Judges Commons^™

Formalism And Fairness: Matthew Deady And Federal Public Land Law In The Early West, Ralph James Mooney

Washington Law Review

By 1880 Congress had passed nearly 3000 statutes granting or regulating parts of the public domain. Administrative and judicial case loads increased correspondingly, as many thousands of claims had to be verified and recorded and growing numbers of disputes adjudicated. This article recalls an early far-west chapter of the story, a remarkable series of decisions by Oregon federal district Judge Matthew P. Deady interpreting the cornerstone of Pacific Northwest public land law, the 1850 Oregon Donation Act. Although Deady decided other public land law questions as well, it is his Donation Act decisions helping to determine ownership of the Portland …

Formalism And Fairness: Matthew Deady And Federal Public Land Law In The Early West, Ralph James Mooney

Washington Law Review

By 1880 Congress had passed nearly 3000 statutes granting or regulating parts of the public domain. Administrative and judicial case loads increased correspondingly, as many thousands of claims had to be verified and recorded and growing numbers of disputes adjudicated. This article recalls an early far-west chapter of the story, a remarkable series of decisions by Oregon federal district Judge Matthew P. Deady interpreting the cornerstone of Pacific Northwest public land law, the 1850 Oregon Donation Act. Although Deady decided other public land law questions as well, it is his Donation Act decisions helping to determine ownership of the Portland …

Protecting The Appearance Of Judicial Impartiality In The Face Of Law Clerk Employment Negotiations, Kevin D. Swan

Washington Law Review

This Comment examines the relationship among judges, law clerks, and the requirements placed on both to maintain the appearance of impartiality. It also addresses current standards applied to this problem and evaluates those standards based on the policies behind the cases and rules governing conflicts of interest. It analyzes what circumstances mandate removal of clerks from cases, as well as what circumstances mandate the removal of the clerks' respective judges. Finally, this Comment proposes a rule of professional responsibility for judges and clerks to follow when the clerks are involved in employment negotiations, and suggests the implementation of training and …

The Appearance Of Fairness Doctrine: A Conflict In Values, Carolyn M. Van Noy

Washington Law Review

This Comment compares the appearance of fairness doctrine with the Washington State Code of Judicial Conduct and shows that abandoning the doctrine and substituting the Code and due process would not resolve the conflict between independence and accountability, but would further exacerbate it. Rather, the appearance of fairness doctrine, modified by the 1982 appearance of fairness statute, is a standard that accommodates the conflict inherent in any bias standard applied to elected and appointed officials. The legislative modifications, however, fall short of the need for a clearly defined doctrine that provides guidance and certainty for the decisionmakers and the courts. …

The Jury's Historic Domain In Complex Cases, Roger W. Kirst

Washington Law Review

Part I of this article will review the major developments in the complexity debate. Part II will discuss the development and modem employment of the judge-jury historical test. Part III will examine how the judge-jury historical test accommodates both judicial control of the jury and a political role for the jury. Part IV will discuss how application of the judge-jury historical test will permit judges to use new or expanded powers, such as direct judicial factfinding on some issues in complex cases. Part V will compare the judge-jury historical test with other approaches to the complexity problem.

Ethical Conduct In A Judicial Campaign: Is Campaigning An Ethical Activity?, J. Scott Gary

Washington Law Review

The purpose of this comment is twofold. First, through a comprehensive survey of the codes that comprise the sources of legal ethics, the comment elucidates a body of ethical law governing the conduct of candidates in a judicial campaign. Second, after identifying the basic principle found to underlie these ethical codes, this comment argues that the scope of permissible judicial campaigning should be strictly confined.

The Court Years 1939-1975: The Autobiography Of William O. Douglas (1980), Ralph S. Tyler

Washington Law Review

Few Americans would claim objectivity on the subject of William O. Douglas. He inspired powerful reactions. I start by stating my deeply held admiration for Justice Douglas, a respect nurtured at a distance and from his writings. His writings brought Douglas the man and Douglas the Justice close to many who never met him. His words show him to be a man who cared profoundly about the world, its people, his country, and the law. Decades of American law students, particularly those like me who studied law in the 1960's and 1970's, listened to Justice Douglas, whether he was in …

The Ways Of A Judge: Reflections From The Federal Appellate Bench, By Frank M. Coffin (1980), Eugene A. Wright

Washington Law Review

Here is a book for which we judges have been waiting, but it is one that should be required reading for others, both within and without the profession. It comes at a time when much public attention and criticism have been directed toward the courts, the news media have given wide coverage to pending and decided cases, and an extraordinary number of federal judges have resigned their offices for more lucrative endeavors.

The Ways Of A Judge: Reflections From The Federal Appellate Bench, By Frank M. Coffin (1980), Eugene A. Wright

Washington Law Review

Here is a book for which we judges have been waiting, but it is one that should be required reading for others, both within and without the profession. It comes at a time when much public attention and criticism have been directed toward the courts, the news media have given wide coverage to pending and decided cases, and an extraordinary number of federal judges have resigned their offices for more lucrative endeavors.

Is Washington Ready For Merit Selection Of Judges, Hugh D. Spitzer, William S. Bailey

Articles

In 1980, Seattle established a judicial merit selection process for the Seattle Municipal Court, based on an approach used in many other jurisdictions and by the federal government under President Carter. The Seattle plan represents the first time a merit selection commission of lawyers and lay people has been used for nonfederal appointments in Washington. The two individuals subsequently appointed to the Seattle Municipal Court have gone through one of this state's most rigorous judicial selection processes.

In this article, we will review how judges are presently selected in this state, the various methods of choosing judges in other jurisdictions …

Dedication To William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan, Jr.

Washington Law Review

Short remarks on the passing of Justice William O. Douglas.

Mr. Justice Douglas, L. A. Powe, Jr.

Washington Law Review

"The average American," according to William O. Douglas, "is an independent, rough and ready kind of fellow who wants to take a swing on his own." That statement goes a long way toward describing Douglas himself. Given his drive and intelligence, however, it would be inappropriate to equate Douglas with the "average American." He was, as his more than forty years of public service demonstrated, one of the extraordinary Americans in our history.

Toward A Judicial Role For The Twenty-First Century, Charles L. Black, Jr.

Washington Law Review

Tonight, I am shifting to a new perspective in time. I would ask you to think of us as standing at a midpoint, just about equally distant from the decision in Brown v. Board of Education and the beginning of a new century, some twenty-three years back and forward. I remember the day the Brown case was decided; I learned of it, on a May afternoon still fragrant, from a group of Columbia law students in the drugstore-luncheonette on the corner of 116th Street and Broadway in New York. If you remember that day, or some other day in that …

Political Battles For Judicial Independence, William H. Rehnquist

Washington Law Review

There is a tendency among present and former law students to think that the development of the nature and extent of the authority of the federal judiciary, and of the Supreme Court of the United States in particular, may be found in the celebrated cases decided by that Court. To an extent this is undoubtedly true. However, at least two major political struggles in this nation have had as much to do with defining the nature of the judicial power in the federal system as anybut a handful of the major decisions of the Supreme Court. No reported judicial decision …

Disqualifying Federal District Judges Without Cause, Peter A. Galbraith

Washington Law Review

This Comment will examine the desirability of adopting a without cause disqualification procedure to allow either party to remove a federal district judge from a particular case. After a discussion of the need for disqualification mechanisms, existing procedures for removal, either from a particular case or from the bench entirely, are discussed. Proposals for change, especially the Bayh bills, are outlined and evaluated in light of the practical problems peculiar to the federal district courts. The Comment concludes that a procedure to disqualify federal district judges without cause, as contained in the Bayh bills, is sound and should be adopted. …

Judicial Self-Restraint: Political Questions And Malapportionment, Stephen R. Mitchell

Washington Law Review

Justice Felix Frankfurter, dissenting in the Tennessee Reapportionment Case, characterized the holding of that decision as "a massive repudiation of the experience of our whole past." Whether or not this is true we may presently discover, but in the meanwhile Baker v. Carr may safely be described as a truly momentous constitutional decision. Without wishing to labor the obvious, legislative apportionment can be a violently partisan problem which, in the normal course of things, we might expect the Court to bend every effort to avoid. It is an area in which judicial standards are elusive and in which judicial remedies …

Introduction—A Tribute To Justice Douglas, Chief Justice Earl Warren

Washington Law Review

The decision of the University of Washington Law Review to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mr. Justice Douglas on the Supreme Court of the United States is doubly appropriate. In the first place, his achievements during that important period of his life are in all respects worthy of review and contemplation. Secondly, it is fitting that a University of the great Northwest should make the synthesis at this midway stage of his brilliant judicial career because he is as much a Westerner in the old tradition as is to be found in public life today. Born in the Midwest, reared …

Constitutional Law—Federal Recess Appointments, Theordore Roodner

Washington Law Review

Allocco, who had been convicted of a narcotics violation by a jury, petitioned a United States District Court to grant his motion for release under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, alleging that his conviction should be set aside because the judge who sat at his trial was not properly appointed to his office so as to be able to exercise the judicial power conferred by U.S. Const. art. III. The district court denied his motion and the court of appeals affirmed. This was the first federal decision in recent times to deal directly with the recess appointment power and the first …

Elections, Alfred Harsch

Washington Law Review

Covers primary and general elections for judges.

Should Canon 35 Of The Code Of Judicial Ethics Be Revised?, George H. Boldt

Washington Law Review

An address delivered at the American Bar Association regional meeting in Portland, Oregon, May 26, 1954; and before the Judicial Administration Section of the American Bar Association at Chicago, August 16, 1954.

Report Of Committee On The Retirement Of Judges, Alfred J. Schweppe

Washington Law Review

In December of 1946 the Committee on the Selection of Judges circulated the bar with a postcard ballot, covering mandatory retirement of judges at the age of seventy-five. The ballot resulted as follows: Total vote cast .......................... 942 In favor ......................................753 Opposed ...................................144 No opinion .................................. 45 The Committee on the Selection of Judges, which circulated that ballot, suggested a proposed constitutional provision carry compulsory retirement into effect in connection with an appropriate retirement plan to be established by the Legislature. That Committee accepted the view previously expressed by the State Judicial Council (to which the subject had earlier been …

Observations From A Trial Bench, Ralph O. Olson

Washington Law Review

An address delivered at the Law School Banquet, University of Washington, on April 18, 1947.

Judicial Salaries In Washington: The Chart On The Opposite Page Contains Some Interesting Facts And Figures, S. Harold Shefelman

Washington Law Review

The compensation paid the judges of both the Supreme Court and the Superior Courts of the State of Washington has remained unchanged since it was set by the Legislature of 1919 (Laws of Washington 1919, Ch. 77, See. 1, page 154) except for a slight adjustment upward with respect to the salaries of Superior Court judges in Class A counties by the Legislature of 1923 (Laws of Washington 1923, Ch. 169, page 545). The many changes that have transpired since 1919, all bearing directly on the question of the adequacy or inadequacy of the judges' salaries as, for example, the …

The Judicial Council Movement, Charles H. Paul

Washington Law Review

Out of the chaos of ill conceived reform legislation, piecemeal attempts at judicial improvement, and general failure to achieve concrete results in remedying the defects in our legal procedure, there has evolved a nation wide movement for the formation of Judicial Councils to aid in solving our procedural problems. Knowledge of this movement is important to Washington lawyers because the Washington State Bar Association at its convention in August recommended the creation of a Judicial Council for Washington, and a special committee of the bar will be appointed to secure the passage of a Judicial Council act at the next …