Jurisprudence Commons^™

Teaching Jurisprudence In A Catholic Law School, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Journal Articles

This essay is a contribution to a symposium on John Breen and Lee Strang's forthcoming book, A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States. Breen and Strang's book offers not just a history, but a program for the future of Catholic legal education. Their program places the teaching of jurisprudence and the natural law tradition at the center of Catholic legal education. This essay draws on lessons from teaching jurisprudence at Notre Dame Law School which, in delightfully countercultural fashion, is one of the few remaining law schools in the nation that require jurisprudence. It …

Murphy V. Ncaa: The Supreme Court's Latest Advance In Chemerinsky's "Federalism Revolution", Jonathan O. Ballard Jr.

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Language's Empire: A Counter-Telling Of Administrative Law In Canada, Nicholas Hooper

LLM Theses

This thesis renders the unstated assumptions that animate statutory interpretation in the administrative state. It argues that the current approach is a disingenuous rhetorical overlay that masks the politics of definitional meaning. After rejecting the possibility of structuring principles in our (post)modern oversaturation of signs, the thesis concludes with an aspirational account of interpretive pragmatism in the face of uncertainty.

Tort Reform With Chinese Characteristics: Towards A Harmonious Society In The People's Republic Of China, Andrew J. Green

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article presents an analysis of tort law in China specifically focusing on personal injury tort law. It provides a general background on the role of tort law in society, and then it analyzes the specific laws, regulations, and cases that form the personal injury tort regime, covering both historical and recent laws. The article then explores the forces in society and politics that seem to be behind the new legal rules. It concludes by drawing attention to several steps that may be taken as part of further reform.

Avian Jurisprudence And The Protection Of Migratory Birds In North America, Marshall A. Bowen

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

The Institutions Of Innocence Review: A Comparative Sociological Perspective, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

The last three decades have seen the rise of an international innocence movement that has forced participants in diverse criminal justice systems to confront their systems’ fallibility, previously thought more theoretical than real. The public acknowledgment of that fallibility has led to the creation of new institutional mechanisms to re-examine old convictions. This short essay prepared for a symposium issue of the Rutgers University Law Review on the theory of criminal law reform compares the error correction institutions created in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, three English-speaking countries with common law roots and an adversarial structure, through …

A Philosophical Defense Of Judicial Minimalism, Cory A. Evans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes, criticizes and ultimately defends judicial minimalism, a contemporary theory of judging that has come to the forefront of American jurisprudence in the early part of the 21st Century. In this dissertation I offer the first formal definition of judicial minimalism, apply that definition to case law and the literature, refute many objections to judicial minimalism including objections based on tough case counterexamples, offer a new version of the argument of epistemic humility and offer a new argument in support of judicial minimalism from the perspective of law and economics.

One Of Five: Reflections On Jim Jones' Jurisprudential Impact In His Twelve Years On The Idaho Supreme Court, Hillary Smith

Idaho Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fiction In The Code: Reading Legislation As Literature, Thomas J. Mcsweeney

Faculty Publications

One of the major branches of the field of law and literature is often described as "law as literature." Scholars of law as literature examine the law using the tools of literary analysis. The scholarship in this subfield is dominated by the discussion of narrative texts: confessions, victim-impact statements, and, above all, the judicial opinion. This article will argue that we can use some of the same tools to help us understand non-narrative texts, such as law codes and statutes. Genres create expectations. We do not expect a law code to be literary. Indeed, we tend to dissociate the law …

A Rule Of Persons, Not Machines: The Limits Of Legal Automation, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Communitarianism And The Roberts Court: The Sequel, Robert M. Ackerman, Adam G. Winn

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Irreconcilable Differences? Whole Woman’S Health, Gonzales, And Justice Kennedy’S Vision Of American Abortion Jurisprudence, O. Carter Snead, Laura Wolk

Journal Articles

A law is unconstitutional if it "has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus."' Twenty-five years have elapsed since a plurality of the Supreme Court articulated this undue burden standard in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, yet its contours remain elusive. Notably, two current members of the Court-Justice Breyer and Justice Kennedy-seem to fundamentally differ in their understanding of what Casey requires and permits. In Gonzales v. Carhart, Justice Kennedy emphasized a wide range of permissible state interests implicated by abortion and indicated …

A Drama Of Development: Gary Olson On Stanley Fish, Richard Mullender

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Book Review of Gary A. Olson, Stanley Fish, America’s Enfant Terrible: The Authorized Biography

Sign Or Die: The Threat Of Imminent Physical Harm And The Doctrine Of Duress In Contract Law, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Commerce, Religion, And The Rule Of Law, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

The rule of law and religion can act as commercial substitutes. Both can create the trust required for material prosperity. The rule of law simplifies social interactions, turning people into formal legal agents and generating a map of society that the state can observe and control, thus credibly committing to the enforcement of the legal rights demanded by impersonal markets. Religion, in contrast, embraces complex social identities. Within these communities, economic actors can monitor and sanction misbehavior. Both approaches have benefits and problems. The rule of law allows for trade among strangers, fostering peaceful pluralism. However, law breeds what Montesquieu …

The Free Exercise Clause, Minority Faiths, And The Possibility Of Religious Independence After Rawlsian Liberalism, David Charles Scott

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

The conversation to which my dissertation belongs is that which preoccupied John Rawls in Political Liberalism, namely: (1) how it is possible that a religiously and morally pluralistic culture like ours lives cooperatively from one generation to the next, and (2) The extent to which religious or moral convictions are appropriate bases for political action. My three-essay dissertation is about aspects of this investigation that affect minority or non-mainstream religious and cultural groups, since legal institutions, and theoretical models of them (such as Rawls’s and Ronald Dworkin’s) are in many ways ill-suited to accommodate their ways of life. In the …

Aspirations Of Objectivity: Systemic Illusions Of Justice In The Biased Courtroom, Meagan B. Roderique

Scripps Senior Theses

Given the ever-growing body of evidence surrounding implicit bias in and beyond the institution of the law, there is an equally growing need for the law to respond to the accurate science of prejudice in its aspiration to objective practice and just decision-making. Examined herein are the existing legal conceptualizations of implicit bias as utilized in the courtroom; implicit bias as peripheral to law and implicit bias as effectual in law, but not without active resolution. These views and the interventional methods, materials, and procedures they inspire are widely employed to appreciably “un-bias” legal actors and civic participants; however, without …

Law Library Blog (January 2018): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Racial Justice And Federal Habeas Corpus As Postconviction Relief From State Convictions, Leroy Pernell

Journal Publications

It is the purpose of this Article not to simply document the influence of race on our criminal system and its role in the current racial crisis of overrepresentation of minorities in our prisons, but rather to focus on the future and importance of a key tool in the struggle for racial equity – federal habeas corpus as a postconviction remedy. By looking first at the racial context of several “landmark” criminal justice reform decisions, this Article considers how race serves as the root of the procedural due process reform that began in earnest during the Warren Court. This Article …

The Force Of Law, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

SCHAUER, Frederick. The Force of Law. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. xiv + 239 pp. Cloth, $35.00.

So long as our task is, Schauer writes, "the pursuit of law's essential properties in all possible legal systems in all possible worlds, there would be little point in being concerned with force, sanctions, coercion." But perhaps there is another, equally important, task to perform. Schauer writes that one could view his book as an "attempt [] to account for what seems to be an obviously important fact about the world: law is commonly and valuably coercive." Indeed, "[i]t has long …

Law's Evolving Emergent Phenomena: From Rules Of Social Intercourse To Rule Of Law Society, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Scholarship@WashULaw

Law involves institutions rooted in the history of a society that evolve in relation to surrounding social, psychological, cultural, economic, political, technological, and ecological influences. Law must be understood naturalistically, historically, and holistically. In my usage, naturalism views humans as social animals with natural traits and requirements, historicism presents law as historical manifestations that change over time, and holism sees law within social surroundings. These insights inform my perspective in A Realistic Theory of Law. While these propositions might seem obvious, few works in contemporary jurisprudence build around them.

In this essay, I draw on the notion of emergence …

Text Over Intent And The Demise Of Legislative History, Thomas W. Merrill, Michael S. Paulsen, Saikrishna Prakash, Lawrence B. Solum, Sandra Segal Ikuta

Faculty Scholarship

The following is the transcript of a 2016 Federalist Society panel entitled: Text Over Intent and the Demise of Legislative History. The panel originally occurred on November 17, 2016 during the National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C. The participants were: Prof. Thomas W. Merrill, Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; Prof. Michael S. Paulsen, Distinguished University Chair and Professor, University of St. Thomas School of Law; Prof. Saikrishna Prakash, James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law; Prof. Lawrence B. Solum, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. The moderator was …

Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers - Accession 1049, Dorothy Moser Medlin

Manuscript Collection

(The Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers are currently in processing.)

This collection contains most of the records of Dorothy Medlin’s work and correspondence and also includes reference materials, notes, microfilm, photographic negatives related both to her professional and personal life. Additions include a FLES Handbook, co-authored by Dorothy Medlin and a decorative mirror belonging to Dorothy Medlin.

Major series in this collection include: some original 18th century writings and ephemera and primary source material of André Morellet, extensive collection of secondary material on André Morellet's writings and translations, Winthrop related files, literary manuscripts and notes by Dorothy Medlin (1966-2011), copies …

Of Brutal Murder And Transcendental Sovereignty: The Meaning Of Vested Private Rights, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

The idea of vested private rights is divisive; it divides those who practice law from those who teach and think about law. On one side of the divide, practicing lawyers act as though (at least some) rights exist and exert binding obligations upon private persons and government officials, such that once vested, the rights cannot be taken away or retrospectively altered. Lawyers convey estates in property, negotiate contracts, and write and send demand letters on the supposition that they are specifying and vindicating rights, which are rights not as a result of a judgment by a court in a subsequent …

Picking And Choosing Text: Lessons For Statutory Interpretation From The Philosophy Of Language, Victoria Frances Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Textualists claim that they follow statutory text. This Article argues that, in practice, textualists often create meaning rather than find it. Deploying the analytics of linguistic philosophy, this Article takes a deep dive into textualist methodology. The philosophy of language reveals what legal scholarship has left submerged: The very choice of text can put the thumb on the scales of any interpretation. When one pulls a term out of a statute and isolates it from the rest of the text (what I call “isolationist” method), this decontextualization offers the opportunity for adding and subtracting meaning from the statute by “pragmatic …

Hyatt V. Franchise Tax Board Of California: Perils Of Undue Disputing Zeal And Undue Immunity For Government-Inflicted Injury, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Nevada Law Journal

Twenty years ago, California reacted with suspicion to inventor Gilbert Hyatt’s move to Nevada, concluding that he had not actually changed his residency to Las Vegas in time to avoid millions in state taxes based on a lucrative patent assignment. So convinced was California, it engaged in highly questionable shadowing of Hyatt (including dumpster dives). A jury later found this shadowing sufficiently abhorrent to support a multi-million dollar damage verdict in Hyatt’s favor as part of Hyatt’s invasion of privacy/abuse of power claim. Ultimately, after two trips to the U.S. Supreme Court, the verdict was substantially reduced and then limited …

Toward A Science Of Torture?, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Does torture “work?” Proponents, including President Trump and the architects of CIA “Enhanced Interrogation” say it does, by breaking terrorists' resistance to revealing information that saves lives. Torture's foes typically dismiss this claim as false to the point of fraud--fortuitous coincidence with torture's unlawfulness. Neither view, I argue herein, rests firmly on evidence. Rival anecdotes, not data, have, so far, driven this debate. And a scientific answer is beyond our reach, since: (1) rigorous comparison between interrogation methods that do and don't involve torture isn't possible, and (2) studies of this sort would be transparently unethical. This hasn't stopped the …

Random If Not Rare: The Eighth Amendment Weaknesses Of Post-Miller Legislation, Kimberly Thomas

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Obligations Versus Rights: Substantive Difference Between Wto And International Investment Law, Chios Carmody

Law Publications

WTO law remains relatively uncontentious whereas international investment law elicits much more debate. This article posits that the differences in reception are attributable to deeper substantive differences about what is protected under each regime. In WTO law what is protected is the sum total of all commitments and concessions under the WTO Agreement, something that can be thought of as a “public” good. When a country injures that good, the remedy is for the country to cease the injury, a requirement that naturally places emphasis on obligation. In international investment law, by contrast, what is protected is individualized to a …

The Costs Of Trumped-Up Immigration Enforcement Measures, Kari Hong

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Currently, our country spends $18 billion each year on immigration enforcement, which is nearly $4 billion more than the combined budgets of the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, and ATF. President Trump hopes to substantially increase that annual number with his proposed heightened enforcement measures that result in more arrests, more ICE officers roaming our streets, airports, and courtrooms, more detentions, more deportations, and more wall. This essay begins by examining each of these measures that were outlined in the new executive orders and concludes that all are expensive, ineffective, unnecessary, and inhumane.