Law and Society Commons^™

Honest Services Fraud After Skilling., Pamela Mathy

St. Mary's Law Journal

The United States Supreme Court ruling in Skilling v. United States limits honest services fraud prosecutions of both public officials and private individuals to schemes involving bribes or kickbacks. Over the past two decades, federal prosecutors have used the federal mail and wire fraud statutes to reach schemes which deprive citizens of their money or property and of the intangible right to honest services. The Court’s ruling in Skilling removes a category of deceptive, fraudulent, and corrupt conduct from the scope of the honest services law. By limiting honest services fraud under the statute to bribes and kickbacks, the Court …

Admitting Light Detection And Ranging (Lidar) Evidence In Texas: A Call For Statewide Judicial Notice., Ryan V. Cox, Carl Fors

St. Mary's Law Journal

The reliability of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is generally questioned for one of two reasons. First, when the speeding charge is of such great importance to the defendant that he must challenge the technology. Second, when the defendant is charged with a different and more serious crime because of the traffic stop. In this instance the reliability of the equipment provides the opportunity to question the stops’ underlying probable cause. Assuming the particular jurisdiction has not settled the issue of reliability of LIDAR evidence, the court must require the prosecutor to present expert testimony to show reliability. In the …

A Synopsis Of Texas And Federal Sovereign Immunity Principles: Are Recent Sovereign Immunity Decisions Protecting Wrongful Governmental Conduct., Marilyn Phelan

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Texas Supreme Court recently rendered several decisions involving governmental entities reflecting the court’s inflexible application of the doctrine of sovereign immunity. These decisions raise concerns that the Court may be insulating government employees from adherence to ethical codes of conduct. Just as Congress enacted legislation requiring accuracy and reliability from financial officers of corporations, there exists a similar need for Texas courts to protect the public from governmental harm through misconduct. The current awareness of governmental officials lessens the likelihood of governmental transparency and accountability. This Article analyzes the Court’s current application of the sovereign immunity doctrine to provide …

The Google Book Settlement And The Fair Use Counterfactual, Matthew Sag

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Franz Kafka, Lawrence Joseph, And The Possibilities Of Jurisprudential Literature, Patrick J. Glen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it offers a complementary reading of Franz Kafka’s writings on the law and Lawrence Joseph’s novel Lawyerland. This reading focuses on the distinct perspectives offered by these authors. Whereas Kafka approaches the law from the perspective of the litigant or accused, Joseph’s perspective, through the eyes of his lawyers and judges, is that of the consummate insider. The importance of perspective rests with the fact that although law might constitute an objective system, its experience is inevitably subjective. The absurd malevolence of law in Kafka can thus be rationalized by the system …

Joining Or Changing The Conversation? Catholic Social Thought And Intellectual Property, Frank Pasquale

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Capital Gains Anomaly: Commissioner V. Banks And The Proceeds From Lawsuits., Stephen T. Black, Katherine D. Black, Michael D. Black

St. Mary's Law Journal

When a litigant receives an award of damages or agrees to a settlement of a lawsuit for which the litigant and her attorney have agreed to a contingent fee, a portion of those damages or the settlement is paid to the attorney. For income tax purposes, there is a question of whether the litigant should include the portion paid to her attorney as her own income. The question is not merely academic. In a tax system that does not always allow the litigant to deduct her attorney's fees, the litigant may end up paying tax on money that she never …

Between Liberalism And Theocracy, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

Our symposium conveners have focused us on “the relationship between liberalism and Christianity and their influence on American constitutionalism.” My objective is to complicate the relationship and reorient the influence. The focus of my inquiry is the liberty of conscience and its implications for the relationship between church and state. By approaching these issues through the lens of political theology (as distinct from either political or constitutional theory), hope to show that some of the most significant embodiments of conscience in the American colonies can neither be squared with an individualistic liberalism (as some on the left are prone to …

Bob Dylan On Lenny Bruce: More Of An Outlaw Than You Ever Were, Louise Harmon

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Symposium: Bob Dylan And The Law, Foreword, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Cheaters Shouldn't Prosper And Consumers Shouldn't Suffer: The Need For Government Enforcement Against Economic Adulteration Of 100% Pomegranate Juice And Other Imported Food Products, Michael T. Roberts

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In the modern global food system - marked by the trade flow of a variety of food products and ingredients from multiple locations in the world - economically motivated adulteration has emerged as a growing menace that threatens the health and wellbeing of consumers, the economic livelihoods of honest purveyors of food in the global marketplace, and the integrity and viability of national food regulatory systems. Economic adulteration is a form of cheating that includes the padding, diluting, and substituting of food product. Although this cheating is rooted in past food systems, the new paradigm for economic adulteration - a …

A Bittersweet Deal For Consumers: The Unnatural Application Of Preemption To High Fructose Corn Syrup Labeling Claims, Josh Ashley

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The recent rise of consumer consciousness regarding the health qualities of foods and beverages has become something akin to common knowledge. Reflecting this rise, studies reveal that labels regarding the health qualities of a food are more likely to increase sales. And among the health labels consumers prefer, labels describing the product as natural top the list. One website reports that according to a recent study, 31.3-percent of respondents thought that "100% natural" was the best description to read on a label, compared with only 14.2-percent who thought that "100% organic" was the best description. "All natural ingredients" was the …

Produce Exceptionalism: Examining The Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement And Its Ability To Improve Food Safety, Varun Shekhar

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Isolated food safety crises are not uncommon occurrences in the United States. Indeed, the history of public scares indicates a pattern of deficiencies in the safety of the American food supply. In the early 20th century, the public learned of the squalid conditions of meatpacking facilities through muckraking publications such as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. In the 1980s, a 60 Minutes report documented research finding carcinogenic properties of a widespread pesticide, traces of which were commonly found in apple-based products. In the 1990s, widespread media reports of beef tainted with E. coli led to both product recalls unprecedented in scope …

Reconsidering Federalism And The Farm: Toward Including Local, State And Regional Voices In America's Food System, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Why is the relationship between our food system and federalism important to American law and health? It is important simply because federal law controls the American food system. This essay considers how federal law came to structure our food system, and suggests that though food is an essential part of our national economy, the dominating role of the federal government alienates citizens from their food system. It does so by characterizing food as a primarily economic issue, rather than one that has ethical, health, and cultural components. However, state and local governments have much to offer in terms of broadening …

United States Food Law Update: Health Care Reform, Preemption, Labeling Claims And Unpaid Interns: The Latest Battles In Food Law, A. Bryan Endres, Nicholas R. Johnson, Michaela N. Tarr

Journal of Food Law & Policy

This edition of the Food Law Update explores four legal issues arising in the first half of 2010 reflective of the diverse nature of the food law specialist. As the national debate surrounding the merits of health care reform dominated the legislative agenda, this article first will discuss the food labeling rules embedded within section 4205 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The authors then analyze the preemptive reach of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Meat Inspection Act with respect to three separate California statutes regarding animal welfare standards, retail labels on …

European Union Food Law Update, Emilie H. Leibovitch

Journal of Food Law & Policy

This EU Food Law Update will focus on the recent developments in the areas of genetically modified organisms, novel foods, feed safety, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, salmonella and food borne diseases, food additives, organic farming, food contact materials, and labeling.

Transitioning To Free Speech: A Case Study On Legal Transfers In Jordanian Jurisprudence, Sarah Joy Gregory

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Coordinating Sanctions In Tort, Kyle D. Logue

Cardozo Law Review

This Article begins with the standard Law and Economics account of tort law as a regulatory tool or system of deterrence, that is, as a means of giving regulated parties the optimal ex ante incentives to minimize the costs of accidents. Building on this fairly standard (albeit not universally accepted) picture of tort law, the Article asks the question how tort law should adjust, if at all, to coordinate with already existing non-tort systems of regulation. Thus, if a particular activity is already subject to extensive agency-based regulation (whether in the form of command-and-control requirements or in the form of …

Lines Of Vision, Lines Of Flight: The Belly Of An Architect, Anne Bottomley

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Undead" Wartime Cases: Stare Decisis And The Lessons Of History, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

References to the “lessons of history” are ubiquitous in law. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in recent debates over U.S. counterterrorism policy. In response to the Bush Administration’s reliance on World War II-era decisions - Johnson v. Eisentrager, Ex Parte Quirin, Hirota v. MacArthur, and In re Yamashita - opponents have argued that these decisions have been rejected by the “lessons of history.” They argue that the history of wartime cases is one marked by executive aggrandizement, panic-driven attacks on civil liberties, and overly quiescent courts - none of which should be repeated.

But what does it really …

Clear As Mud: How The Uncertain Precedential Status Of Unpublished Opinions Muddles Qualified Immunity Determinations, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A No-Excuse Approach To Transitional Justice: Reparations As Tools Of Extraordinary Justice, David C. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

It is sometimes the case that a debate goes off the rails so early that riders assume the rough country around them is the natural backdrop for their travels. That is certainly true in the debate over reparations in transitions to democracy. Reparations traditionally are understood as material or symbolic awards to victims of an abusive regime granted outside of a legal process. While some reparations claims succeed—such as those made by Americans of Japanese decent interned during World War II and those made by European Jews against Germany after World War II—most do not. The principal culprits in these …

All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies And The Rule Of Law, Keith J. Bybee

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This paper contains the introduction to the new book, All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press, 2010).

The book begins with the observation that Americans are divided in their beliefs about whether courts operate on the basis of unbiased legal principle or of political interest. This division in public opinion in turn breeds suspicion that judges do not actually mean what they say, that judicial professions of impartiality are just fig leaves used to hide the pursuit of partisan purposes.

Comparing law to the practice of common courtesy, the …

The Contradiction: Animal Abuse - Alive And Well, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 209 (2010), Katie Galanes

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The International Criminal Court: From Rome To Kampala, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 515 (2010), Philippe Kirsch

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Forgotten Namesake: The Illinois Good Samaritan Act's Inexcusable Failure To Provide Immunity To Non-Medical Rescuers, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1097 (2010), David Weldon

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Shari'ah And Choice: What The United States Should Learn From Islamic Law About The Role Of Victims' Families In Death Penalty Cases, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1 (2010), Susan C. Hascall

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Moral Foundation Theory And The Law, Colin Prince

Seattle University Law Review

Moral foundation theory argues that there are five basic moral foundations: (1) harm/care, (2) fairness/reciprocity, (3) ingroup/loyalty, (4) authority/respect, and (5) purity/sanctity. These five foundations comprise the building blocks of morality, regardless of the culture. In other words, while every society constructs its own morality, it is the varying weights that each society allots to these five universal foundations that create the variety. Haidt likens moral foundation theory to an “audio equalizer,” with each culture adjusting the sliders differently. The researchers, however, were not content to simply categorize moral foundations—they have tied the foundations to political leanings. And it is …

In God We Trust: The Judicial Establishment Of American Civil Religion, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 869 (2010), James J. Knicely, John W. Whitehead

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Second-Class Citizenship: The Tension Between The Supremacy Of The People And Minority Rights, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 963 (2010), Adam H. Morse

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.