Jurisprudence Commons^™

The Polyphonic Courtroom: Expanding The Possibilities Of Judicial Discourse, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article draws upon the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin to critique judicial discourse as embodied in written opinions. Judicial opinions are typically monologues which reject exploration of complex issues of meaning in favor of simply justifying a result. Opinions should instead be part of a continuing dialogue whose hallmark is exploration, not simplification - what the Article characterizes as "polyphonic," Polyphonic opinions should embrace dialogue and complexity and recognize the validity of multiple perspectives. This goal can not simply be willed, however, because cognition by necessity simplifies. To meet this challenges, the Article concludes with recommendations for "judicial calisthenics," including …

It’S A Positivist, It’S A Pragmatist, It’S A Codifier! Reflections On Nietzsche And Stendhal, Richard H. Weisberg

Cardozo Law Review

Richard Rorty writes that "[n]owadays, Allan Bloom and Michael Moore seem to be the only people who still think pragmatism is dangerous to the moral health of our society." Given the source, I would not contest the generalization. Nor would I seek to correct the adjective about pragmatism used more than once by Professors Rorty and Grey: "banal." Indeed, the popularity of pragmatism may reflect its banality. Its amorphous nature has produced strange alliances. For example, the same Stanley Fish who once declared Richard Posner's humanistic forays to be "execrable" now joins Posner's pragmatic program almost without qualification. If Pragmatism's …

Pragmatism And Realism, Hilary Putnam

Cardozo Law Review

Let me begin by asking what will undoubtedly seem to many, if not all of you, a most peculiar question: How did it happen that the first philosopher to present a completely worked out version of direct realism in the entire history of modem philosophy was none other than the American pragmatist, William James?

Pragmatic Adjudication, Richard A. Posner

Cardozo Law Review

Pragmatism is at one level a philosophical position, just as scientific realism, transcendental idealism, existentialism, utilitarianism, and logical positivism are. It is the level well illustrated by a recently published book in which Richard Rorty and his critics go at each other hammer and tongs over such questions as whether language reflects reality, whether free will is compatible with a scientific outlook, and whether such questions are even meaningful. It is not the level at which this paper is pitched. My concern is with an issue in "applied" pragmatism, although after listening to Professor Grey's talk at the conference about …

Pragmatism And Law: A Response To David Luban, Richard Rorty

Cardozo Law Review

Judge Posner's "Pragmatic Adjudication" is enormously refreshing. It cuts through an immense amount of tiresome and pointless talk about "the nature of law" and "the relation of law to politics" and gets down to the question: how should appellate court judges in a particular country at a particular time do their work? It not only argues lucidly for a particular answer to that question, but it also gives a good sense of what it must be like to be in Judge Posner's shoes. Posner helps you understand what sorts of things judges have to worry about, and what sorts of …

Freestanding Legal Pragmatism, Thomas C. Grey

Cardozo Law Review

John Rawls has recently presented liberalism as a political philosophy that can stand free of the comprehensive moral and metaphysical views with which it has been associated. You don't have to be a neo-Kantian like Rawls, so he argues, to accept his Kantiansounding theory of justice. Millian utilitarians, Aristotelian perfectionists, and Thomistic theists can also commit to the basic liberal rights: democratic government, freedom of speech and religion, equal opportunity, the rule of law, private property, and a welfare safety net. Rawls believes that there is no need for citizens to resolve their deepest philosophical disagreements in order to be …

"Do Justice!": Variations Of A Thrice-Told Tale, Michael Herz

Articles

Although recent debates would suggest that narrative scholarship is brand new,4 lawyers, judges, and law professors, like all humankind, have always offered stories for illustration or support or to make a point in an indirect, and often more effective, way. Learned Hand's story about telling Justice Holmes to "do justice" is one widely-used example, offered by many writers in addition to Judge Bork and Professor Chayes. Its popularity is easy to understand. The story has a substantive message, pithily expressed, on a basic jurisprudential issue; it involves two members of the pantheon; and it crams a lot of human interest …

Conflicts And The Federal Circuit, 29 J. Marshall L. Rev. 835 (1996), Glenn L. Archer Jr.

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Equitable Remedies And Other Types Of Non-Money Judgments In United States And French Courts: A Comparative Analysis, Noele Sophie Rigot

LLM Theses and Essays

Courts of industrialized nations are often faced with adjudication of cases which involve foreign components. It is common for those courts to be asked by individuals or legal entities from a transnational environment to adjudicate with regard to some elements already adjudged in a different legal system as if it were a local judgment. The question that arises is how effects should be given when dealing with prior adjudications. Most countries agree to recognize some effects determined by foreign jurisdictions, as long as those determinations meet standards that guarantee proper integration of the foreign decision into the domestic setting. These …

Judicial Knowledge, William B. Fisch

Faculty Publications

This paper reviews rules governing the use by judges in United States courts of their personal knowledge - as distinguished from that supplied by the parties in the adjudication of a civil case, whether of the particular facts out of which the dispute arises, or of general information with which the particular facts must be processed, or of law which is to be applied to the particular facts.

Challenges In Judging: Some Insights From The Writings Of Moses, Gordon J. Beggs

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

I would like to use the writings of Moses as a lens to examine some challenges in judging. Moses authored the first five books of the Old Testament known as the Pentateuch or books of the law--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. He is probably best known for leading the Hebrew people out of bondage in Egypt and for receiving the Ten Commandments. As our discussion today will reveal, he may also be credited with authoring some significant principles with respect to the judicial function.

Doubting Thomas: Confirmation Veracity Meets Performance Reality, Joyce A. Baugh, Christopher E. Smith

Seattle University Law Review

At the close of the United States Supreme Court's 1994 term, Justice Clarence Thomas became the center of news media attention for his important role as a prominent member of the Court's resurgent conservative bloc. More frequently than in past terms, Thomas's opinions articulated the conservative position for his fellow Justices. According to one report, "The newly energized Thomas has shown little hesitancy this term in leading the conservative charge. Another article referred to Thomas's "full-throated emergence as a distinctive and articulate judicial voice." Thomas's new prominence, assertiveness, and visibility have been attributed to his emergence from the shadows of …

Cardozo's Allegheny College Opinion: A Case Study In Law As An Art, Michael Townsend

Articles

This Article consists of two related pieces. One piece considers interpretations of Cardozo's opinion in Allegheny College v. National Chautauqua County Bank. Cardozo commonly is placed among the greatest American judges, but his "analysis in Allegheny College is regularly criticized as contrived and artificial." This Article attempts to resuscitate the reputation of his analysis by placing the case in its historical and doctrinal context. The other piece continues the elaboration of a framework introduced in a previous article for thinking about law as a discipline. Central to this framework is a particular conception of the western intellectual tradition in …

A Text Is Just A Text, Paul F. Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

When Judges Are Gatekeepers: Democracy, Morality, Status, And Empathy In Duty Decisions (Help From Ordinary Citizens), Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Imagine that you are eighteen and you have just graduated from high school. Even though you have no cognitive disability and have spent twelve years of your life attending public schools, you are functionally illiterate. If your predicament was caused by negligent educators, your action for educational malpractice would be called a "failure to educate" case and it would be denied.

Or, imagine that you enter a public school kindergarten class and you are examined by the school's psychologist. On the basis of a verbal intelligence test, the psychologist concludes that you are mentally retarded. In reality, you have …

Tragic Irony Of American Federalism: National Sovereignty Versus State Sovereignty In Slavery And In Freedom, The Federalism In The 21st Century: Historical Perspectives, Robert J. Kaczorowski

Faculty Scholarship

A plurality on the Supreme Court seeks to establish a state-sovereignty based theory of federalism that imposes sharp limitations on Congress's legislative powers. Using history as authority, they admonish a return to the constitutional "first principles" of the Founders. These "first principles," in their view, attribute all governmental authority to "the consent of the people of each individual state, not the consent of the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole." Because the people of each state are the source of all governmental power, they maintain, "where the Constitution is silent about the exercise of a particular power-that is, …

The Chaotic Pseudotext, Paul F. Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Most Dangerous Justice: The Supreme Court At The Bar Of Mathematics, Paul H. Edelman, Jim Chen

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

We analyze the relative voting power of the Justices based upon Supreme Court decisions during October Term 1994 and October Term 1995. We take two approaches, both based on ideas derived from cooperative game theory. One of the measures we use has been used in connection with voting rights cases. After naming the Most Dangerous Justice, we conclude by identifying and explaining the inverse relationship between seniority and voting power.

Rosalie Wahl: Her Extraordinary Contributions To Legal Education, James F. Hogg

Faculty Scholarship

Justice Rosalie Wahl is well-known as the first woman to be appointed to the Minnesota Supreme Court, but she has made a lesser known, yet critical, contribution to the quality and effectiveness of legal education in this country. As chair of the American Bar Association's Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Wahl created the MacCrate Commission. The MacCrate Report charts the way for improvement in law school teaching and learning, and the discussion following the report lead to the creation of an ABA Commission to take testimony and review the ABA Accreditation Standards. Wahl also chaired this …

Legislatively Directed Judicial Activism: Some Reflections On The Meaning Of The Civil Justice Reform Act, 28 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 305 (1995), Matthew R. Kipp, Paul B. Lewis

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

With the Civil Justice Reform Act (CJRA), Congress attempted to further a trend that the federal judiciary had undertaken largely on its own initiative. Sensing a critical need to address the mounting expense and delay of federal civil litigation, Congress, like the judiciary, sought to increase the degree of early and active involvement of judges in the adjudicatory process. The result of this mandate has been a further emphasis on the role of the judge as a case manager. As a necessary corollary, the liberty and self-determination of individual litigants-ideals that have historically been seen as philosophical cornerstones of the …

Overview Of The Role Of Precedent In The Legal System Of The United States, Ana Elena Fierro

LLM Theses and Essays

Traditionally, legal systems have been classified as either Common Law or Civil Law; scholars distinguish these systems based on their origins, as well their attitudes towards stare decisis. Common law considers precedent as a source of binding rules, while civil law does not. However, some scholars consider the methods for legal reasoning to be almost the same in every legal system. These scholars maintain that regardless of the source of law in a particular country, once a judge determines that the facts of one case are similar to those regulated by a certain rule, the judge will apply that particular …

Using Common Sense: A Linguistic Perspective On Judicial Interpretations Of "Use A Firearm", Clark D. Cunningham, Charles J. Filmore

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Justice Stephen Breyer: Purveyor Of Common Sense In Many Forums, Jeffrey Lubbers

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Anti-Intellectualism, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review Of Discretionary Immigration Decisionmaking, Michael G. Heyman

San Diego Law Review

The Immigration and Nationality Act vests enormous discretion in the Attorney General and subordinates, such discretion exercised frequently at all levels of the immigration system. Despite this, though, judicial review of these decisions has followed a very uneven, troubled course. This Article explores the reasons for this, focusing first on the Administrative Procedure Act and the elusive meaning of discretion itself. The author demonstrates the "disintegration" of administrative law and what he sees as the failure of its general precepts to accommodate immigration issues. The Article traces the development of faulty doctrine through case law, resulting in a stunted judicial …

John Marshall And The Moral Basis For Judicial Review, David F. Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

During the last two decades, many observers have been disappointed in some of the appointments to the federal bench and in the judicial philosophies some judges have brought with them. But if we turn to the source of our constitutional order, we would find in the example of John Marshall the moral basis for the judicial craft.

Rewriting Beginnings: The Lessons Of Gautreaux, 28 J. Marshall L. Rev. 57 (1994), Janet Koven Levit

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pierre Schlag’S “The Problem Of The Subject”: Law’S Need For An Analyst, David S. Caudill

Cardozo Law Review

Pierre Schlag's book-length law review article, The Problem of the Subject, sets out to reveal, and succeeds in revealing, nothing - Schlag reveals a gap or void in contemporary legal philosophy with respect to the subject. Of course, the subject (for now, the "I" or self or individual) can be found in legal theory-people reflect on law, make law, and obey or break the law-but legal theorists generally avoid the question of who the subject is. Thus, accounts of the subject are rare in legal scholarship, and the problems that such accounts would raise are generally evaded. Of course, …

The Tension Between Rules And Discretion In Family Law: A Report And Reflection, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

The history of law is many things. But one of them is the story of an unremitting struggle between rules and discretion. The tension between these two approaches to legal problems continues to pervade and perplex the law today. Perhaps nowhere is that tension more pronounced and more troubling than in family law. It is probably impossible to practice family law without wrestling with the imponderable choice between rules and discretion. Consider, for example, how many areas of family law are now being fought over in-just those terms. For decades we have lived with an abundantly discretionary way of resolving …

The Myth Of The Impartial Judge, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.