Jurisprudence Commons^™

Rethinking The Judicial Reception Of Legislative Facts, Ann Woolhandler

Vanderbilt Law Review

In a recent article, Professor Peggy Davis called for reforms in judicial reception of legislative facts. Her suggestions, which follow an empirical analysis of the use of psychological parent theories in child custody disputes, echo similar proposals by Professor Kenneth Karst in 1960s and by Professors Arthur Miller and Jerome Barron in 1975 for judicial reception of legislative facts in constitutional cases.As originally defined by Kenneth Culp Davis, legislative facts are facts that "inform[] a court's legislative judgment on questions of law and policy." They contrast with adjudicative facts, which are facts about "what the parties did, what the circumstances …

Formal Justice And Judicial Precedent, David Lyons

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article concerns an argument which, if sound, would sup-port a doctrine of precedent with unlimited scope-one that would provide some justification, though not overwhelming justification,for following all precedents, however regrettable they may be. The argument holds that respect for precedent is required by the principle that like cases should be treated alike.Although that argument is challenged here, no claim is made that a practice of precedent cannot be justified. The larger purpose of this Article is to clear the way for a systematic inquiry into the sound reasons for, as well as the legitimate scope of, such a practice.

Use Of Juror Depositions To Bar Collateral Estoppel: A Necessary Safeguard Or Dangerous Precedent?, Ina R. Bigham

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note initially discusses the doctrine of collateral estoppel and its policy justifications. Next, it describes the mutuality requirement for the use of collateral estoppel, tracing the abandonment of the mutuality rule by an increasing number of courts and presenting the policy arguments for and against such abandonment. Then the Note turns to the three corollaries of the collateral estoppel theory and explores the different methods that parties may use to establish each one. The Note also discusses the possibility that those methods may conflict with the basic policy of preserving the privacy and inviolability of the jury system. Finally,the …

Inconsistency In The United States Courts Of Appeals: Dimensions And Mechanisms For Resolution, Stephen L. Wasby

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article is based on an extensive study of the United States Courts of Appeals for the Eighth and Ninth Circuits that focused on two interrelated questions. The first question was how judges in geographically large circuits communicate with each other when they are not all stationed in the same city.' The focus of this Article is on the second question-the problem of intracircuit inconsistency. The study is based on largely open-ended interviews with the Ninth Circuit's active-duty and senior circuit judges and with some active-duty and senior district judges who had sat most frequently with the court of appeals …

The Implications Of "Resegregation" For Judicially Imposed School Segregation Remedies, Charles T. Clotfelter

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article examines the implications of changing racial patterns--particularly those tending to resegregate schools--as they bear on the formulation of judicial remedies for school segregation. The Article considers both the effect of changing residential racial patterns upon racial patterns in schools and the effect of school desegregation upon the level of white enrollment. A third question that also may be relevant in this connection concerns the extent to which the possible existence of such resegregation constitutes a legitimate consideration in school desegregation cases. For example,fourteenth amendment requirements may render white flight a wholly irrelevant factor in some desegregation cases. This …

Criminal Procedure As Defined By The Tennessee Supreme Court, Julian L. Bibb, Walter S. Weems

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Tennessee Supreme Court, elected simultaneously for the first time since the early 1900's, assumed office in September 1974 amid speculation concerning future judicial policy. The court, com-posed of Chief Justice William H. D. Fones and Justices Ray L.Brock, Jr., Robert E. Cooper, William J. Harbison, and Joe W.Henry, immediately indicated the importance of a uniform judicial policy governing criminal procedure by creating a special commission to revise the state rules of criminal procedure. Additionally,during its present term the court has decided numerous cases directed toward the formation of well-defined rules under which criminal allegations can be adjudged. This Special …

The Tennessee Rule Against Perpetuities: A Proposal For Statutory Reform, C. Dent Bostick

Vanderbilt Law Review

For several decades, there has been agitation for reform of the common-law Rule Against Perpetuities. For the most part, the reformers have urged that improvements in the Rule and the manner of its application be accomplished through legislative enactment.' Only a few jurisdictions have opted for reform by the judiciary. Thus far, there has been no legislative reform of the Rule in Tennessee; the appellate courts of the state continue to apply the Rule inits common-law form with all the confusing rubrics attached to it by centuries of development. The condition of Tennessee's law on the subject contrasts sharply with …

Observations Of An Appellate Judge:The Use Of Law Clerks, Eugene A. Wright

Vanderbilt Law Review

Time-judicial time-is our most valuable commodity. We must employ it effectively and efficiently if we are to keep abreast of new developments in the law, new areas of litigation, and modern procedural improvements and to dispose of increasing backlogs of appealed cases. Circuit judges, each authorized two law clerks, have become increasingly dependent upon the help of their staffs to meet the demands of their expanding workload. The role of the law clerk is to aid the experienced judge in his ultimate task, decision-making. An appellate judge will have a varied background of skills and experience. Often he brings to …

Indigent Access To Civil Courts: The Tiger Is At The Gates, Wayne H. Scott

Vanderbilt Law Review

The accusation that justice in America has become a luxury has been heard with increasing frequency in recent years. An often criticized aspect of this perceived discrimination is that the poor are systematically deprived of effective access, and frequently of any access at all, to the judicial process by the varied and burdensome expenses of civil litigation.' Although these financial barriers have been subjected to increasingly successful attacks in the courts, the extent to which they have been lowered remains unclear. Nevertheless, an examination of the steps already taken to alleviate the problem of the indigent civil litigant raises hopes …

State Courts And The Federal System, Griffin B. Bell

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the more important aspects of federalism lies in the relationship which has been established between state and federal courts. The interworkings of the judicial process involve power in some in-stances and principles of comity in others. The purpose of this article is to examine this relationship, including possible areas of abrasion resulting from the interworkings between the two court systems.

Book Reviews, Richard G. Singer, Alfred H. Knight, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

Counsel on Appeal Edited by Arthur A. Charpentier New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Pp. xi, 223.

reviewer: Richard G. Singer

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Law Without Sanctions By Michael Barkun New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968. Pp. 175. $6.50

reviewer: Alfred H. Knight, III

Book Reviews, Harold G. Maier

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Enforcement of International Judicial Decisions Arbitral Awards in Public International Law By E.K. Nantwi Leyden, Netherlands: A.W. Sijthoff, N.V., 1966. Pp. xv 209.

Harold G. Maier

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Legal Papers of John Adams Edited by L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965. Vol. 1, pp. cxliv, 334. Vol. 2, pp. x, 441. Vol.3, pp. viii, 434. $30.00 the set

Frederick Bernays Wiener

Values As Variables In Judicial Decision-Making: Notes Toward A Theory, David I. Danelski

Vanderbilt Law Review

The concept of values is central to the explanation of judicial decision-making. Indeed, Clark L. Hull has gone so far as to say that any fairly detailed and sound dynamic theory of behavior must contain an empirical theory of values. Although students of judicial behavior have used values, or some equivalent concept, in their studies, there has been as yet no thorough, systematic exploration of values with a view toward using it as the central concept in building an empirical theory of judicial decision-making. This paper is a modest step in that direction. It is not, however, a presentation of …

Judicial Notice Of Foreign Law, Jerome J. Krasa

Vanderbilt Law Review

A fundamental cleavage exists between the two methods of viewing judicial notice. Both views must be understood before the doctrine of judicial notice can be said to have a real meaning applicable to the whole variety of legal problems which arise today. This understanding must be achieved before many of the seeming inconsistencies in what has been written about the doctrine can be clarified. Finally, this basic understanding must be had if any comprehension of the operation of judicial notice in any specific field of law is possible.

Chief Justice Taft At The Helm, Alpheus T. Mason

Vanderbilt Law Review

The office of Chief Justice carries scant inherent powers. The Chief Justice manages the docket, presents the cases in conference, and guides the discussion. When in the majority, he assigns the writing of opinions. Whatever influence he exerts in the exercise of these prerogatives rests less on formal authority than on elusive personal characteristics. Charles Evans Hughes, who had served as Associate Justice from 1910 to 1916 and later had been able to observe Taft's role in the Court over a period of seven years, considered the Chief Justice "the most important judicial officer in the world." His actual power, …

Justice Murphy: The Freshman Years, Woodford Howard

Vanderbilt Law Review

Justice Murphy is commonly regarded as having been a libertarian activist. He was not highly regarded as a Justice during his lifetime and this opinion prevails today. Here Professor Howard sees Justice Murphy during his early years on the Supreme Court as a man of indecision rather than an uncompromising libertarian. Through an examination of first amendment cases between 1940-42, the author finds that Murphy displayed a common reaction to the responsibilities of a new Supreme Court Justice which differed from most only in intensity.

Book Review, Allison L. Scafuri

Vanderbilt Law Review

The intellectual force in this scientifically and technologically oriented century, as Gatland and Dempster indicate, resides with men who have renaissance minds that can ably embrace scientific as well as societal propositions, reason anew and reach unique and far-reaching conclusions beyond the realm of current thought. To date, the intellectual strength of the lawyer has been his pervading understanding of problems from every societal view. This test can remain valid; however, the province of the legal "skill-elite group"must range far beyond his traditional social science touchstones into decidedly esoteric scientific subjects. The horizon of jurisprudence now embraces the mechanical universe …

The First Amendment And The Judicial Process: A Reply To Mr. Frantz, Wallace Mendelson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Cut loose from its foundation in the distinction between discussion and incitement, the clear and present danger test lost its rational meaning and became a cloak for "vague but fervent transcendental-ism." In short, the activists destroyed it as an intelligible guide to decision-and then abandoned it about a dozen years ago. Meanwhile they have tried, and apparently discarded, one "new" verbalism after another. The latest is Mr. Justice Black's absolutist concentration on two untroubled words in the first amendment: "no law." This gambit--"no law means no law"--again begs all the difficulties simply by ignoring them. As Dean Griswold has suggested, …

Book Review, W. N. Ethridge, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The consummation of Llewellyn's particular interest in the craft of appellate judging was his classic The Common Law Tradition: Deciding Appeals, which he completed in 1960. After reading it,no appellate judge could decide a case or write an opinion without being affected to some extent by Llewellyn's method and criteria. He conceived of law as the product of a rational process. The traditional dichotomy of reason and experience are reconcilable by development of legal methods in a rational framework. This technique clarifies and supports the sociological jurisprudence of Holmes, Cardozo, and Brandeis.

Meaning And Structure Of Law In Islam, Salah-Eldin Abdel-Wahab

Vanderbilt Law Review

There are many other reasons to believe that consideration of Islamic jurisprudence should prove amply rewarding in the comparative study of law. A legal system which still underlies the legal life and social conduct of some 400 million people (one sixth of the world population) cannot be ignored. The original solutions which it provides for problems of high complexity and its very advanced normative structure which consists entirely of works by jurists, not of government codes and statutes, are worthy of consideration.

What's Wrong With Baker V. Carr?, Robert Lancaster

Vanderbilt Law Review

The decision of the majority of the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr, the recently decided Tennessee Reapportionment Case, may well turn out to be one of the landmark decisions of American jurisprudence. If by reason of apathetic acquiescence such a judicial intrusion is permitted to go unchallenged and undebated, our federal system of limited and constitutional government may be further weakened. Although the balance of power as between the states and the national government has shifted and this shift has been reflected in and furthered by judicial interpretation of our Constitution, it seems questionable that such a far-reaching and …

Book Reviews, Edward S. Mason, Stanley D. Rose, Reber Boult, Robert N. Covington

Vanderbilt Law Review

This volume, which brings together, with one exception, all of Stocking's papers relating to workable competition, is more than a random collection of essays. As he indicates in the preface, the papers had been conceived from the beginning as segments of a book, and they proceed to cover systematically the relation of the concept of workable competition to the major areas of antitrust policy.

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Sir Frederick Pollock was born in 1845 and died in 1937. Throughout this long life, his industry was apparently unflagging. His mark is clearly discernible in wide areas of English law. Every student of the …

Ethical Theory And Legal Philosophy, Stanley D. Rose

Vanderbilt Law Review

Jurisprudence and ethics, the author believes, represent distinct efforts to achieve values in society. However, because of their similar method, bases in fact, and testing by consequences, each has something to give the other. With this in mind, the article examines the work of contemporary writers in ethics, both to determine what exactly are their positions and to see what they might offer the student of jurisprudence.

The Opinions Of Hughes And Sutherland And The Rights Of The Individual, R. Perry Sentell, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

A pair of tasks are undertaken by Mr. Sentell in this article: First, he analyzes and compares the opinions of Justices Sutherland and Hughes on the substantive and procedural rights of individuals, and cites both contemporary and present day comment on these opinions. Second, he probes the more difficult problem concerning the probability of judges of highly dissimilar philosophies and backgrounds reaching consistent agreement in particular areas of the law.

Law And History, C. J. Friedrich

Vanderbilt Law Review

Law is frozen history. In an elementary sense, everything we study when we study law is the report of an event in history, and all history consists of such records or reports. It therefore cannot be my task to develop a sermon on the importance of historical records for the understanding of the law; the tie is too intimate and too obvious to need laboring." The work of Professor Maine on 'Ancient Law,'" wrote Professor T. W. Dwight in his Introduction to that book in the sixties of the last century, "is almost the only one in the English language …

The Next Step: Uniform Rules For The Courts Of Appeals, Milton D. Green

Vanderbilt Law Review

The adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938 maybe regarded as one of the great landmarks of procedural reform in the United States. The many innovations and improvements over prior practice which were effected are well known. Not the least of these was the achievement of uniformity of procedure in all of the federal district courts of the United States, replacing the chaotic confusion which had existed under the Conformity Act.' Although the Federal Rules were addressed primarily to practice and procedure in the district courts, they also dealt with certain aspects of appellate practice. This was …

Hickman V. Jencks, Edward W. Cleary

Vanderbilt Law Review

In recent years the Supreme Court of the United States has decided two cases with fundamental impact upon the status of the legal profession in the litigatory process. Although the two cases are intimately related, the opinion in the second did not mention the first, and the two decisions have never really been laid side by side.' It is proposed here to explore their mutual implications.

Supreme Court Attitudes Toward Federal Administrative Agencies, Joseph Tanenhaus

Vanderbilt Law Review

This article reports for a legal audience an examination by social science methods of the validity of certain hypotheses about the behavior of the United States Supreme Court and of its individual members. In order that this study may be viewed in broader perspective,the first part of the essay surveys the prior uses of social science methods in dealing with the judicial process.

Rudolf Von Jhering, Iredell Jenkins

Vanderbilt Law Review

It is often the fate of the giants of thought to have their names live on while their doctrines are neglected, and even for their reputations to wax as their influence wanes. Indeed, this happens at some periods to the work that all such men leave behind them; it is esteemed but not appreciated, acknowledged but not cultivated. The precise reasons for this fall into oblivion vary with every individual case, but there is one factor that is common and constant: the prominence within the work of these men of ideas that push inquiry beyond the comfortable limits that are …

Gustav Radbruch, Wolfgang Friedmann

Vanderbilt Law Review

As recently as the end of the last World War the name and work of Gustav Radbruch were virtually unknown in the Anglo-American legal world. In 1938 Roscoe Pound, in his encyclopedic survey, "Fifty Years of Jurisprudence," had given a concise account of Radbruch's legal philosophy in the context of his section on "neo-idealism." In 1944 Anton Hermann Chroust wrote a penetrating analysis of Radbruch's philosophy of law, and about the same time the first edition of the present writer's Legal Theory, published on the other side of the Atlantic, included Gustav Radbruch in the survey of major legal philosophers. …