Judges Commons^™

The Legal Fiction Of The Right To Defense In The Colombian Criminal Justice System, Manuel Iturralde

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In the first section of the article, I will discuss Omar's case to show why he did not have a fair trial, and particularly how his rights to access to justice and to defense were infringed, both by the public defense he was provided and by the judges that decided his case.

In the second section, I will show that Omar's case is a tellingillustration of the features of the Colombian criminal justice system, which systematically and disproportionately sentences and imprisons marginalized and poor people-in great measure because they lack the financial resources to pay for better and more motivated …

First, We'll Neuter All The Judges, A. Benjamin Spencer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Fuqua, William G., B. 1930 (Sc 3507), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3507. “A Judge’s Retirement Reflections,” by William G. Fuqua, Judge, Logan (County, Kentucky) Circuit Court, inscribed 14 July 1995; and a letter to Fuqua, 6 September 1990, from Bowling Green, Kentucky attorney Philip Huddleston soliciting contribution of an article for the newsletter of the local bar.

Constraining Strickland, Michael Cicchini

Texas A&M Law Review

When a convicted defendant pursues an ineffective assistance of counsel (“IAC”) claim on appeal—for example, by alleging that the defense lawyer failed to call an important witness at trial—the defendant must satisfy Strickland’s two-part test. This requires a showing that (1) defense counsel performed deficiently, and (2) this deficient performance prejudiced the defendant’s case.

The Strickland test is intentionally difficult for a defendant to satisfy, and courts reject nearly all IAC claims. The primary justification for this is that prosecutors and judges should not have to retry defendants because of defense counsel’s errors, as such errors are completely outside the …

Vertical Stare Decisis And Three-Judge District Courts, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

Three-judge federal district courts have jurisdiction over many issues central to our democratic system, including constitutional challenges to congressional and legislative districts, as well as to certain federal campaign-finance statutes. They are similarly responsible for enforcing key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Litigants often have the right to appeal their rulings directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Because of this unusual appellate process, courts and commentators disagree on whether such three-judge district court panels are bound by circuit precedent or instead are free to adjudicate these critical issues constrained only by U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

The applicability of court …

Reporting Certainty, James A. Macleod

BYU Law Review

Legal theorists, judges, and legal writing instructors persistently decry the assertions of certainty—”obviously X,” “undoubtedly Y,” etc.—that litter judicial opinions. According to the conventional view, the rhetoric of certainty that these assertions epitomize is disingenuous. It also reflects, and even encourages, poor judicial decision-making. And as if that were not enough, it is so unpersuasive that it is counter-persuasive: it signals uncertainty, nonobviousness, etc.—the exact opposite of what its author intends. Judges, for these and other reasons, should abstain from needless assertions of certainty and the myopic thinking they evince. That much is certain.

Yet the rhetoric of certainty persists. …

Summary Dispositions As Precedent, Richard C. Chen

William & Mary Law Review

The Supreme Court’s practice of summarily reversing decisions based on certiorari filings, without the benefit of merits briefing or oral argument, has recently come under increasing scrutiny. The practice is difficult to square with the Court’s stated criteria for granting certiorari and its norms against reviewing fact-bound cases to engage in mere error correction. Nonetheless, there is growing acceptance that the practice is likely to continue in some form, and the conversation has shifted to asking when the use of summary dispositions should be considered proper. Commentators have had no trouble identifying the Court’s tendencies: summary dispositions are most commonly …

A Brief History Of Judical Appointments From The Last 50 Years Through The Trump Administration, Donald F. Mcgahn Ii

William & Mary Law Review

Thank you so much for that kind introduction. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I am going to talk about the confirmation process generally. There is no better place to talk about it than here. Let me begin with some numbers and statistics, before I turn to the main thrust of my talk, to give some context as to what recent Presidents have done with respect to judicial appointments. President Trump has appointed two Supreme Court Justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett of Appeals; twenty-nine so far have been confirmed. The Senate Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, has already …

Filling The Illinois Federal District Court Vacancies, Carl Tobias

Pepperdine Law Review

President Donald Trump repeatedly argues that appellate court appointments constitute his major success. The President and the United States Senate Republican Party majority have established records by approving fifty very conservative, young, and capable appellate court jurists. However, their confirmations have exacted a toll, particularly from the many federal district courts which address seventy-nine unfilled positions in 677 judicial posts. One constructive illustration has been the three Illinois tribunals which confront five pressing openings. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts classifies three as “emergencies,” because the vacant seats have been protracted and involve substantial caseloads. Despite this circumstance, …

An Honor Or A Curse? The Untold Story Of Shortlisted Female Jurists, Melissa Mortazavi

Other Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

(Un)Conscious Judging, Elizabeth Thornburg

Washington and Lee Law Review

Fact inferences made by the trial judge are the lynchpin of civil litigation. If inferences were a matter of universally held logical deductions, this would not be troubling. Inferences, however, are deeply contestable conclusions that vary from judge to judge. Non-conscious psychological phenomena can lead to flawed reasoning, implicit bias, and culturally influenced perceptions. Inferences differ significantly, and they matter. Given the homogeneous makeup of the judiciary, this is a significant concern.

This Article will demonstrate the ubiquity, importance, and variability of inferences by examining actual cases in which trial and appellate (or majority and dissenting) judges draw quite different …

Comparative Capacity And Competence, Eric Berger

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

Andrew Coan’s excellent book, Rationing the Constitution, sheds important new light on an important facet of Supreme Court decision-making: judicial capacity. Professor Coan argues persuasively that courts’ capacity—and, in particular, the U.S. Supreme Court’s capacity—plays an important role in shaping various constitutional doctrines. By “capacity,” Coan means the number of cases that courts can realistically decide while preserving the judiciary’s own professional commitments to careful deliberation and reasoned decision-making.3 Because judges realize that their resources are limited, they shape various constitutional doctrines to deter potential litigants, lest a flood of constitutional plaintiffs inundate them with more cases than they …

Persuasive Or Pipe Dream? The Potential Influence Of The Feminist Judgments Project On Future Judical Decision Making, Kathryn Webber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Foreword, In From The Texas Cotton Fields To The United States Tax Court: The Life Journey Of Juan F. Vasquez (Mary Theresa Vasquez & Anthony Head, 2020), Brant J. Hellwig

Books and Chapters

The story of the life of the first Hispanic American appointed to serve as a judge on the United States Tax Court. An educational and inspirational story of a professional career, the book is accessible to lawyers and laypersons of all ages.

Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller And The Great Mustache Debate Of 1888, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Over the long history of the Supreme Court, nominees to the highest court in the land have been opposed for a variety of reasons. Often opponents are concerned about the nominee’s political ideology or competency. Occasionally, allegations are raised about political cronyism. And candidates have come under fire for their religion. But nominee Melville Weston Fuller’s selection launched a national debate that went to the very heart of what makes one qualified to sit on the Supreme Court: whether a judge should have a mustache.

On March 23, 1888, Morrison R. Waite died of pneumonia after sitting for fourteen years …

Practical Truth: The Value Of Apparent Honesty In Supreme Court Opinions, Timothy C. Macdonnell

Scholarly Articles

Judicial honesty or judicial candor is the subject of significant scholarly attention, but it is not the focus of this Essay. Rather, the author's focus is on the importance that appearing honest has on the persuasive force of an opinion and the dangers associated with failing to achieve that goal. This distinction is not intended to suggest Justices should seek apparent honesty while not being actually honest. Rather, this Essay emphasizes that actually honest opinions must also be apparently honest. Thus, judicial candor is necessary to apparent honesty, but it is not always sufficient on its own.

To support the …

A Secretary's Absence For A Law School Examination, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

The May 5, 1893 letter from Justice Horace Gray to Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller touches upon several different strands of Supreme Court history. To place the letter in context, we need to briefly discuss the creation of the law clerk position as well as the different functions of this first generation of law clerks. And we need to talk about the untimely death of a young Harvard Law School graduate named Moses Day Kimball.

Applying Maimonides’ Hilkhot Teshuvah–Laws Of Repentance – In The Criminal Law System Of The State Of Israel: An Israeli Judge’S Perspectives, Moshe Drori

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Of The United States, October Term 2020 Preview, Georgetown University Law Center, Supreme Court Institute

Supreme Court Overviews

No abstract provided.

When Plea Bargaining Became Normal, William Ortman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

National Security And Judicial Ethics: The Exception To The Rule Of Keeping Judicial Conduct Judicial And The Politicization Of The Judiciary, Joshua E. Kastenberg

Faculty Scholarship

This article is divided into three sections, and it incorporates original research from the personal correspondences of several judges and justices. This article includes unpublished correspondences from various judicial collections at the Library of Congress, the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, the Washington and Lee School of Law’s special collections, the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan Presidential Libraries, the National Library of Australia in Canberra, and Canada’s National Archives in Ottawa. The first section analyzes the current framework governing judicial disqualification based on the separation of powers doctrine as well as the right to an impartial judiciary, …

Memorializing Dissent: Justice Pal In Tokyo, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Memorials and monuments are envisioned as positive ways to honor victims of atrocity. Such displays are taken as intrinsically benign, respectful, and in accord with the arc of justice. Is this correlation axiomatic, however? Art, after all, may be a vehicle for multiple normativities, contested experiences, and variable veracities. Hence, in order to really speak about the relationships between the aesthetic and international criminal law, one must consider the full range of initiatives—whether pop-up ventures, alleyway graffiti, impromptu ceremonies, street art, and grassroots public histories—prompted by international criminal trials. Courts may be able to stage their own outreach, to be …

Generalist Judges And Advocates' Jargon, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

Clerking is a privilege. Fresh out of law school and eager to begin their careers, law clerks at any level of the federal or state judiciary covet the opportunity to learn from a judge’s reservoir of knowledge. But law clerks who anticipate careers writing as advocates are also well-positioned to learn about something that a judge may not know when briefs or other adversary submissions land on the desk.

That “something” concerns jargon, this article’s focus because its use by advocates can impede the court’s understanding of a case’s facts and law. “Jargon” refers to “special words or expressions that …

The Dangers To The American Rule Of Law Will Outlast The Next Election, Paul Gowder

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

According to many constitutional lawyers and political scientists, the presidential administration of Donald Trump (for scholars on the left), or the response to that presidency (for scholars on the right) poses serious dangers to American constitutional democracy and the rule of law. However, this Essay argues that a more careful understanding of the contemporary dangers to the American rule of law are both broader-based and longer-term: inequality among the public, and epistemic polarization among the public as well as among legal elites (including constitutional law professors themselves), undermine the capacity of the American people to use the political tools available …

Judicial Elections, Public Opinion, And Their Impact On State Criminal Justice Policy, Travis N. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

This dissertation explores whether and how the re-election prospects faced by trial court judges in many American states influence criminal justice policy, specifically, state levels of incarceration, as well as the disparity in rates of incarceration for Whites and Blacks. Do states where trial court judges must worry about facing reelection tend to encourage judicial behavior that results in higher incarceration rates? And are levels of incarceration and racial disparities in the states influenced by the proportion of the state publics who want more punitive policies? These are clearly important questions because they speak directly to several normative and empirical …

The Faithful Justice, Kevin C. Walsh

Scholarly Articles

On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer is more than a collection of Justice Antonin Scalia’s speeches on religion and American public life. Edited by son Christopher Scalia and former law clerk and long-time confidant Edward Whelan, this eleven-speech collection also includes nine personal reflections from friends and family, four extended excerpts from judicial opinions by Scalia, two prayers (one by St. Thomas More and another by St. Ignatius of Loyola), a funeral mass homily (by son Fr. Paul Scalia), and a letter by Justice Scalia to a Presbyterian minister about the funeral ceremony for Justice Lewis Powell.

Safe Money, John Crawford

Marquette Law Review

This Article provides the first comprehensive survey and evaluation of proposed approaches to the central financial reform issue of our era: making all money held in account form “safe,” or non-defaultable, in the same way a dollar bill cannot default. Financial crises are at core a problem of defaultable money; preventing such crises requires making money safe. The goal is eminently achievable; indeed, a number of plausible proposals have been advanced. The project has two aspects: providing better safe money options and eliminating unsafe money. This Article analyzes safe money approaches and concludes that expanding “base” money—that is, direct claims …

Filling The California Federal District Court Vacancies, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

"President Donald Trump frequently argues that confirming federal appellate judges constitutes his quintessential success. The President and the Republican Senate majority have dramatically eclipsed appeals court records by appointing fifty-one conservative, young, and capable appellate court nominees, which leaves merely one vacancy across the country. Nonetheless, these approvals have imposed costs, especially among the plentiful district courts that address seventy-four openings in 677 judicial positions.

The most striking example is the four California districts, which realize seventeen pressing vacancies among sixty posts. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO), the federal judiciary’s administrative arm, designates all of them …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Black Women And Girls And The Twenty-Sixth Amendment: Constitutional Connections, Activist Intersections, And The First Wave Youth Suffrage Movement, Mae C. Quinn

Seattle University Law Review

On this 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment—and on the cusp of the fiftieth anniversary of the Twenty-sixth Amendment—this article seeks to expand the voting rights canon. It complicates our understanding of voting rights history in the United States, adding layers to the history of federal constitutional enfranchisement and encouraging a more intersectional telling of our suffrage story in the days ahead.

Thus, this work not only seeks to acknowledge the Twenty-sixth Amendment as important constitutional content, as was the goal of the article I wrote with my law student colleagues for a conference held at the University of Akron …