Jurisprudence Commons^™

Taking Text Too Seriously: Modern Textualism, Original Meaning, And The Case Of Amar's Bill Of Rights, William Michael Treanor

Michigan Law Review

Championed on the Supreme Court by Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas and in academia most prominently by Professor Akhil Amar textualism has emerged within the past twenty years as a leading school of constitutional interpretation. Textualists argue that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with its original public meaning, and in seeking that meaning, they closely parse the Constitution's words and grammar and the placement of clauses in the document. They have assumed that this close parsing recaptures original meaning, but, perhaps because it seems obviously correct, that assumption has neither been defended nor challenged. This Article uses Professor …

Petitioner's Observations (December 2007) For The Redress Of Violations Of Human Rights Guaranteed By The American Declaration Of The Rights And Duties Of Man, Inter-American Commission On Human Rights, Jeffrey C. Tuomala

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Exclusion Confusion? A Defense Of The Federal Circuit's Specific Exclusion Jurisprudence, Peter Curtis Magic

Michigan Law Review

Specific exclusion has become a controversial limitation on the doctrine of equivalents, which is itself an essential and controversial area of patent law. The doctrine of equivalents allows a patentee to successfully claim infringement against devices that are outside of the literal reach of the language used by the patentee in her patent to describe what she claims as her invention. The Supreme Court has prescribed some of the outer limits of the doctrine of equivalents and articulated the underlying policy concerns that inform its analysis-noting that courts should balance protection of the patentee's intellectual property with the public's reasonable …

Third-Party Profit-Taking In Tax Exemption Jurisprudence, Darryll K. Jones

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Property Tests, Due Process Tests And Regulatory Takings Jurisprudence, Steven J. Eagle

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Dui Law In Virginia, Monte Kuligowski

University of Richmond Law Review

As the demand for safer roadways needs little supporting argument, I turn to the constitutional problem of strict criminal liability law, followed with a brief analysis of criminal intent and strict liability law within the criminal system, some examples of how other states have responded to the inherent tensions, and a few specific thoughts for the legislature to consider.

The History And Scope Of The Virginia Declaratory Judgments Act, Seth M. Land

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Antigone Dilemma: When The Paths Of Law And Morality Diverge, J. C. Oleson

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Appellate Jurisdiction, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

Appellate jurisdiction in the federal system has been properly criticized for both its doctrinal incoherence and its procedural complexity. Although these critiques are well-founded, this Article reveals that, as applied in practice, federal courts have drawn sensible lines between interlocutory orders that are immediately appealable and those that are not. A limited category of interlocutory orders, primarily those rejecting immunities from suit, are immediately appealable as of right. All other interlocutory orders are potentially eligible for discretionary appellate review. The doctrinal morass of the present framework, however, has obscured this basically sensible structure and has led to inefficient procedures for …

Locating Authority In Law, And Avoiding The Authoritarianism Of 'Textualism', Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Working Paper Series

Much modern jurisprudence attempts to move the locus of authority away from people with authority in order to locate it instead, for example, in rules or texts. This article argues that authority, wherever it exists, is a quality of the actions of persons. The article mounts this argument by showing how Justice Scalia's textualism is the legal analogue of a largely discredited form of "Christian positivism," one that leads to a form of authoritarianism. The article goes on to argue that authorianism can be avoided only by individuals' and their communities' becoming authoritative, including in the making and enforcement of …

Market Triumphalism, Electoral Pathologies, And The Abiding Wisdom Of First Amendment Access Rights, Gregory P. Magarian

Working Paper Series

Forty years ago, Professor Jerome Barron made the classic case that the First Amendment requires not merely protection of speech against government interference but provision of access to the means of mass communication. The Supreme Court in the ensuing decades has largely rejected Barron’s approach. In this article, Professor Magarian defends Barron’s case for access rights against the two theoretical critiques that have underwritten its doctrinal rejection. The libertarian critique attacks the normative underpinnings of access rights, maintaining that the First Amendment insulates market-driven distributions of expressive opportunities. Professor Magarian demonstrates that politically progressive and conservative libertarian critics of access …

The Prose And The Passion, Penelope J. Pether

Working Paper Series

This essay takes the late Robert Cover's insight that “No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning,” and thus that “For every constitution there is an epic” as the starting point for a reading of Australian legal and literary texts about the relationship of the nation and “outsiders,” as between constitutional subjects and texts. Ranging from “legal faction” texts Evil Angels (about the “Dingo Baby” case) and Dark Victory (about the Tampa incident) and The Castle, Rob Sitch's filmic satire on the Australian takings clause and the landmark Native …

Court Review: Volume 41, Issue 3-4 - The Resource Page: Focus On Judicial Campaign-Conduct Rules

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

Editor’s Note: There are about 8,500 state general-jurisdiction trial-court judges in the United States; of those, 77% stand for some sort of contestable election and 87% stand for some form of election. There are about 1,250 state appellate judges in the United States; of those, 53% stand for some sort of contestable election and 87% stand for some form of election. (See Court Review, Summer 2004, at 21.) In addition, there are thousands of additional, limited-jurisdiction judges also subject to election. Thus, the rules governing election-campaign conduct by judges are of great significance.

In 2002, in Republican Party of Minnesota …

Jurisprudence And Judicial Ethics, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The fundamental value in judicial ethics is impartiality. This means that a judge is duty-bound to decide cases on their merits, be open to persuasion, and not influenced by improper considerations. The paradigm case of unethical behavior by a judge is taking a bribe to decide a case in favor of one of the parties. This kind of corruption, which is fortunately rare in many developed countries, is also relatively uninteresting from an intellectual point of view. A more difficult case of failure of impartiality, conceptually speaking, involves a judge who relies on extra-legal factors as the basis for a …

The Impossibility Of A Prescriptive Paretian, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Most normatively oriented economists appear to be “welfarist” and Paretian to one degree or another: They deem responsiveness to individual preferences, and satisfaction of one or more of the Pareto criteria, to be a desirable attribute of any social welfare function. I show that no strictly “welfarist” or Paretian social welfare function can be normatively prescriptive. Economists who prescribe must embrace at least one value apart from or additional to “welfarism” and Paretianism, and in fact will do best to dispense with Pareto entirely.

Throwing Down The International Gauntlet: Same-Sex Marriage As A Human Right, Vincent J. Samar

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article argues that nations have a moral and legal obligation to recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad, grounded in human rights principles and the framework of equality. It contends that the right to marry is a fundamental human right, rooted in dignity and self-fulfillment, and that denying recognition to same-sex marriages violates these principles. The analysis draws on Gewirth's rationalist approach to human rights and U.S. constitutional law, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses, to advocate for universal recognition of same-sex marriage as a matter of equality and liberty.

Law & Politics: The Case Against Judicial Review Of Direct Democracy, Corey A. Johanningmeier

Indiana Law Journal

This Note argues against strong judicial review of direct democracy. Judicial review has been the dominant answer in legal scholarship for the perceived danger of majoritarian tyranny in any democratic system. But Progressive movements throughout American history, as well as a growing number of respected law professors, have questioned the assumption that courts or even legislatures are better protectors of discrete and insular minorities than the rights-respecting populace. Although the vast majority of legal scholarship still displays a crippling cynicism about popular competence, this view cannot continue to block progressives from participating in initiative campaigns. Exclusive resort to elitist procedural …

Response To Reviewers, Philip Heymann

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Concept Of Critical Mass In Legal Discourse, Adeno Addis

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reading Too Much Into Reeder-Simco?, Jeremy M. Suhr

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that a careful analysis of the Supreme Court's opinion in Volvo Trucks North America, Inc. v. Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc. demonstrates that, despite the expansive dicta appearing in part IV of that opinion, the Court did not intend to reshape the course of its Robinson-Patman Act jurisprudence in any significant way. The Court's opinion operated well within the confines of established Robinson-Patman Act doctrine, even if its searching review of the evidence presented at trial represented a rare foray into the arena of factual error correction. After Reeder-Simco, however, many commentators emphasized the dicta in part IV …

Religious Liberty That Almost Wasn't: On The Origin Of The Establishment Clause Of The First Amendment, Gregory C. Downs

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

The purpose of this article is to briefly examine the origin of the Establishment Clause in the event sometimes referred to as the "Virginia Experience," and to consider the possibility that the significant "leading roles" in the First Amendment's creation were not limited to Jefferson and Madison. Further, Madison's leading role in the actual sponsorship of the First Amendment may not have been entirely voluntary. With the ever-present litigation and controversies revolving around the extent and meaning of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, the overlooked history of the creation of the First Amendment is both interesting and instructive in the …

A Philosopher Looks At Contemporary Terrorism, Igor Primoratz

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Theorizing The Law/Politics Distinction: Neutral Principles, Affirmative Action, And The Enduring Legacy Of Paul Mishkin, Robert C. Post, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

Paul Mishkin was a colleague and a teacher to us, and we each esteem him as a master craftsman of the law: learned, wise, and far-sighted. To re-read his publications is to enter an astonishing world of clarity and integrity, a world in which no word is wasted and insight is deep and revealing.

Early in his career Mishkin saw that the law could be apprehended from two distinct and in part incompatible perspectives: from the internal perspective of a faithful practitioner and from the external perspective of the general public. If the social legitimacy of the law as a …

Umpires At Bat: On Integration And Legitimation, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

During his confirmation hearings. Chief Justice Roberts captured the public's imagination when he offered an interpretation of the role that judges play in our society when interpreting the Constitution. Judges and Justices are servants of the law, not the other way around, he said. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules, but it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see an umpire.

In this inquiry, I identify some tensions between the …

Following The Yellow Brick Road Of Evolving Standards Of Decency: The Ironic Consequences Of Death-Is-Different Jurisprudence, William W. Berry, Iii

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rule Of Law Conference: Global Issues And The Rule Of Law, Lord Chief Justice Nicholas Phillips Of Worth Matravers

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Contribution Of The Special Court For Sierra Leone To The Development Of International Law, Charles C. Jalloh

Articles

No abstract provided.

Deterrence, Retributivism, And The Law Of Evidence, Richard A. Bierschbach, Alex Stein

Articles

Legal scholarship has long treated substantive criminal law and evidence as two separate and distinct fields. The former largely concerns itself with evaluating substantive criminal law rules by reference to various animating theories-most prominently, those of deterrence and retributivism.' Scholars, students, and policymakers laud or condemn doctrines based on notions of "just deserts" or ideas about the incentives they create for those disposed to commit a crime. When it comes to the numerous evidentiary and other rules that determine the course of prosecutions and proof, however, the conversation is different. Here, questions of reliability, evidential worth, and accuracy in fact-finding …

Mediating Rules In Criminal Law, Richard A. Bierschbach, Alex Stein

Articles

This Article challenges the conventional divide between substantive criminal law theory, on the one hand, and evidence law, on the other, by exposing an important and unrecognized function of evidence rules in criminal law. Throughout the criminal law, special rules of evidence work to mediate conflicts between criminal law's deterrence and retributivist goals. They do this by skewing errors in the actual application of the substantive criminal law to favor whichever theory has been disfavored by the substantive rule itself The mediating potential of evidentiary rules is particularly strong in criminal law because the substantive law's dominant animating theories-deterrence and …

Civil Case Appellate Standards Of Review (And A Very Few Unavoidable Related Propositions Of Law), Updated And Revised (Current Through August 3, 2007), Alan G. Gless

State of Nebraska Judicial Branch

Why would a district court judge write about or revise an appellate court judge’s work on appellate standards of review and related propositions of law in civil cases? Well, two reasons – a change in legal mind set and fifteen years’ worth of changes in appellate practice. First, and foremost, when Judge Irwin collected in a single work his 1992 Standards of Review and Propositions of Law, Civil, he was the first in recent Nebraska legal history to do so. Those of us who have used his work owe him our thanks; his contribution was invaluable to both the bench …