Judges Commons^™

Remembering Judge Hugh R. Jones, Douglas E. Abrams, Mary Lou Crowley

Faculty Publications

Remembering Judge Huge R. Jones

Beyond The Polemic Against Junk Science: Navigating The Oceans That Divide Science And Law With Justice Breyer At The Helm, Joelle A. Moreno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Justice Blackmun, Franz Kafka, And Capital Punishment, Martha Dragich

Faculty Publications

The Article discusses the problem of judging death penalty cases, comparing Justice Blackmun's death penalty jurisprudence to the struggle of a character in Kafka's story. It focuses on three critical moments in the decisional process--hesitation, decision, and escape--and assesses Justice Blackmun's performance at each step. It concludes that although Justice Blackmun's views remained consistent throughout his judicial career, his death penalty legacy is equivocal, and in some important respects, unsatisfying.

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 …

Quality Of Mercy Must Be Restrained, And Other Lessons In Learning To Love The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

In the remarks that follow, I do four things. First, for those unfamiliar with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, I begin by explaining briefly how the Guidelines work. Second, I endeavor to show why Judge Cabranes is wrong, absolutely wrong in declaring the Guidelines a failure, and mostly wrong in the specific criticisms he and others level against the Guidelines. Third, after jousting with Judge Cabranes a bit, I discuss some problems with the current federal sentencing system, most notably the sheer length of narcotics sentences. Finally, I comment briefly on some of the implications of the Guidelines, and the principles …

When Judges Are Gatekeepers: Democracy, Morality, Status, And Empathy In Duty Decisions (Help From Ordinary Citizens), Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Imagine that you are eighteen and you have just graduated from high school. Even though you have no cognitive disability and have spent twelve years of your life attending public schools, you are functionally illiterate. If your predicament was caused by negligent educators, your action for educational malpractice would be called a "failure to educate" case and it would be denied.

Or, imagine that you enter a public school kindergarten class and you are examined by the school's psychologist. On the basis of a verbal intelligence test, the psychologist concludes that you are mentally retarded. In reality, you have …

Introduction: The Voices And Groups That Will Preserve (What We Can Preserve Of) Judicial Independence, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

As the 1996 election year commenced, the leading issues of the day included welfare reform, late-term abortions, Bosnia, immigration, drugs, taxes, the budget deficit, and the budget impasse that had shut parts of the federal government. The "hot" national issues did not include judicial philosophy, federal judicial appointments, individual judges or particular judicial decisions. Within weeks, however, that changed, thanks to a single judicial opinion. On January 22, 1996, United States District Judge Harold Baer, Jr., decided a pretrial motion to suppress evidence in the then (and now) obscure New York federal drug prosecution of a woman from Detroit named …

Judicial Knowledge, William B. Fisch

Faculty Publications

This paper reviews rules governing the use by judges in United States courts of their personal knowledge - as distinguished from that supplied by the parties in the adjudication of a civil case, whether of the particular facts out of which the dispute arises, or of general information with which the particular facts must be processed, or of law which is to be applied to the particular facts.

Art Of Judicial Biography, Michael J. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Catalogue Of Judicial Federalism In The United States, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Bibliography For The United States Courts Of Appeals, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Relevance Of Administrative Considerations In The Judicial Decisionmaking Process: A Kantian Perspective, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

This essay examines and analyzes the role of administrative considerations in the judicial decisionmaking process. The central issue is the extent to which administrative factors, such as concerns for efficiency, minimization of complexity, ease of proof, consistency of holdings, and predictability of future decisions, may be properly taken into account by courts in rendering decisions and weighed against rights granted under substantive law. Put another way, the question presented is: To what extent may a court invoke administrative considerations to reach a result different from what otherwise would be the just solution? The analysis will proceed in two steps. …

Justice Scalia: Standing, Environmental Law And The Supreme Court, Michael A. Perino

Faculty Publications

President Reagan's appointment of Antonin Scalia to the United States Supreme Court raises concern among liberals that Justice Scalia will help lead the Court away from a number of liberal positions toward a new conservatism. The Reagan Administration's requirement that judicial appointments advance the Administration's preference for judicial restraint and strict constructionism enhances this concern. These new executive requirements mean that federal courts should accord greater authority to the democratically elected branches of the government. Justice Scalia's primary areas of study, administrative law and separation of powers, reflect his adherence to judicial self-restraint.

One aspect of administrative law and separation …

Judicial Independence And The Rule Of Law, Jonathan Van Patten

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Compendium Of Proposals To Reform The United States Courts Of Appeals, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

Judge Ginsburg has provided a judge's-eye view of the work of a United States Court of Appeals in her Dunwody Lecture.'From her perspective as a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit, she has done a fine job describing the process of deciding appellate cases and composing a reasoned decision. But simply describing" things as they are" in the decisional process will not suffice in this article for two reasons. First, Judge Ginsburg has already done that, as have other judges.

Playing With Numbers: Determining The Majority Of Judges Required To Grant En Banc Sittings In The United States Court Of Appeals, James J. Wheaton

Faculty Publications

This note addresses the effects that these two interests -- majority control of circuit law and judicial integrity -- have on the appropriate definition of majority. Neither legislative history nor Supreme Court constructions of section 46(c) provide an unambiguous rule, and interpretation of the majority requirement remains within the authority of each circuit. The Judicial Conference of the United States, at its meeting in September 1984, recommended that each circuit clearly describe its en banc voting procedures. This note delineates considerations that may assist the circuit courts in their efforts to outline the method by which they should order en …

Recent Developments In West German Civil Procedure, William B. Fisch

Faculty Publications

The most comprehensive description of the West German civil litigation system to appear in United States law journals, a much-admired, practice-oriented work by two United States law professors and a Hamburg judge, was published twenty-five years ago. At that moment, a commission of experts, appointed in 1955 by the Federal Ministry of Justice and called the Commission to Prepare a Reform of Civil Justice, was already deep into a thorough reexamination of the entire West German system. The stimuli for this reexamination were the eternal devils of judicial procedure everywhere: technicality, inaccessibility, and above all, delay and cost. In 1961, …

The Allen Instruction In Criminal Cases: Is The Dynamite Charge About To Be Permanently Defused?, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

One Man’S Stand For Freedom: Opinions And Lectures Of Mr. Justice Hugo Black, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Publications

This review champions the editor’s use of Mr. Justice Black’s own opinions in showcasing his emphasis of the emancipating aspects of the Constitution. This work cautions the reader to avoid relying on this compilation as an accurate depiction of the state of the law, especially considering that most of the included opinions are dissents.