. Circuit has served the District and the nation well, yielding some of the court's and America's finest judges.

The practice of seeking nominees nationally to fill vacancies on the D.C. Circuit recently faced a serious challenge. Many members of the D.C. Bar, who have long opposed this practice, developed a …

The Gender Gap On The Montana State Bench, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Governor Racicot should expeditiously and forcefully act to remedy the gender gap on the state courts for many reasons. First, there is a significant, highly qualified, pool of female attorneys in Montana who could render excellent judicial service. Numerous women have participated in the types of rigorous legal practices which would prepare them well for the bench. These female lawyers are intelligent, industrious, and independent, while they have exhibited the kind of impeccable integrity and appropriately measured judicial temperament to be fine judges. Some of the attorneys have engaged in challenging public law practices, others have been involved in rigorous …

President Clinton's Covenant And The Federal Courts, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

President Bill Clinton has eloquently invoked the concept of a new covenant with the American people. Claiming that the populace elected him with a mandate for change, the President has appointed individuals to high-level positions, particularly in the Cabinet, who have made the new government look like America. In no branch of the federal government are these ideas more apposite than the Third Branch.

Rethinking Federal Judicial Selection, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The inauguration of President Bill Clinton, who will appoint more than three hundred new federal judges, affords an auspicious occasion for rethinking the process of federal judicial selection. The current federal bench, two-thirds of whose members were appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, reflects increased conservatism and is quite homogeneous in terms of race, gender, and political perspectives. For instance, President Reagan appointed a dramatically smaller, and President Bush named a substantially lower, percentage of African-Americans than did President Jimmy Carter. The Republican chief executives made these appointments although they had much larger, more experienced, pools of female …

Keeping The Covenant On The Federal Courts, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

When Governor Clinton was campaigning for the presidency, he contended that the federal court appointments of President Ronald Reagan and President George Bush significantly reduced the diversity that President Jimmy Carter had strongly promoted. Candidate Clinton pledged, if elected President, to rectify that situation. Since the election, Bill Clinton has fulfilled his promise by naming to the judiciary outstanding attorneys who reflect the diverse composition of American society. Now that President Clinton has completed his initial year of service, it is important to analyze the Clinton Administration's record of choosing judges to ascertain precisely how the President has kept his …

Closing The Gender Gap On The Federal Courts, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

When the Bush Administration placed comparatively few women on the bench during its initial half-term, I criticized President Bush's mediocre record. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Bush Administration ultimately appointed an unprecedented percentage of women to the federal courts; 36 of the 192 judges President Bush appointed were women (18.7%).

Notwithstanding the Bush Administration's efforts, the percentage of female judges remains significantly lower than the representation of women in the legal profession. Moreover, President Bush left 100 open judgeships. These vacancies mean that President Bill Clinton can greatly increase the numbers and percentages of female judges and …

Expanding The Judicial Power Of The Administrative Law Judge To Establish Efficiency And Fairness In Administrative Adjudication, C. Stuart Greer

University of Richmond Law Review

How is an administrative law judge ("ALJ") to know his role in the modern bureaucracy? On the one hand, the law requires the ALJ to adjudicate legal disputes between the government agency and the individual, and on the other hand, a black-robed member of the judicial branch in- structs him that he is out of his jurisdiction. Who wins in this decades-long battle for turf?

The President And The Federal Bench, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias assesses the efforts of the George H.W. Bush Administration in appointing women and African-Americans to the federal bench.

The Failure Of Felix Frankfurter, Melvin I. Urofsky

University of Richmond Law Review

There is, unfortunately, no way one can predict whether a person appointed to the Supreme Court will be a great justice or a mediocre one. The nomination of John Marshall, for example, evoked numerous complaints about his lack of ability. The Philadelphia Aurora characterized him as "more distinguished as a rhetorician and sophist than as a lawyer and statesman," and the Senate, in fact, delayed its confirmation vote for a week hoping President John Adams would change his mind. When Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis D. Brandeis to the Court in 1916, pillars of the bar crowded into the Senate judiciary …

Making Judicial Nominees Answer Senate Questions, John Paul Jones

Law Faculty Publications

Prof. Jones discusses the congressional powers to conduct investigations and compel answers from individuals versus the prospective judge's interest in impartiality in the of judicial nomination hearings.

More Women Named Federal Judges, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The essay initially assesses information pertinent to President Bush's record of appointments to the federal bench during his first three years in office. The prospects for future appointment of women are explored next. Finding these prospects inconclusive, this essay suggests that President Bush continue employing the constructive measures initiated during his administration's third year to name additional women while seriously considering the possibility of instituting even more vigorous efforts to appoint women in the future. Finally, the essay examines why greater numbers of women should be placed on the federal courts and how that goal can be attained.

Judicial Discretion And The 1983 Amendments To The Federal Civil Rules, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The first section of this Article briefly describes the developments which created the perception that the federal courts were experiencing a litigation explosion and which ultimately led to the promulgation of the 1983 amendments as one response to the perceived explosion. It also examines the substantive content of those changes, especially how the revisions enlarged federal judicial discretion. The second section evaluates the courts' implementation of the 1983 amendments and finds that this application has adversely affected numerous litigants, particularly civil rights plaintiffs, while providing some benefits, namely fostering more expeditious dispute resolution.

The third section provides suggestions for the …

The Theory And Practice Of Defending Judges Against Unjust Criticism, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

Having set forth the above premise and conclusion, the American Bar Association Subcommittee on Unjust Criticism of the Bench promulgated a model program for bar associations to follow when countering inaccurate or unjust criticism of judges. This article presents no quarrel with the model program but instead seeks to relate the model to an empirical account of how it might operate in practice. It must be remembered that the acid test of a theoretical model is not whether the theory is "true" in a purely academic sense but whether the model is useful in describing the "real world. " In …

The Gender Gap On The Federal Bench, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

This Commentary evaluates President George H.W. Bush's lackluster record of appointing women to the federal courts. The Commentary initially examines the relevant data on female judicial appointments and assesses why the Bush Administration has placed few women on the bench. It next recommends that President Bush name substantially more women in 1991 and 1992 and explores why and how this endeavor should be instituted. The Commentary then analyzes what the Bush Administration is likely to do about the paucity of female appointees. Because it is not clear that President Bush will place very many women on the federal courts, the …

The Federal Judiciary Engendered, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The dearth of women named to cabinet level positions in the George H.W. Bush Administration does not augur well for appointment of women to the federal bench. Equally discouraging was Mr. Bush's campaign response to the question whether there should be special efforts to select more women for the federal judiciary: "[I] remain committed to appointing to the bench the best qualified candidates we can find-regardless of ... gender--and the record shows that we have been successful in fulfilling this commitment. " The record compiled by the Administration in which he served as Vice-President for two terms was deplorable.

To …

When Racists And Radicals Meet, Ronald J. Bacigal, Margaret Ivey Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

In order to stimulate scholarly discussion, this Essay presents an empirical account of the Greensboro incident from the perspective of those who participated in the episode and in the resulting civil rights trial. The Essay traces the circumstances leading to the violence and reviews the resultant litigation with special attention given to the role of the trial judge in politically volatile cases. The candid reflections offered by the trial judge and other participants allow the reader to examine both the event and the litigation, not merely in the abstract, but as implemented by flesh-andblood lawyers, litigants, and judges. .

Judicial Reflections Upon The 1973 Uprising At Wounded Knee, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

This essay presents a view of Wounded Knee from the perspective of federal district judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr., who was part of a judicial task force sent to South Dakota in 1973. Viewing Wounded Knee from the perspective of a trial judge discloses the social forces underlying Wounded Knee and also provides insights into the role of a trial judge in politically sensitive cases.

An Empirical Case Study Of Informal Alternative Dispute Resolution, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

The following Article is taken from that portion of Merhige's biography that addresses the Westinghouse uranium case of the 1970s, perhaps the first of the major "complex cases" to attract national attention. This case study provides an opportunity to examine a judicial decision making process involving four years of litigation, international discovery proceedings, judicial administrative guidelines, diverse national precepts of economics and politics, the interplay between the free market and multinational cartels and embargoes, and lastly, the personality of the trial judge. Shunning any pretense of passivity, Merhige initiated proceedings in the Westinghouse case by ignoring administrative protocol in order …

A Tribute To Malcolm Ray Doubles, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

The University of Richmond Law Review respectfully dedicates this issue to the memory of Malcolm Ray Doubles, 1900-1987. Judge Doubles earned his B.S. degree at Davidson College and his law degree at the T.C. Williams School of Law. He practiced with the Richmond law firm of Carter, Crawford and Redd before leaving to become a full-time law professor at the T.C. Williams School of Law. He served as dean of the law school from 1930 to 1947 and from 1971 to 1972, and as Judge of the Hustings Court of Richmond from 1947 to 1965. The pages that follow serve …