Judges Commons^™

Sangwa V Attorney General And Law Association Of Zambia (2021 /Ccz/0012) [2023] Zmcc 6 (31 July 2023), Hope Sthembile Homela, Robert Farbman, J. P. Swenson

SAIPAR Case Review

This case underscores the critical need for the judiciary to assert its financial independence, ensuring that its budget and resources are not subject to undue influence or control by the executive. In this landmark ruling, the Constitutional Court missed an important opportunity to set a stronger precedent for the autonomy of the judiciary by not fully addressing the constitutional violations at hand relating to the financial independence of the judiciary. The Court’s decision, while acknowledging the issue of financial independence, failed to provide a decisive remedy to protect the judiciary from the continuing risk of executive interference. Recognizing the necessity …

Murder And A Mother’S Love: Understanding Maternal Altruistic Filicide And Reshaping The Legal System’S Approach To Mentally Ill Mothers Who Kill Their Children, Morgan Woodbridge

Journal of Law and Policy

Every year, thousands of children are killed by their parents. Some of these killings are committed by mentally ill mothers who believe that death is in their children's best interest. This category of killings is called maternal altruistic filicide. Numerous studies have found that mothers who commit altruistic filicide are severely mentally ill and have histories of psychiatric illness, trauma, and suicidality. Despite this, mothers who commit altruistic filicide are often railroaded through the criminal legal system without access to adequate mental health care. Traditional legal procedures designed to assist the mentally ill, such as the insanity defense or the …

Constitutional Rights And Remedial Consistency, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Publications

When the Supreme Court declined definitively to block Texas’s S.B. 8, which effectively eliminated pre-enforcement federal remedies for what was then a plainly unconstitutional restriction on abortion rights, a prominent criticism was that the majority would have never tolerated the similar treatment of preferred legal protections—like gun rights. This refrain reemerged when California enacted a copycat regime for firearms regulation. This theme sounds in the deep-rooted idea that judge-made law should adhere to generality and neutrality values requiring doctrines to derive justification from controlling a meaningful class of cases ascertained by objective legal criteria.

This Article is about consistency, and …

Judges Should Be Discerning Consensus, Not Evaluating Scientific Expertise, David S. Caudill, Harry Collins, Robert Evans

Faculty Publications

One of the most constructive critiques of the Daubert admissibility regime is Professor Edward Cheng’s recent proposal for a new Consensus Rule in the Federal Rules of Evidence. Rejecting the notion that judges and juries have the capacity to evaluate scientific expertise, Cheng’s proposal would eliminate Daubert hearings—and judicial gatekeeping concerning expert testimony—and require judges and juries, in their verdicts, to follow consensus in the relevant scientific community. Significantly, Cheng argues that judges and juries would have an easier time identifying consensus than they have in deciding between experts who disagree.

We find Cheng’s emphasis on consensus compelling, and …

Reassessing Administrative Finality: The Importance Of New Evidence And Changed Circumstances, Gwendolyn Savitz

Cleveland State Law Review

Administrative finality of agency action is generally thought of as a method of avoiding premature judicial review—a claim that the review is too early. But it is also used to prevent judicial review by claiming that the review has now come too late. There are two primary exceptions to this prohibition: new evidence and changed circumstances. However, courts and agencies are reluctant to permit challengers to use these exceptions as often as should be statutorily allowed, an area that scholarship has been neglected.

This Article fills the gap by exploring this aspect of administrative finality, looking at the important government …

Law School News: 2024 Rbg Essay & Art Contest Winners Recognized At Women In Law Leadership Lecture 4-16-24, Roger Williams University School News

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Silent Today, Conversant Tomorrow: Education Adequacy As A Political Question, Yeju Hwang

Northwestern University Law Review

When the Supreme Court declined to recognize the right to education as one fundamental to liberty, and thus unprotected by the U.S. Constitution, state courts took on the mantle as the next best fora for those yearning for judicial review of inequities present in American public schools. The explicit inclusion of the right to education in each state’s constitution carried the torch of optimism into the late twentieth century. Despite half a century of litigation in the states, the condition of the nation’s public school system remains troubling and perhaps increasingly falls short of expectations. Less competitive on an international …

Partisanship Creep, Katherine Shaw

Northwestern University Law Review

It was once well settled and uncontroversial—reflected in legislative enactments, Executive Branch practice, judicial doctrine, and the broader constitutional culture—that the Constitution imposed limits on government partisanship. This principle was one instantiation of a broader set of rule of law principles: that law is not merely an instrument of political power; that government resources should not be used to further partisan interests, or to damage partisan adversaries.

For at least a century, each branch of the federal government has participated in the development and articulation of this nonpartisanship principle. In the legislative realm, federal statutes beginning with the 1883 Pendleton …

Civil Procedure Update 2024 (Handout And Slide Deck), Verónica C. Gonzales, Julio C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

This presentation aims to 1) review recent amendments to the state and federal rules of civil procedure; 2) help you understand the impact of recent federal and state published opinions interpreting and applying the rules of civil procedure; and 3) assess your understanding of the updates.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Essay/Art Contest 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Next Thirty Years: Developments In Mandamus Jurisprudence In The Last Thirty Years And Why The General Rule That Mandamus Is Unavailable To Review The Denial Of Summary Judgment Is Inconsistent With Modern Mandamus Jurisprudence Under The In Re Prudential Balancing Test, Timothy Delabar

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Role Of A Judge In An Electoral Autocracy, Aparna Chandra

Popular Media

In a year where 64 countries are holding elections, courts around the world must engage with a range of questions around electoral integrity and dysfunction, i.e., with the judicialization of electoral processes. How should democratically inclined judges respond to attempts by incumbent autocrats at leveraging laws to hold on to power?

The Word Is "Humility": Why The Supreme Court Needed To Adopt A Code Of Judicial Ethics, Laurie L. Levenson

Pepperdine Law Review

The Supreme Court is one of our most precious institutions. However, for the last few years, American confidence in the Court has dropped to a new low. Less than 40% of Americans have confidence in the Court and its decisions. Recent revelations regarding luxury trips, gifts, and exclusive access for certain individuals to the Justices have raised questions about whether the Justices understand their basic ethical duties and can act in a fair and impartial manner. As commentators have noted, the Supreme Court stood as the only court in America that was not governed by an ethical code. The question …

Partisanship "All The Way Down" On The U.S. Supreme Court, Lee Epstein

Pepperdine Law Review

Just as the American public is politically polarized, so too is the U.S. Supreme Court. More than ever before, a clear alignment exists between the Justices’ partisanship and their ideological leanings (known as “partisan sorting”). Disapproval of opposing-party identifiers also appears to have intensified (“partisan antipathy”). This Article offers evidence of both forms of polarization. It shows that partisan sorting has resulted in wide gaps in voting between Republican and Democratic appointees; and it supplies data on “us-against-them” judging in the form of increasing antipathy toward opposite-partisan presidents. Taken collectively, the data point not to law “all the way down,” …

It Takes A Special Person To Raise A Special Needs Child: How New York's Existing Family Regulation Systems Are Not Equipped For Children With Autism, Alexandra Debenedictis

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that New York's current family regulation systems, including the Family Court Act (FCA) and the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), are inadequately equipped to protect children with autism in foster care. These systems fail to address the unique needs of autistic children, leading to increased vulnerability to abuse, neglect, and prolonged stays in foster care. The note proposes reforms to improve monitoring, education, and resource accessibility to better safeguard these children.

Orders Without Law, Thomas P. Schmidt

Michigan Law Review

A review of The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic. By Stephen Vladeck.

Changemakers: Terrence Haas : Juris Doctorate : Adventures In Law, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Judge Merritt And Sexual (Mis)Conduct In The Workplace, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

Judge Merritt's judicial career coincided with several major cultural and legal workplace shifts that continue to affect millions of Americans to this day. The evolution of legal protections against numerous forms of workplace sexual harassment surely revolutionized our understanding of the centrality of work, particularly the right of women to be free from unwelcome conduct on the job. The legal literature dealing with workplace sexual harassment is vast 172 and cannot be recounted here in detail. Instead, this essay describes Judge Merritt's fidelity to both the letter and spirit of this important body of Title VII173 jurisprudence. It traces the …

2024 Edenfield Jurist In Residence Lecture: "Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy Of William O. Douglas — Public Advocate And Conservation Champion", M. Margaret Mckeown

Edenfield & Hines Jurists in Residence

M. Margaret McKeown, senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, presented "Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas — Public Advocate and Conservation Champion" as the UGA School of Law's 2024 Edenfield Jurist in Residence.

Law School News: Melissa Dubose L'04 Confirmed To Federal District Court 3-12-2024, Suzi Morales

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Judicial Libraries As Predictors For Effective Administration Of Justice In Nigeria, Emmanuel Owushi

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study examined judicial libraries as predictors for effective administration of justice in Nigeria. The population involved all legal practitioners and legal educators in Nigeria. 4000 respondents were sampled. Due to unavailability of the population at the time of the study, the adopted convenience sampling technique to sample 4000 respondents across legal professional bodies in Nigeria. A structured questionnaire titled ‘Use of Judicial Library and Administration of Justice Scale’ was used for data collection. The questionnaire was structured with the 4-point Likert scale response style, designed on Google form and distributed to the respondents via various social media platforms. A …

Are They All Textualists Now?, Austin Peters

Northwestern University Law Review

Recent developments at the U.S. Supreme Court have rekindled debates over textualism. Missing from the conversation is a discussion of the courts that decide the vast majority of statutory interpretation cases in the United States—state courts. This Article uses supervised machine learning to conduct the first-ever empirical study of the statutory interpretation methods used by state supreme courts. In total, this study analyzes over 44,000 opinions from all fifty states from 1980 to 2019.

This Article establishes several key descriptive findings. First, since the 1980s, textualism has risen rapidly in state supreme court opinions. Second, this rise is primarily attributable …

Revisiting Compassionate Release: The Sentencing Commission’S Compassionate Changes To The 2023 Compassionate Release Policy Statement, Rachel Wilson

Cleveland State Law Review

Compassionate release is a well-established exception to the Sentencing Reform Act’s requirement that a defendant’s sentence not be reduced after its final imposition. The Act requires the Sentencing Commission, through policy statement, to describe “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warranting compassionate release. However, the Sentencing Commission’s failure to convene as a quorum for nearly four years precluded any policy statement updates. In that time, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Bureau of Prisons’ internal issues further complicated the compassionate release process. This Note analyzes the 2023 amendment to the compassionate release policy statement, its potential implications, and suggests additional steps to be …

The Play’S The Thing: A Response To Judge Benjamin Beaton, Aaron J. Walayat

Pepperdine Law Review

In a recent speech, later published as an essay, the Hon. Benjamin Beaton of the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky shared his critical suggestions against the use of the honorific “Your Honor,” preferring instead the more neutral title “judge.” Judge Beaton’s reason for this preference stems from a fear that the current practice of judicial titles emphasizes status over function, which may inflate the individual judge’s ego while miscommunicating to the public that judges make, rather than find, law. This position, however, is misguided. Judicial titles emphasize the authority of the law through the authority …

Fireside Chat With Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton And Professor Nikolas Bowie: A Discussion About The Relevance And Impact Of State Constitutional Law, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

In Conversation With Stephen Gageler, Chief Justice Of The High Court Of Australia, Stephen Gageler, David Collins

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Accountability Courts In Georgia: Judges In The State Of Georgia Explain How They Have Been Empowered By Visionary Political And Judicial Leaders To Tackle Crime, Prison Population, Mental Illness, And Drug Dependency Through Service In Accountability Courts, W. James Sizemore Jr.

Mercer Law Review

Georgia leads the way nationally when it comes to promoting and funding the expansion of accountability courts (commonly called drug courts or mental health courts). The fact that the effort to expand such courts in Georgia was spearheaded by Republican Governor Nathan Deal is surprising to some. This article provides a peek behind the curtain at the massive judicial and political effort to make accountability courts an essential part of criminal justice reform in the State of Georgia.

The article begins with a brief look at the history of accountability courts in Georgia, specifically focusing on several Superior Court Judges …

Judging The Judiciary, Amanda B. Hurst

Georgia State University Law Review

Judicial legitimacy not only depends on judges maintaining the high ethical standards imposed on them but also on the public believing judges will be held accountable when they break the rules. However, judges are often viewed as “getting away with it.” This Article focuses on how to improve this problematic perception of state judicial discipline systems (JDSs). Part of the answer is more exposure, including a social media presence, for judicial discipline commissions (JDCs), the bodies in each state responsible for resolving misconduct complaints and recommending or imposing sanctions, because the public and media have a similar flawed understanding of …

Problem-Solving Courts And The Outcome Oversight Gap, Erin R. Collins

UMKC Law Review

The creation of a specialized, “problem-solving” court is a ubiquitous response to the issues that plague our criminal legal system. The courts promise to address the factors believed to lead to repeated interactions with the system, such as addiction or mental illness, thereby reducing recidivism and saving money. And they do so effectively – at least according to their many proponents, who celebrate them as an example of a successful “evidence-based,” data-driven reform. But the actual data on their efficacy is underwhelming, inconclusive, or altogether lacking. So why do they persist?

This Article seeks to answer that question by scrutinizing …

Legislating Courts, Michael Pollack

UMKC Law Review

Judges are ordinarily thought of as deciders of a specific sort: people who apply the rule of law to resolve disagreements between the parties appearing before them. But in every state, judges do far more. They are charged by state statutory or constitutional law with a range of quasi-administrative, quasi-legislative, and quasi-executive law enforcement functions. These roles raise a number of theoretical and practical concerns. In many states, though, legislatures have gone even further. They have either wholly delegated significant policymaking power to state court judges or have sat idle while those judges have assumed the mantle of functions that …