Judges Commons^™

Anchoring’S Absurd Influence On Judging, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich

Arkansas Law Review

Society demands much from its judges. Notably, judges should never be illogical or inconsistent. The heart of what we expect of a judge is to apply the law to the facts in a logical and consistent way. The human mind, however, is not a giant syllogistic machine. People are obviously capable of using deductive logic, but decades of research on judgment and choice indicate that commonly used cognitive strategies to make decisions do not conform to the dictates of deductive logic. People rely on mental shortcuts, rather than logic. These shortcuts can be efficient and useful, but they do not …

The Federal Courts Jurisprudence Of Justice Clarence Thomas, Barnett J. Harris

Catholic University Law Review

In “Personal Precedent at the Supreme Court,” Professor Richard Re argues that Supreme Court justices tend to rely on their “previously expressed views of the law,” including their prior separate opinions when deciding new cases. Richard M. Re, Personal Precedent at the Supreme Court, 136 Harv. L. Rev. 824, 825–26 (2023). These “previously expressed views of the law,” which Re refers to as “personal precedent,” play an extremely important and previously unrecognized role in the development of the law. Re even contends that “though typically excluded from the law, personal precedent may actually be its building block.” Richard M. Re, …

Does Textualism Constrain Supreme Court Justices?, James J. Brudney, Lawrence Baum

Faculty Scholarship

A principal justification for textualism is the constraint hypothesis. Conservative Justices and leading textualist scholars contend that—in stark contrast to reliance on legislative history—focus on the ordinary meaning of enacted text leaves little room for the Justices to be policy-oriented or ideological in their interpretations. This Article represents the first systematic study probing the validity of the constraint hypothesis, one that employs both quantitative and qualitative analysis.

The Article examines the Justices’ reliance on interpretive resources in over 660 statutory decisions in the field of labor and employment, decided by the Burger Court, the Rehnquist Court, and the Roberts Court—during …

Forum Selling As A Threat To The Rule Of Law, Brian Iverson

FIU Law Review

Forum shopping has long been a feature of federal litigation, but recent years have brought a more troubling dynamic in which federal courts compete for cases by “forum selling.” Judges engage in forum selling by adopting plaintiff-friendly procedures, reliably issuing plaintiff-leaning decisions, and publicly soliciting certain types of cases. These practices transform localized procedural discretion into a structural risk for the federal judicial system.

This Article makes two novel contributions to the federal forum-selling literature. First, it expands the discussion beyond bankruptcy and patent practice to examine ideological influences. Drawing on empirical scholarship and illustrative judicial profiles, the Article identifies …

Judge Platt Potter: Politics And Principle In Interbranch Conflict, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

During the previous Congress, some commentators called on the Senate Judiciary Committee, then controlled by Democrats and chaired by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, to demand the testimony of Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito over allegations of ethical breaches, securing their presence by subpoena if necessary. The Committee did not subpoena the Justices, with Durbin citing the likely lack of sufficient votes and worrying that the Senate would not be able to enforce the subpoenas anyway. During the same Congress, Durbin asked Chief Justice Roberts to testify about judicial ethics, an invitation that Roberts declined.

These incidents …

Judicial Ethics, The Supreme Court, And The Rule Of Law, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay begins with a short history of judicial ethics regulation in the United States, ending with the adoption of codes of conduct by every state and federal judicial system except the Supreme Court of the United States. It then turns to a series of ethics controversies encircling the Supreme Court and its justices, which culminated in the Supreme Court adopting a Code of Conduct in 2023. Tapping into the social science literature, it argues that for codes to improve the ethical climate of an institution they must encourage psychological ownership of and “buy-in” to a code by those subject …

Judicial Enforcement Of Evidence Law, G. Alexander Nunn

Faculty Scholarship

The truth matters. At least it should. In the courtroom, truth can serve as the cornerstone of justice, liberating the innocent, vindicating victims, and holding the guilty to account. Indeed, truth is such a normative imperative that an entire legal discipline now focuses on fostering its discovery at trial—evidence law. By regulating both the reliability of proof and the rationality of cognitive inferences, evidence law seeks to help factfinders discern truth and reach an accurate verdict. And given the importance of that role, one might naturally assume that the strict enforcement of evidence law would be a legal mandate of …

The Use Of Ai In Canadian Courts, Shaughnessy Dow

Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies

Like many other fields, there has been growing discussion about the potential benefits of AI for the law. In light of the Federal Court’s interim principles and guidelines on the use of AI, this paper considers whether AI applications can assist the judiciary with its decision-making function. In doing so, it starts by considering the role that judges play in our legal system, finding that they are often called upon to consider and weigh information with human, emotional qualities and to assess the broader policy implications of their legal rulings. This paper concludes that the optimism of proponents of AI …

Law School News: Middle Schoolers Explore The Rule Of Law At Second Annual Mandell-Boisclair Justice Camp 07-17-2025, Jordan J. Phelan

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Pressure Points Of Professional Identity For Judges In The Modern Era, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The duties core to the professional identity of a judge are encapsulated in an ethical directive at the literal forefront of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, some variation of which all state and federal judiciaries have adopted. Rule 1.2 provides that “[a] judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary[.]” This directive implicates three challenges, or pressure points, relevant to a judge’s identity: 1) insofar as judges begin their legal careers as practicing lawyers, when they ascend the bench their professional identities must transition from …

The Bare-Majority Requirement Of The Delaware Judiciary And Its Unfortunate Violation Of The First Amendment, Tyler Mayhew

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note will attempt to remedy the circuit split on the issue of whether judges are policymakers for purposes of the First Amendment, and if they are not—as this Note concludes—whether the Delaware Constitution is in violation of the First Amendment through its major-party and bare-majority requirement.

First, this Note will analyze the development of the only challenge to article IV, section 3 of the Delaware Constitution as it proceeded from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware to the U.S. Supreme Court where it was thrown out on standing. Second, this Note will argue that judges are …

Legislative Reforms To End Lawfare By State And Local Prosecutors, Elizabeth Beske

Legislative Testimony & Comments

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government will hold a hearing on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. ET. The hearing, "Legislative Reforms to End Lawfare by State and Local Prosecutors," will examine the use of lawfare tactics by the Biden-Harris Administration to weaponize the rule of law against political opponents. It will further highlight legislative reforms to end politically motivated state and local prosecutions.

Partisan Judges, Steve Leben

Arkansas Law Review

This article argues that both Republicans and Democrats should look for judges who have intellectual humility and an ability to work with others—even as both parties also look for judges who are generally likely to advance positions favored by them. Part I explores the divergence between the public’s perception that the political views of judges matter and the insistence by most judges that they do not. Ample evidence supports the public’s view, and for judges to be trusted authorities, they should admit this truth. Part II suggests that even after recognizing that political views matter, both political parties (and others …

Expertise, Ideology, And Dissent, Paul R. Gugliuzza, Jonathan R. Nash, Jason Rantanen

Faculty Articles

Part I sketches a theory of dissent, explaining how voting and opinion-writing behavior on a multi-member court, such as a federal court of appeals, is a function of both a judge's preferences, as well as costs, including the relational disruption that comes from disagreeing with colleagues.

Part II provides background on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as well as a survey of prior studies of decision-making on the court and explanations of those studies' limitations.

Part III describes our methodology, including the novel dataset we built for the purpose of this study.

Part IV conducts a …

Katz'S Imperfect Circle: An Empirical Study Of Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy, Tonja Jacobi, Christopher Brett Jaeger

Faculty Articles

Under Katz v. United States, the Fourth Amendment restricts government actions that infringe upon expectations of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable. This foundational test has long been criticized as circular, both because courts can shape the very expectations they seek to identify through their decisions and because governments can manipulate those expectations to expand the reach of their own power. But how do members of society decide what expectations are reasonable, and how do judges ascertain those expectations? And are expectations of privacy malleable even without deliberate manipulation?

This Article shows that the circularity critique is both understated …

Alternate Approaches: Beyond Problem-Solving Courts, Erin Collins

Law Faculty Publications

Problem-solving courts were born out of a well-meaning experimentalist spirit, a spirit that is very much in line with the vision of a recent symposium on the multidoor criminal courthouse. These courts, which include drug courts, mental health courts, veterans courts, and many other specialized criminal courts, were created as a way to close one door to the criminal courthouse — the so-called “revolving door” that appeared to bring some people accused of crimes back into court as soon as they exited. Problem-solving court judges sought to open a different door for some of those who entered their courtrooms, one …

Trauma-Informed Courts? How Judges May Influence Kids’ Experiences Of Court, Eva Mckinsey, Amelia Ashton Thorn, Minjee Kristin Kim, Catherine Gorey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Art. Iii-Gpt, Nick Mckinley

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

This article recommends the development and deployment of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) tool by and for the federal judiciary. LLMs are revolutionizing legal practice, and judges should accordingly be familiar and in regular practice with LLM technology. LLMs can greatly assist the courts by increasing operational efficiency and public access to justice. Particularly, LLMs can improve efficiency in legal research, legal writing, and administration. LLMs present limitations or potential problems in the form of prompt dependency and harmful bias, limitations of data in their training sets, privacy and confidentiality, and the production of false or fabricated …

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Lecture January 24, 2025, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Roger Williams University 2024 President's Report: A Message From President Miaoulis, Roger Williams University

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

2024 Esther Clark Moot Court Competition 10-28-2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Judicial Leadership In Family Court: A Cautionary Tale, Jane M. Spinak

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

A Statistical Look At The Supreme Court's 2009 Term, John M. Schleb Ii, Colin Glennon, Hemant Sharma

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

Whether a change in membership occurs or not, every Supreme Court term presents a unique set of controversies and decisions for legal scholars to examine. Herein, we offer a discussion of the Court's recently completed 2009-2010 term. Rather than analyzing specific opinions in detail (as many have already done), we generate a comprehensive statistical analysis of justice voting behavior for the term. In particular, we examine consensus and division on the Court, the ideological tenor of the term, voting alignments among the justices, the production of opinions, and the Court's overall ideological spectrum based on individual voting patterns. Ultimately, we …

Panel Discussion 4: Best Practices In Representing Children In Court, Timothy Irwin, Carlton Lewis, Dwight Stokes

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

First Amendment And Media Law Diversity Moot Court Competition, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michelle Choate

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

20th Annual Diversity Symposium Dinner 3-26-2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Problems With Authority, Amy J. Griffin

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Judicial decision-making rests on a foundation of unwritten rules—those that govern the weight of authority. Such rules, including the cornerstone principle of stare decisis, are created informally through the internal social practices of the judiciary. Because weight-of-authority rules are largely informal and almost entirely unwritten, we lack a comprehensive account of their content. This raises serious questions—sounding in due process and access to justice—about whether judicial decision-making rests ultimately on judges’ arbitrary and unexamined preferences rather than transparent and deliberative processes. These norms of authority are largely invisible to many, including parties appearing before the courts. They govern the …

Beyond The Borders: The Rise Of Judicial Corruption And Universal Jurisdiction, Rose Mahdavieh

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Immoderate Moderation: Chief Justice Roberts's Concurrence In Dobbs, Thomas J. Molony

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Chief Justice John Roberts attempted to chart a middle way in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But there are times when you must choose a side. This was one of them.

The Chief Justice has been a consistent proponent of judicial restraint since he joined the United States Supreme Court in 2005. For him, one of the key characteristics of restraint is deciding no more than necessary to resolve a case. In Dobbs, he insisted that the Court did not need to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in full to uphold Mississippi’s fifteen-week …

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 …