Law and Society Commons^™

Marriage Today: Legal Consequences For Same Sex And Opposite Sex Couples, David L. Chambers

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Laws that treat married persons in a different manner than they treat single persons permeate nearly every field of social regulation in this country -- taxation, otrts, evidence, social welfare, inheritance, adoption, and on and on.

The Human Constitution And Constitutive Law: A Prolegomenon, John O. Mcginnis

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No abstract provided.

Moral Discourse, Bioethics, And The Law, Carl E. Schneider

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Dan Callahan follows a distinguished tradition when he uses the phrase "moral discourse" to describe the law's work. The frequency with which that image is deployed suggests its resonance and even rightness: When we think about the way society considers moral issues and develops moral positions, it can be useful to imagine the law as one of many social institutions that contribute to a social discussion. Nevertheless, this image is misleading. At least for our (graying and balding) genera- tions, the law is regarded as a worthy participant in American moral discourse preeminently because of its part in the civil …

Mitigation, Mercy, And Delay: The Moral Politics Of Death Penalty Abolitionists, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Review Essay: Interrogating Identity, Mary I. Coombs

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The German Duality Of State And Society, David Abraham

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Race-Ing Legal Ethics, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

The New Ethiopian Constitution: Its Impact Upon Unity, Human Rights And Development, Minasse Haile

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The 1994 Ethiopian Constitution, while intended to address historical injustices, has exacerbated tribalism, human rights violations, and poverty by establishing a flawed federal system based on ethnic affiliation. The Constitution grants excessive autonomy to ethnic-based states, undermining national unity and central authority. Its lack of enforceable limitations on government power, absence of judicial review, and emphasis on secession have created a system prone to instability and human rights abuses. The article argues that the Constitution's structure, inspired by defunct Soviet models, is ill-suited to Ethiopia's needs, threatening its democracy, development, and cohesion.

The Rhythms Of Hope And Disappointment In The Language Of Judging (St. John's University School Of Law: Rededication Symposia), James Boyd White

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I want to talk today about a certain aspect or dimension of the language of judging. From one point of view the quality I mean can be seen as a kind of idealism inherent in legal lan­guage; from another, as a kind of fundamental hypocrisy; from still another, as a simultaneously tragic and comic element in le­gal life.

What Juvenile Court Abolitionists Can Learn From The Failures Of Sentencing Reform, David Yellen

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No abstract provided.

Bowers V. Hardwick, Romer V. Evans, And The Meaning Of Anti-Discrimination Legislation, Marc A. Fajer

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No abstract provided.

What If? The Legal Consequences Of Marriage And The Legal Needs Of Lesbian And Gay Male Couples, David L. Chambers

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Laws that treat married persons in a different manner than they treat single persons permeate nearly every field of social regulation in this country - taxation, torts, evidence, social welfare, inheritance, adoption, and on and on. In this article I inquire into the patterns these laws form and the central benefits and obligations that marriage entails, a task few scholars have undertaken in recent years. I have done so because same-sex couples, a large group not previously eligible to marry under the laws of any American jurisdiction, may be on the brink of securing the opportunity to do so in …

The Trouble With Hairdressers, Donald J. Herzog

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Why should hairdressers, of all unlikely candidates, have come to exemplify equality, to be a cultural obsession of sort? Suffice it to say that hairdressers happened to occupy a social position that made it possible to demonize them.

Law As Discourse: Bridging The Gap Between Democracy And Rights, Michel Rosenfeld

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Segregation, Whiteness, And Transformation, Martha R. Mahoney

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Defending Racial Violence, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Grant Gilmore, Holmes, And The Anxiety Of Influence, Charles M. Yablon

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The article explores Grant Gilmore's ambivalent relationship with Oliver Wendell Holmes, particularly in The Death of Contract. Gilmore both praises Holmes's intellectual brilliance and critiques his formalistic approach to contract law. Drawing on Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence, the analysis suggests that Gilmore engages in a struggle with Holmes's legacy, reflecting a mix of admiration and opposition, akin to how strong poets handle influential predecessors.

Fathers, The Welfare System, And The Virtues And Perils Of Child-Support Enforcement, David L. Chambers

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For half a century, Aid to Families with Dependent Children ("AFDC")' -the program of federally supported cash assistance to low-income families with children-has been oddly conceived. Congress has chosen to make assistance available almost solely to low-income single-parent families, not all low-income parents with children. At first many of the eligible single parents were women whose husbands had died. Over time, a growing majority were women who had been married to their children's father but who had separated or divorced. Today, to an ever increasing extent, they are women who were never married to the fathers of their children.2

Are Twelve Heads Better Than One?, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

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The jury's competence, unlike that of the judge, rests partly on its ability to reflect the perspectives, experiences, and values of the ordinary people in the community - not just the most common or typical community perspective, but the whole range of viewpoints.

Marriage, Morals, And The Law: No-Fault Divorce And Moral Discourse, Carl E. Schneider

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In this Essay, I want to reflect on no fault-divorce and the social attitudes that underlie it. In particular, I want to consider that reform in light of an article I wrote some years ago entitled Moral Discourse and the Transformation of American Family Law. There I argued that in recent years the language of American family law has changed notably: today family law issues are decreasingly discussed in the language of morality. In other words, legal institutions have decreasingly talked about those issues in moral terms. Rather, they have tended to avoid handling some moral issues altogether-often by …

Nationalism And The Right To Self-Determination: The Arab-Israeli Conflict, Malvina Halberstam

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Self-determination is a slogan that has captured the imagination of people throughout the world. Numerous U.N. General Assembly resolutions have exalted self-determination, often above the fundamental rights specifically provided for in the U.N. Charter. Notwithstanding these resolutions, in practice, self-determination generally has been applied only to the dismemberment of colonial empires. Its universal application is neither possible nor desirable.

In the Arab-Israeli conflict, self-determination was never truly the issue. The conflict has been deliberately transformed into a claim for self-determination as a political tactic designed to gain the support of third world countries in the United Nations. The issues in …

Practicing Community (Book Review), Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

A Nation At Prayer, A Nation In Hate: Apartheid In South Africa, Tamara Rice Lave

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No abstract provided.

Authority, Credibility, And Pre-Understanding: A Defense Of Outsider Narratives In Legal Scholarship, Marc A. Fajer

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No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Violence: Necessity, Excess, And Opposition (Book Review Essay), Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Everyman's Fourth Amendment: Privacy Or Mutual Trust Between Government And Citizen, Scott E. Sundby

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Gay Men, Aids, And The Code Of The Condom, David L. Chambers

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The principal purpose of this Article is to explore the origins and moral content of the code of behavior among gay men that has developed around the condom. A second purpose is to consider whether this code is wise and defensible under current circumstances. A final purpose is to compare the condom rules to the code of sexual behavior that state governments have created in response to AIDS under their criminal laws.

Liberal Philosophy's Troubled Relation To The Rule Of Law, David G. Carlson

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The article critiques Andrew Altman's defense of liberalism against critical legal studies (CLS), arguing that his account of the rule of law relies on unexamined presuppositions and fails to address the indeterminacy of legal meaning. Altman's metaphor of the rule of law as a checkerboard of zones of freedom is challenged for its definitional ambiguity and reliance on natural law, which undermines his critique of CLS. The analysis suggests that liberalism's inability to tolerate political intrusion into the rule of law exposes its dogmatic underpinnings, while deconstruction offers a more nuanced understanding of legal meaning and its ethical implications.

Impoverished Practices, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Are Rights The Right Thing? Individual Rights, Communitarian Purposes And America's Problems (Book Review), David Abraham

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No abstract provided.