Judges Commons^™

Court Review: Journal Of The American Judges Association, Vol. 59, No. 3, Eve M. Brank, David Dreyer, David Prince

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

Articles

Judicial Discipline, Examining Ethics Oversight for the Highest Levels of Our Least Accountable Branch; David Prince

Civil Cases in the Supreme Court’s October Term 2022; Thomas M. Fisher

Departments

Editor’s Note; David Dreyer

President’s Column: A Legacy of Leadership and Service; Yvette Mansfield Alexander

Thoughts from Canada: Uttering Threats in Canada and the United States, a Comparative Analysis; Wayne K. Gorman

Crossword: Name That Games; Tracy Bennett and Vic Fleming

The Resource Page: Junk Science and the Judicial System; The Elevator Effect; Mindfulness and Judging: Resources for Judges; New Online Database: Judges and the Judiciary: Exploring America's Court System; …

Confirm Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez To The Fifth Circuit, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The United States Senate must expeditiously confirm United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Magistrate Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, who has definitely earned appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and will become the appellate court’s initial Latina member. This regional circuit effectively resolves substantial appeals, enjoys a large judicial complement, and certainly possesses a reputation as the nation’s most conservative appellate court. Ramirez, whom President Joe Biden nominated in mid-April, decidedly provides remarkable gender, experiential, ideological, and ethnic judicial diversity and has rigorously served as a Magistrate Judge and Assistant United …

White Supremacy From The Bench, Vida B. Johnson

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Judges make important decisions in millions of cases a year across the country. Unlike other institutional players and unlike parties and their attorneys, judges are the only players in our adversarial legal system that are by design ostensibly neutral, impartial, and without bias.

Unfortunately, that legal fiction is not fact. Some judges do hold racial biases. A judge in Texas used racial slurs to describe Mexicans in his state in 2020. Also in 2020, a white judge in Louisiana referred to a deputy and a court clerk by the N-word, and the same year, a white Colorado judge also used …

Judicial Ethics And Identity, Charles Gardner Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article seeks to untangle a cluster of controversies and conundrums at the epicenter of the judiciary’s role in American government, where a judge’s identity as a person and role as a judge intersect. Part I synthesizes the traditional ethics schema, which proceeds from the premise that good judges decide cases on the basis of facts and law, unsullied by the extralegal influences of identity that make judges who they are as human beings. Part II discusses the empirical evidence, and the extent to which identity influences judicial decision- making in ways that contradict tenets of the traditional schema. Part …

The Federal Circuit: A Microcosm Of Changes In The Legal Landscape, Jimmie V. Reyna

American University Law Review

On April 2, 1982, Congress established the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit through the Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982, which merged the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals with the appellate division of the United States Court of Claims. The Federal Circuit has just surpassed forty years of appellate jurisprudence.

The Judicial Activism Of Justice Anthony Kennedy, Carlos A. Ball

American University Law Review

Few recent Supreme Court justices have had a greater impact on constitutional law than Anthony Kennedy. Although commentators have explored the substance of Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence in some detail, legal scholars have not systematically analyzed the extent of his judicial activism. This Article uses the term “judicial activism” descriptively rather than normatively to help account for a judge’s willingness to strike down federal, state, and local laws on constitutional grounds. It finds that, under a descriptive definition, when compared to the justices with whom he served, Justice Kennedy was a singularly judicial activist judge.

This conclusion rests on three findings. …

Confirm Julie Rikelman For The First Circuit, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

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 …

Appoint Judge Ana De Alba To The Ninth Circuit, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The United States Senate must rapidly appoint Eastern District of California Judge Ana de Alba to the Ninth Circuit. This appellate tribunal is a preeminent regional circuit, which faces substantial appeals, has the largest complement of jurists, and clearly includes a massive geographic expanse. The nominee, whom President Joe Biden designated in spring 2023, would offer remarkable gender, experiential, ideological, and ethnic diversity realized primarily from serving productively with the California federal district, and state trial, courts after rigorously litigating for one decade in a highly regarded private law firm. For over fifteen years, she deftly excelled in law’s upper …

Confirm Rachel Bloomekatz To The Sixth Circuit, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

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 …

Alito Versus Roe V. Wade: Dobbs As A Means Of Circumvention, Avoidance, Attenuation And Betrayal Of The Constitution, Antony Hilton

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

There can be no argument that Justice Alito is a learned justice of great knowledge and reason, and has a superb grasp of the law. As such, despite any opposition to or disagreement with his legal opinions, he is deserving of respect for his intellectual prowess, in general and as it relates to the Constitution. Notwithstanding all the aforementioned, wrong is wrong.

When Amicus Curiae Briefs Are Inimicus Curiae Briefs: Amicus Curiae Briefs And The Bypassing Of Admissibility Standards, David Dematteo, Kellie Wiltsie

American University Law Review

Amicus curiae briefs are being submitted at historically high levels by a range of individuals and entities, and there is compelling evidence that these briefs are highly influential in judicial decision-making, including in the Supreme Court of the United States. Although amicus curiae briefs have been an ingrained aspect of the U.S. legal system for hundred-plus years, various legal scholars, researchers, commentators, and judges, including Supreme Court Justices, have raised concerns about their use, including that amicus curiae briefs contain redundant information and often function as advocacy tools. This Article addresses an aspect of amicus curiae briefs that has received …

Lawyerless Law Development, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The typical American civil trial court is lawyerless. In response, access to justice reformers have embraced a key intervention: changing the judge’s traditional role. The prevailing vision for judicial role reform calls on trial judges to offer accommodation, information, and process simplification to people without legal representation.

Until now, scholars have known little about judicial behavior in lawyerless courts, including whether and how judges are implementing role reform recommendations. Our lack of knowledge stands in stark contrast to the responsibility civil trial judges bear—and the discretionary power they wield—in dispensing justice for millions of unrepresented people each year. While today’s …

The Failed Idea Of Judicial Restraint: A Brief Intellectual History, Susan D. Carle

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay examines the intellectual history of the idea of judicial restraint, starting with the early debates among the US Constitution’s founding generation. In the late nineteenth century, law professor James Bradley Thayer championed the concept and passed it on to his students and others, including Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, and Felix Frankfurter, who modified and applied it based on the jurisprudential preoccupations of a different era. In a masterful account, Brad Snyder examines Justice Frankfurter’s attempt to put the idea into practice. Although Frankfurter arguably made a mess of it, he passed the idea of …

Etika Hakim Dalam Kehidupan Sehari-Hari: Penggunaan Media Sosial Oleh Hakim Di Indonesia, Farrel Eden Surbakti

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

With the development of technology which is rapidly making the community easier in communicating and searching for information such as social media. Social media itself has different characteristics and types and has advantages and disadvantages. The use of social media does not look at a person's status such as age, gender, religion, or profession. At this time many judges use social media to communicate and search for information and interact with the community. Judges in carrying out their obligations as bearers of the legal profession are framed by an institutional institution that is formulated into a code of ethics for …

Judges And Mass Incarceration, Carissa Byrne Hessick

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

It seems to have fallen out of fashion to talk about judges as a source of criminal justice reform. Instead, the academic literature now focuses on the role that prosecutors and legislatures have played in mass incarceration. But judges have also played an important role in the phenomenon that has come to be known as mass incarceration. Perhaps more importantly, there are things that judges could do to help reverse that trend.

Judges will sometimes say our system is too harsh. But, in the same breath they tell us the decision to create such a system and the decision to …

Understanding Racial Disparate Treatment Of Juvenile Interpersonal Violent Offenders In The Juvenile Justice System Using Focal Concerns Theory., Suzanne Overstreet

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Disproportionate minority contact (DMC) is a salient issue that has been found at every stage of the decision-making process in the juvenile justice system (Hawkins & Kempf-Leonard, 2005; Kempf-Leonard, 2007; Bishop, 2005; Leiber, Bishop, & Chamlin, 2010; Leiber & Stairs, 1999). Existing research indicates that DMC influences adjudication for drug, property, and personal crimes (Fergusson, Horwood, & Swain-Campbell, 2003; Frazier, Bishop, & Henretta, 1992; Leiber & Jamieson, 1995; Leiber & Mack, 2003; Hawkins & Kempf-Leonard, 2005; Leiber, 2015). Because intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem and global concern (Djamba & Kimuna, 2008; Goo & Harlow, 2012; …

2022 Esther Clark Moot Court Competition Finals, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Circuit Personalities, Allison Orr Larsen, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

The U.S. Courts of Appeals do not behave as one; they have developed circuit-specific practices that are passed down from one generation of judges to the next. These different norms and traditions (some written down, others not) exist on a variety of levels: rules governing oral argument and the publishing of opinions, en banc practices, social customs, case discussion norms, law clerk dynamics, and even selfimposed circuit nicknames. In this Article, we describe these varying “circuit personalities” and then argue that they are necessary to the very survival of the federal courts of appeals. Circuit-specific norms and traditions foster collegiality …

The Unchosen: Procedural Fairness In Criminal Specialty Court Selection, Shanda K. Sibley

Cardozo Law Review

Specialized criminal courts were created in an effort to offer nonpunitive responses to the commission of crime. The promise of these courts was that they would remove select populations from the traditional legal system and offer them something different, and perhaps better, than mere punishment and incapacitation.

However, the current selection processes for specialized courts—in which judges and prosecutors have almost completely unfettered discretion to decide both the criteria by which potential participants will be allowed to participate and whether any individual defendant meets such criteria—perverts the notion of providing specialized services to specific populations. Instead of selecting defendants based …

Judged By The (Digital) Company You Keep: Maintaining Judicial Ethics In An Age Of Likes, Shares, And Follows, John Browning

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Just like lawyers, judicial use of social media can present ethical pitfalls. And while most scholarly attention has focused on either active social media conduct by judges (such as posting or tweeting) or on social media “friendships” between judges and others, this Article analyses the ethical dimensions of seemingly benign judicial conduct on social media platforms, such as following a third party or “liking,” sharing, or retweeting the online posts of others. Using real-world examples, this Article analyses how even such ostensibly benign conduct can create the appearance of impropriety and undermine public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of …

Massachusetts Needs More Ex-Public Defenders As Judges, Sadiq Reza

Shorter Faculty Works

Four to one.

That is the ratio of former prosecutors to public defenders who sit on the seven-person Supreme Judicial Court, our highest state court.

On our 25-member Appeals Court, which sits one level below the SJC and is the final word in the vast majority of criminal cases, the count is worse: 16 to three. But two of those former public defenders also worked as prosecutors before reaching the bench; and two other appellate judges, while never formal prosecutors, worked in the Attorney General's Office (i.e., in other law enforcement roles).

This staggering imbalance of experience and outlook is …

Law In, Law Out: Legalistic Filter Bubbles And The Algorithmic Prevention Of Nonconsensual Pornography, Daniel Maggen

Cardozo Law Review

In 2019, Facebook announced that it had begun using machine-learning algorithms to preemptively screen uploads for nonconsensual pornography. Although the use of screening algorithms has become commonplace, this seemingly minor move from reactive to preemptive legal analysis–based prevention—this Article argues—is part of a groundbreaking shift in the meaning and effect of algorithmic screening, with potentially far-reaching implications for legal discourse and development.

To flush out the meaning of this shift, the Article draws on the filter bubble theory. Thus far, the phenomenon of filter bubbles has been synonymous with personalized filtering and the social polarization and radicalization it is prone …

The Ghost Of John Hart Ely, Ryan D. Doerfler, Samuel Moyn

Vanderbilt Law Review

The ghost of John Hart Ely haunts the American liberal constitutional imagination. Despite the failure long ago of any progressive constitutional vision in an increasingly conservative Supreme Court, Ely’s conjectures about the superiority of judges relative to legislatures in the protection of minorities and the policing of the democratic process remain second nature. Indeed, they have been credible enough among liberals to underwrite an anxious or even hostile attitude toward judicial reform. In order to exorcise Ely’s ghost and lay it to rest, this Article challenges his twin conjectures. First, the Article argues that there is little historical and no …

What’S The Deference? Interpreting The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines After Kisor, Liam Murphy

Vanderbilt Law Review

For more than three decades, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines have constrained the punishment doled out by federal judges, limiting discretion that was once nearly unlimited and bringing standardization to the penological decisionmaking process. For twice as long, the Supreme Court has constrained judges in a different way—by requiring that administrative agencies receive deference when they interpret the meaning of their own regulations. At the convergence of these two domains sits “commentary,” or interpretive notes the U.S. Sentencing Commission appends to the otherwise congressionally approved Guidelines. In Stinson v. United States, the Court made clear that commentary should be reviewed and …

Foreword, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

It is an honor and a pleasure to help the American UniversityLegislationandPolicy Brief carry on its fine tradition of scholarly inquiry into important issues facing the nation, the legislatures and the public policy arena. AULPB is an important forum within WCL for student authors to examine cutting edge, timely issues. It is also a focal point, beyond the bounds of the WCL campus, for authors to consider a broad range of pressing issues that combine law and policy questions.

Law School News: Meet The Rbg Essay Contest Winners! 03-22-2022, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

2022 Hines Jurist In Residence Lecture: Professionalism, Sarah Hawkins Warren

Edenfield & Hines Jurists in Residence

Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren served as the Hines Jurists in Residence in 2022, delivering a public lecture on professionalism in January. Extended biographical information on Justice Warren was provided prior to her public lecture thanks to the Georgia Supreme Court:

"Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren was appointed to the Supreme Court of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal and was sworn in on September 17, 2018. She was re-elected statewide for a six-year term in 2020. Justice Warren previously served as Solicitor General for the State of Georgia under Attorney General Chris Carr.

Justice Warren earned a B.A. in Public Policy and …

Court Review: Journal Of The American Judges Association, Vol. 58, No. 4, Eve M. Brank, David Dreyer, David Prince

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

Interview

Stresses of the Job in Modern Times: Coaching Resilience in Judges, Peer-to-Peer, an Interview with Jan Bouch; David Prince

Articles

Prosecutorial Misconduct: Assessment of Perspectives from the Bench, Saul M. Kassin, Stephanie A. Cardenas, Vanessa Meterko, and Faith Barksdale

Limiting Access to Remedies: Select Criminal Law and Procedure Cases from the Supreme Court’s 2021-22 Term, Eve Brensike Primus and Justin Hill

You Can Change Judging and Justice, Thomas R. French

The Online Courtroom: Leveraging Remote Technology in Litigation American Bar Association, Tort, Trial, and Insurance Practice Section, J. Gary Hastings

Departments

Editor’s Note, Eve Brank, David Dreyer, and David …

Court Review: Journal Of The American Judges Association, Vol. 58, No. 3, Eve M. Brank, David Dreyer, David Prince

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

Civil Cases in the Supreme Court’s October Term 2021; Thomas M. Fisher

Threats to Impartiality in Capital Jury Selection: Addressing Dead-Serious Falsifications; Richard Rogers, Eric Y. Drogin, and Sara E. Hartigan

Science-Based Recommendations for the Collection of Eyewitness Identification Evidence; Margaret Bull Kovera, Jacqueline Katzman, Jennifer M. Jones, and Melanie B. Fessinger

Editor’s Note; David J. Dreyer

President’s Column; Yvette Mansfield Alexander

Crossword; Vic Fleming

Thoughts from Canada: Assessing Credibility: The Impact of a Motive to Lie and the Embellishment of Evidence -- the Canadian Approach; Wayne K. Gorman

The Resource Page: Democracy's Last Line of Defense: A …

Court Review: Journal Of The American Judges Association, Vol. 58, No. 1, Eve M. Brank, David Dreyer, David Prince

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

The Road to a Federal Family Court; Jane M. Spinak

The Role of Information Sharing to Improve Case Management in Child Welfare; Sarah J. Beal, Paul DeMott, Rich Bowlen, and Mary V. Greiner

Timely Permanency for Children in Foster Care: Revisiting Core Assumptions about Children’s Options and Outcomes; Sarah A. Font and Lindsey Palmer

The Deportation of America’s Adoptees; DeLeith Duke Gossett

Editor’s Note; Eve Brank

President’s Column; Yvette Mansfield Alexander

Crossword; Vic Fleming

Thoughts from Canada: The Impact of Anti-Black Racism on the Sentencing of “Black Offenders” in Canada: What Is the Correct Approach?; Wayne K. Gorman

The Resource …