Law and Society Commons^™

Family Norms In Adoption Law: Safeguarding The Best Interests Of The Adopted Child, Camille S. Williams

St. Thomas Law Review

Because a number of negative circumstances or outcomes correlate with non-conjugal couple household structures and alternative sexualities, 6 lowering the high standard for adoptive parents that has been the hallmark of best adoption practices in the U.S. may not be the best option for addressing the needs of children whose biological parents cannot care for them.

Adult Sexual Desire And The Best Interest Of The Child, Richard G. Wilkins, Trent Christensen, Eric Selden

St. Thomas Law Review

In Lofton v. Secretary of the Department of Children and Family Services, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit sustained Florida's legislative decision to restrict adoption to heterosexual married couples or unmarried individuals not engaged in homosexual conduct. The court rejected claims by prospective homosexual parents that Florida had impermissibly intruded upon their familial privacy rights, unconstitutionally burdened their right to private sexual intimacy, and - by treating homosexual applicants for adoption differently than heterosexual applicants - transgressed the commands of the Equal Protection Clause. The court properly rejected these contentions. All of the plaintiffs' claims ultimately …

Empirical And Theoretical Perspectives From Social Science On Gay Marriage And Child Custody Issues, Walter R. Schumm

St. Thomas Law Review

Research on lesbigay parenting issues is reviewed with an in-depth focus on a few examples of past research and a review of the merits of social science research cited recently by the American Civil Liberties Union in support of gay parenting rights. Those who have reviewed the literature have come to startling different conclusions. Neither side has fully grasped some of the limitations of certain key research studies. Some errors are such that one might wonder if peer review procedures had somehow failed. An analysis of a recent paper on same-gender sexual abuse reveals mixed findings. It appears that a …

Lawrence, Lofton, And Reasoned Judgment: On Who Can Adopt And Why, Mark Strasser

St. Thomas Law Review

Recently, in Lofton v. Security of Department of Children & Family Services, the Eleventh Circuit upheld Florida's gay adoption ban. The opinion is important for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that it was issued after the United States Supreme Court had decided Lawrence v. Texas. The Lofton court's reading of Lawrence was so implausible that it would have been easy for the Supreme Court to have reversed Lofton, while nonetheless offering an analysis significantly narrower than Lawrence. Regrettably, the Supreme Court denied certiorari when the decision was appealed, so we will simply have to wait and …

Screening The Law: Ideology And Law In American Popular Culture, Naomi Mezey, Mark C. Niles

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article is an attempt to think critically about the pop cultural life of law, to investigate the legal and ideological messages that cultural images of law bear, and to explore how, why and to what extent television and film differ in their portrayals of law. While many legal scholars have addressed the legal content of popular culture in recent years, few have explored the field expansively or interrogated the significant differences in the images of law and legal institutions produced in the different popular media. Some scholars have traced one legal theme through popular culture generally, others have focused …

Has The Law Made Liars Of Us All?, Don Castleman

ExpressO

The premise of this article is that in the law and in the practice of law there are numerous occasions when there appears to be little regard for the truth; that as television has devoted more and more time to programming about law and courts, the public has been exposed to and infected by this attitude toward truth; that society may have abandoned morality in favor of legality and that this may have contributed to the epidemic of corporate and accounting frauds of the past decade.

The article examines cases which demonstrate the lack of regard for the truth in …

Proportionality Between Crimes, Offenses, And Punishments, James Headley

St. Thomas Law Review

Blackstone said of the Roman Empire, after it embraced unjust laws, "and then the Empire Fell. The United States Supreme Court embraces unjust laws and is inconsistent regarding substantive due process and proportionality in criminal cases, and substantive due process and proportionality in civil cases. The Due Process Clause and the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment require proportionality and fairness, meaning that the punishment must fit the crime, and that the penalty must be appropriate to the offense. Throughout a long history of jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has developed or embraced two varying theories of due process …

The Right To Play, Edward Castronova

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Apes, Darwinian Continuity, And The Law, Roger S. Fouts

Animal Law Review

This article proposes that the delusional worldview that “man” is outside and above the other “defective” organic beings in nature is completely without empirical scientific foundation. An alternative and harmonious way of being is presented that is derived from the acceptance of the biological reality of continuity.

Virtual Worlds As Comparative Law, James Grimmelmann

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New Era In Humane Education: How Troubling Youth Trends And A Call For Character Education Are Breathing New Life Into Efforts To Educate Our Youth About The Value Of All Life, Lydia S. Antoncic

Animal Law Review

The purpose of education is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then to learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. …

Law, Culture, And Family: The Transformative Power Of Culture And The Limits Of Law, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Law inevitably is involved in the resolution of cultural conflicts. Nonintervention acts as powerfully as intervention; in either case, law is a powerful actor in its role as a part of cultural dialogue, as well as in its role as a coercive force. Law is never neutral in my view. If it “stays out” of a situation, then it is complicit in the status quo or in permitting the conflict to be resolved without legal intervention, which may weight the outcome in a particular direction. If law “comes in,” it similarly “sides” with a particular position because, in part, our …

Introduction To Law, Morality, And Popular Culture In The Public Sphere Symposium, Lauren K. Robel

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium on "Law, Morality, and Popular Culture in the Public Sphere" at the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington, April 6, 2001.

When Memory Speaks: Remembrance And Revenge In Unforgivent, Austin Sarat

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium on "Law, Morality, and Popular Culture in the Public Sphere" at the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington, April 6, 2001.

Ethics, Race, And Reform, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.

Agenda: A Cartography Of Governance: Exploring The Province Of Environmental Ngos, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law, University Of Colorado Boulder. Environmental Program, University Of Tulsa. National Energy-Environment Law & Policy Institute, University Of Colorado Boulder. United Government Of Graduate Students

A Cartography of Governance: Exploring the Province of Environmental NGOs (April 7-8)

Presented by: the Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy on April 7 & 8, 2001. Symposium director: Lakshman D. Guruswamy.

Co-sponsored by: University of Colorado School of Law, University of Colorado Environmental Program, University of Tulsa National Energy-Environment Law and Policy Institute, University of Colorado United Government of Graduate Students.

The papers and edited proceedings of the conference will be published in a special symposium issue of the Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law & Policy (CJIELP).

"The first objective of the Symposium was to understand and explore the growing importance of nongovernmental actors, and delineate the manner …

Women At War: An Evolutionary Perspective, Kingsley R. Browne

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

The Evolving Right Of Self-Determination Of Indigenous Peoples, Paul J. Magnarella

St. Thomas Law Review

The destruction of indigenous societies represents a major threat to the contemporary world's rich inventory of cultures. Throughout the centuries, indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed from their lands, dispossessed of their natural resources, discriminated against or simply decimated.! Most of the world's estimated 300 million indigenous peoples are less well off than are members of the dominant societies. Many live in extreme poverty. Indigenous peoples wish to maintain their own unique cultures and ethnic identities and to control their traditional lands of occupation or at least some portions of them. Indigenous peoples need protected enclaves if they are to …

Defending Indigenous Peoples' Heritage: An Introduction, Siegfried Wiessner

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

Independent Traditional Seminole Nation: Defending Our Heritage And Our Land, Bobby Billie

St. Thomas Law Review

Let me identify my people and myself. In Florida, there are the Seminole Tribe, Incorporated and the Miccosukee Tribe, Incorporated. We have kept the tradition of the Independent Traditional Seminole Nation of Florida. We have not given up our land, our way of life, and our traditions. We have never signed a peace treaty, we never accepted a government handout, we did not accept anything. We try to maintain the gift of the Creator's way of life. We believe it gives us continuously the way of life. Nobody has to recognize us as to who we are as long as …

A Law Culture Diagnostic, James R. Elkins

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Recovery Of "Non-Economic" Damages For Wrongful Killing Or Injury Of Companion Animals: A Judicial And Legislative Trend, Sonia S. Waisman, Barbara R. Newell

Animal Law Review

The emotional bond between humans and their animal companions can be as strong as that experienced between two people, and animal companions are often looked upon and treated as members of the family. When they are wrongfully killed or injured, however, the legal system traditionally has not adequately recognized this important relationship. Instead, recovery has been limited to the market value of the animals. It is time for state laws to explicitly acknowledge the significance of the human-animal companion relationship and codify recovery for such non-economic injuries as emotional distress and loss of companionship. This article examines why damages for …

Patterns Of Courtroom Justice, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

Any one film can sustain a myriad of compelling interpretations. A collection of films, however, sharing formal and substantive qualities, reveals a common effect more than a diversity of meanings. This essay traces the shared formal and substantive qualities of a group of films, as I name them 'trial films'. It documents this genre of film by identifying the genre's norms of viewing and identification. It also investigates the peculiar hybrid discourse of the trial film genre that combines both filmic and legal discursive practices to show how trial films cultivate support for the American system of law through its …

Does Law And Literature Survive Lawyerland?, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Governmental Ethics: Law And Morality, Jon L. Mills

UF Law Faculty Publications

Based on a speech presented at the 16th International Symposium on Economic Crime, Cambridge University, England September 13-19, 1998.

Zoning In Florida Under The Religious Freedom Restoration Acts: What City Officials Should Watch Out For In Defending Their Ordinances Against Freedom Of Religion Claims, Steven D. Ginsburg, Natalie J. Carlos

St. Thomas Law Review

Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for the Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States, stated: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic." Today we revisit this theme in the context of a religious organization's right to build its houses of worship in neighborhoods whose elected representatives have determined are inappropriate locations for churches and synagogues. Does a religion have the right to disregard general zoning laws of neutral application, claiming its beliefs are in conflict and burdened, and asserting they have a superior right to …

Swingers: Morality Legislation And The Limits Of State Police Power, Raymond Ku

St. Thomas Law Review

This article examines whether Florida can legitimately convict the swingers pursuant to the Florida Constitution specifically, and principles of constitutional law in general, and concludes that it cannot. In so doing, this article does not attempt to define privacy or to provide a taxonomy of activities that fall within its reach, which has been done quite thoroughly by others. The swingers' conduct clearly falls within what scholars have characterized as the right to sexual autonomy, personhood and freedom of association. However, rather than simply reiterating what those authors have said and applying it to the novel facts of this case, …

Tribal Chair's Perspective On Inherent Sovereignty, Billy Evans Horse, Luke E. Lassiter

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

St. Thomas Law Review

Front Matter includes Masthead and Table of Contents for St. Thomas Law Review Volume 10, Issue 1, Fall 1997.

Judicial Response To Changing Societal Values On The Death Penalty: Must The Method Chosen Be The Most Humane, Brian P. Hill

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.