Judges Commons^™

Bending The Rules Of Evidence, Edward K. Cheng, G. Alexander Nunn, Julia Simon-Kerr

Faculty Scholarship

The evidence rules have well-established, standard textual meanings—meanings that evidence professors teach their law students every year. Yet, despite the rules’ clarity, courts misapply them across a wide array of cases: Judges allow past acts to bypass the propensity prohibition, squeeze hearsay into facially inapplicable exceptions, and poke holes in supposedly ironclad privileges. And that’s just the beginning.

The evidence literature sees these misapplications as mistakes by inept trial judges. This Article takes a very different view. These “mistakes” are often not mistakes at all, but rather instances in which courts are intentionally bending the rules of evidence. Codified evidentiary …

Twenty Years After Krieger V Law Society Of Alberta: Law Society Discipline Of Crown Prosecutors And Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Krieger v. Law Society of Alberta held that provincial and territorial law societies have disciplinary jurisdiction over Crown prosecutors for conduct outside of prosecutorial discretion. The reasoning in Krieger would also apply to government lawyers. The apparent consensus is that law societies rarely exercise that jurisdiction. But in those rare instances, what conduct do Canadian law societies discipline Crown prosecutors and government lawyers for? In this article, I canvass reported disciplinary decisions to demonstrate that, while law societies sometimes discipline Crown prosecutors for violations unique to those lawyers, they often do so for violations applicable to all lawyers — particularly …

Inclusiveness: Advancing Environmental Justice In A Diverse Democracy, Irma S. Russell, Alexandra D. Dunn

Faculty Works

Today, environmental justice (EJ) is more than a significant and meaningful social movement. EJ has now emerged—after at least five decades—as a major initiative for the federal government and for many state governments. Since the beginnings of the EJ movement, its proponents have sought redress for the disproportionate and negative impacts of generations of environmental policy and siting decisions that resulted in adverse effects on the health, environment, economics, and climate of disadvantaged communities. Scientific research and “big data” programs now provide evidence supporting community EJ claims, and laws such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction …

Four Pathbreaking Women Judges To Participate In Iu Conference And Public Discussion Monday, Sept. 25, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Four distinguished women judges from the Middle East and North Africa—including the first female judge in Jordanian history—will visit the Indiana University Bloomington campus Sept. 25-26 for a conference titled “Women Judges in Dialogue,” where they will discuss their own experience as women in the judiciary as well as issues surrounding constitutional adjudication in the region. They will be joined by faculty from the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies and the Maurer School of Law.

Sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Middle East (CSME) at HLS and the Center for Constitutional Democracy (CCD) …

The Authenticity Of The Judicial Control Records In Evidence In The Palestinian Law: A Comparative Study, Qais Qatanani

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

There is no doubt that the criminal judge enjoys a wide discretion when weighing the evidence and determining the extent of its strength when forming his certain conviction, whether it is related to the evidence concluded by the accusing authority or what was raised before the court in the case. However, the reader of the legal texts cited by the Palestinian legislator in procedural law that talk about the freedom of the criminal judge to be convinced; notes the extent of its generality and its lack of a general framework that shows how limited that freedom enjoyed by the judge …

Counting To Four: The History And Future Of Wisconsin's Fractured Supreme Court, Jeffrey A. Mandell, Daniel J. Schneider

Marquette Law Review

Over the past decade, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has issued “fractured” opinions—decisions without majority support for any one legal rationale supporting the outcome—at an alarming clip. These opinions have confounded legal analysts, attorneys, and government officials due to their lack of majority reasoning, but also due to their length and the court’s particular procedures for assigning, drafting, and labelling opinions. This has become especially problematic where the court has issued fractured opinions in areas core to the basic functioning of state and local government, leaving the state without clear precedential guidance on what the law is. Yet, virtually no one …

Disparities On Judicial Conduct Commissions, Nino C. Monea

Marquette Law Review

Every state has a judicial conduct commission responsible for investigating complaints against judges and issuing sanctions where appropriate. But the judicial disciplinary system needs fixing. This Article examines 466 cases of public discipline from five states to illustrate the shortcomings of the present system. The status quo hides judicial misconduct from the public, fails to punish judges who abuse their office, and gives judges greater protections than criminal defendants, even when the stakes are lower.

A Theory Of Racialized Judicial Decision-Making, Raquel Muñiz

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In this Article, I introduce a theory of racialized judicial decision-making as a framework to explain how judicial decision-making as a system contributes to creating and maintaining the racial hierarchy in the United States. Judicial decision-making, I argue, is itself a racialized systemic process in which judges transpose racially-bounded cognitive schemas as they make decisions. In the process, they assign legal burdens differentially across ethnoracial groups, to the disproportionate detriment of ethnoracial minorities. After presenting this argument, I turn to three mechanisms at play in racialized judicial decision-making: (1) whiteness as capital that increases epistemic advantages in the judicial process, …

When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury, And Executioner: Justice In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence (Book Review), Stacy Fowler

Faculty Articles

In When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury, and Executioner, former federal judge Katherine Forrest raises concerns over the pervasive use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the American justice system to produce risks and need assessments (RNA) regarding the probability of recidivism for citizens charged with a crime. Forrest’s argument centers on AI’s primary focus on utilitarian outcomes when assessing liberty for individual citizens. This approach leads Forrest to the conclusion that in its current form, AI is “ill-suited to the criminal justice context.” Forrest contends that AI should instead be programmed to focus on John Rawl’ 'concept of justice as …

How Are You Holding Up? The State Of Judges' Well-Being: A Report On The 2019 National Judicial, Terry A. Maroney, David X. Swenson, Joan Bibelhausen, David Marc

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Judges have always faced significant stressors, including the burden of consequential decision-making, exposure to disturbing evidence, and isolation. While every judicial assignment has its own mix of concerns, challenge is a constant. Recurrent experiences of serious stressors place judges at risk of burn-out, secondary trauma, poor mental and physical health, and substance use disorders.

Historically, such issues have been addressed primarily in the context of judicial fitness - that is, only when individual judges were suffering to the degree that they could no longer competently perform their duties would the system respond, and then usually for the purpose of discipline …

African Courts And International Human Rights Law, John Mukum Mbaku

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and since then, the international community, with the help of the United Nations, has adopted other international human rights instruments designed to recognize and protect human rights. Since international human rights instruments do not automatically confer rights that are justiciable in domestic courts, each African country must domesticate these instruments in order to create rights that are justiciable in its domestic courts. Given the fact that many African countries have not yet domesticated the core international human rights instruments, international human rights law’s ability to positively impact …

Texans Shortlisted For The U.S. Supreme Court: Why Did Lightning Only Strike Once?, The Honorable John G. Browning

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Former Colombian Constitutional Judge And Ut-Austin Professor Join Ccd Board, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

On Friday, August 11, and following the recent appointment of Brady Harman and Greg Zoeller, the Center for Constitutional Democracy added two new members to its Advisory Board: Professor Richard Albert (University of Texas at Austin) and Justice Manuel Cepeda (former President of the Constitutional Court of Colombia).

Judicial Selection That Fails The Separation Of Powers, Stephen Ware

Catholic University Law Review

Executive power should be constrained by checks and balances. The United States’ long and strong tradition of concerns about executive power, and its complementary tradition of Madisonian checks and balances on and to the executive, include the selection of supreme court justices. Neither the U.S. Constitution nor the constitution of any state places solely in the executive the power to appoint a justice to begin a new term on the (federal or state) supreme court. However, several states fail to constrain gubernatorial power in selecting justices to finish a term already started by another justice and these interim appointments are …

Ethics At The Speed Of Business, James A. Doppke Jr.

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

This paper discusses several ways in which the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, and the Illinois Supreme Court Rules, construct barriers that prevent lawyers and businesses from accomplishing reasonable commercial goals. Often, those barriers arise from outdated concepts, or terminology that does not reflect current business realities. The paper argues for the amendment of specific Rules to enhance lawyers’ and businesses’ respective abilities to conduct their affairs more efficiently, without sacrificing public protection in the process.

Law School News: A More Perfect Union Through A Diverse Judiciary 08-07-2023, Gregory W. Bowman

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Legal Clutter: How Concurring Opinions Create Unnecessary Confusion And Encourage Litigation, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

Good judges are clear writers. And clear writers avoid legal clutter. Legal clutter occurs when judges publish multiple individually written opinions that are neither useful nor necessary. This essay argues that concurring opinions are the worst form of legal clutter. Unlike majority opinions, concurring opinions are legal asides, musings of sorts—often by a single judge—that add length and confusion to an opinion often without adding meaningful value. Concurring opinions do not change the outcome of a case. Unlike dissenting opinions, they do not claim disagreement with the ultimate decision. Instead, concurring opinions merely offer an idea or viewpoint that failed …

Confirm Julie Rikelman For The First Circuit, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

Now that the United States Senate has reconvened after pauses for holidays, the upper chamber must expeditiously appoint designee Julie Rikelman to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which is the smallest, albeit critical, appellate court. The nominee, whom President Joe Biden tapped during late July 2022, would supply remarkable experiential, gender, and ideological diversity gleaned from pursuing much cutting-edge reproductive freedom litigation, which included arguing Dobbs before the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade. The nominee has definitely excelled in law’s highest echelon over twenty-plus years, most recently as the U.S. Litigation Director in the …

Confirm Rachel Bloomekatz To The Sixth Circuit, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

Now that the United States Senate is convening after the July Fourth holiday, the upper chamber must promptly appoint Rachel Bloomekatz to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The nominee, whom President Joe Biden selected in May 2022, provides remarkable experiential, gender, and ideological expertise that she deftly realized in litigating high-profile gun control, environmental, and other significant cases in federal appellate courts and district courts. Over fifteen years, the nominee has reached law’s pantheon across a broad spectrum from extremely prestigious clerkships with Justice Stephen Breyer and particularly distinguished federal court and state court jurists to …

Investigation Procedures In The Crimes Of Ministers And Senior Officials In Light Of Federal Decree-Law No. (24) Of 2021 On The Accountability Of Ministers And Senior Officials Of The Federation, Yousuf Alkaabi

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

The aim of this research is to define the concept of ministers and senior employees of the federation and to explain their legal nature, to stand on the legal basis for the penal responsibility of ministers and its scope, in addition to clarifying the procedures for receiving complaints and communications against ministers and senior employees of the federation in the UAE, and examining their seriousness, and indicating the competent authority for the preliminary investigation. And a statement of its authority to issue precautionary orders against ministers.

The problem of the research was to determine the adequacy of the procedural provisions …

Masthead And Table Of Contents, Deepika Chandrashekar

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

All Cases Matter: Mitigating Bias In The Administrative Law Judiciary, Cherron Payne

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

After an introduction and explanation of bias in Part I, Part II of this article explores the issue of bias and the underlying factors that configure bias, such as attitude, stereotype, and prejudice. Part II also examines the two principal types of bias, explicit bias and implicit bias, and defines common subsets of bias, such as gender bias. Part III presents implicit bias as an unconscious, utilitarian, and neuroscientific mechanism. Part III examines the neuroscience of decision-making and the neural structures that influence and regulate decision-making processes. Part III also discusses emotion as an underpinning to decision-making and the role …

Solemn Vow: Solum's Originalism, Treaties, And Tribal Sovereignty In Castro-Huerta, Liam T. Sheridan

Maine Law Review

In Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, the Supreme Court held that states have inherent authority to prosecute crimes committed by non-Indians in “Indian country.” Only two years earlier, the Court in McGirt v. Oklahoma held that most of eastern Oklahoma was Indian country, and thus immune from any state criminal jurisdiction. Castro-Huerta limited this immunity and narrowed the Court’s view of tribal sovereignty as a whole. The majority represented the Court’s originalist faction—minus Justice Gorsuch, who had penned both the majority opinion in McGirt and the dissent in Castro-Huerta. The majority and dissent disagreed over whether federal statutes preempted Oklahoma’s criminal jurisdiction. …

Ukraine’S Supreme Court: Born Amid Crisis, Now Under Siege, Sergii Koziakov, David Collins

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Law Guide To A Post-Dobbs America, James Hart, Flore Foulon

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned *Roe v. Wade* and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, necessitates a federal legislative solution to restore abortion rights. Drawing on France's civil law system, the article proposes a clear, comprehensive federal law that guarantees absolute abortion rights pre-viability and includes safeguards post-viability. It emphasizes the need for consistency and clarity, similar to France's approach, to address the legal void left by *Dobbs* and ensure uniform protections across all U.S. states.

Why Judges Should Use 18 U.S.C. § 3553 To Assess Prison Sentences Qualitatively In The Context Of Collateral Relief, Luke Doughty

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Tracing The Roots Of A Poisonous Tree: On The Origins And Impact Of Criminal Terminology In A Civil Apprehension Scheme, Shani Mahiri King, Nicole Silvestri Hall

Articles (Current Faculty)

Language is powerful. It can affect how we think about and treat groups of people. Poor language choices have a massive impact on immigration law, an area of the law that determines how groups of perceived “outsiders” are classified and regulated. Language and bias in judicial opinions have been studied, but less research has been done on poor language choices in immigration statutes.

This Comment focuses on the harmful effects of poor language choices in immigration statutes, including the criminal terminology “arrest” and “warrant” in civil immigration apprehension statutes 8 U.S.C. Sections 1226 and 1357. Two fundamental problems arise when …

Center For Constitutional Democracy Welcomes Two New Board Members, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Beginning on July 1, the Center for Constitutional Democracy will be welcoming two new members to its Advisory Board: former Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller ’82 and former CCD Senior Managing Affiliate Brady Harman ’15.

Four Maurer School Of Law Students Selected As 2023 Stevens Fellows, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Four Indiana Law students have been selected as Stevens Fellows, the John Paul Stevens Foundation accounced today (June 20). Selection as a Stevens Fellow allows students to receive critical financial support while participating in unpaid summer legal internships serving the public interest.

Named after the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the John Paul Stevens Foundation is dedicated to promoting public interest and social justice values in the next generation of American lawyers.

Where To Place The “Nones” In The Church And State Debate? Empirical Evidence From Establishment Clause Cases In Federal Court, Gregory C. Sisk, Michael Heise

St. John's Law Review

In this third iteration of our ongoing empirical examination of religious liberty decisions in the lower federal courts, we studied all digested Establishment Clause decisions by federal circuit and district court judges from 2006 through 2015. The first clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution directs that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That provision has generated decades of controversy regarding the appropriate role of religion in public life.

Holding key variables constant, we found that Catholic judges approved Establishment Clause claims at a 29.6% rate, compared with a 41.5% rate before non-Catholic …