Legal History Commons^™

Paul Verkuil's Projects For The Administrative Conference Of The U.S. 1974-1992, Jeffrey Lubbers

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

I am really happy to be part of this tribute to Paul Verkuil. It may surprise those in the audience to learn that I am bringing some needed diversity to today's proceedings - I am the only other Dutch American on the program! But perhaps my twenty years at the "Administrative Conference" also qualifies me to say a few words about how thrilled I am that we have it back - "ACUS 2.0" we can call it, complete with a website this time- and that Paul is at its helm. And I want to thank Paul for bringing me back …

Acus 2.0 And Its Historical Antecedents, Jeffrey Lubbers

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Legal Education And Civility, Mark Niles

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Migratory Connectivity And The Conservation Of Migratory Animals, David Hunter

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Corporation As Imperfect Society, Brian Mccall

Faculty Articles

Corporations are ubiquitous in modern society. They pervade every aspect of our life, consumer, professional, investment activity. Probably, people have more contact with corporations on a daily basis than any other institution, including government. From the South Sea Bubble to the Stock market Crash of 1929 to Enron to General Motors and Countrywide Mortgage, corporate scandals and controversies invite fundamental questions about corporate law. This article attempts to bring a fresh perspective to the question: “what is a corporation and how should the law treat it?” The article articulates a corporate metaphysics rooted in political philosophy. The dominant models of …

Book Review. Louis D. Brandeis And The Making Of Regulated Competition, 1900-1932 By Gerald Berk, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Carl Schmitt And The Critique Of Lawfare, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Lawfare” is the use of law as a weapon of war against a military adversary. Lawfare critics complain that self-proclaimed “humanitarians” are really engaged in the partisan and political abuse of law—lawfare. This paper turns the mirror on lawfare critics themselves, and argues that the critique of lawfare is no less abusive and political than the alleged lawfare it attacks. Radical lawfare critics view humanitarian law with suspicion, as nothing more than an instrument used by weak adversaries against strong military powers. Casting suspicion on humanitarian law by attacking the motives of humanitarian lawyers, they undermine disinterested argument, and ultimately …

Law "In" And "As" History: The Common Law In The American Polity, 1790-1900, Kunal Parker

Articles

No abstract provided.

Law's Visual Afterlife: Violence, Popular Culture, And Translation Theory, Naomi Mezey

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Walter Benjamin’s essay, “The Task of the Translator,” Benjamin argues that translations enable a work’s afterlife.  Afterlife is not what happens after death but what allows a work (or event or idea) to go on living and to evolve over time and place and iteration.  In its afterlife, the original is transformed and renewed.  In this piece I explore film’s visual translation of law and the role film plays in law’s afterlife.  Film translates law not by translating from one language to another, but by translating between media and discourses.  The cultural-critical lens of translation highlights the discursive similarities …

The Anti-Empathic Turn, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Justice, according to a broad consensus of our greatest twentieth century judges, requires a particular kind of moral judgment, and that moral judgment requires, among much else, empathy–the ability to understand not just the situation but also the perspective of litigants on warring sides of a lawsuit.

Excellent judging requires empathic excellence. Empathic understanding is, in some measure, an acquired skill as well as, in part, a natural ability. Some people do it well; some, not so well. Again, this has long been understood, and has been long argued, particularly, although not exclusively, by some of our most admired judges …

The Limits Of Process, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article presents four major objections to Jeremy Waldron’s claim that for “Rule of Law” to exist it we must move beyond basic formal requirements that laws be general and knowable rules we can all comply with, towards substantive requirements that when the law imposes its censorial and punitive will upon us, it is applied in a way that acknowledges our intelligence and respects our individual dignity. After challenging Waldron’s claim, the author suggests that if Rule of Law theorizing is intended to capture our ideals of law, then the three paradigms of Rule of Law scholarship that Waldron has …

Informal Law-Making In England By The Twelve Judges In The Late 18th And Early 19th Centuries, James Oldham

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1848, Parliament created the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, in which all of the common law judges heard and decided questions reserved by trial judges in criminal cases. As Sir John Baker explains, this was “a court of record, which would now sit in public and give reasons for its decisions,” even though “the reservation of cases was still at the discretion of the trial judge and the court did not have the powers of the court en banc in civil cases.” The Court for Crown Cases Reserved formalized an off-the-record procedure that had been followed for centuries. When …

On Equality: The Anti-Interference Principle, Donald J. Kochan

University of Richmond Law Review

This essay seeks to summarize the general equality concept and proposes that equality requires that the government engage in anti-interference with individual choices and activities, so long as these things create no negative externalities for others. If we are serious about respecting equality, such interference actions should be avoided. Adopting an "anti-interference principle" is a necessary foundation for achieving the goal of true equality. The primary point is that equality matters. The purpose of this essay is not to survey the vast political, jurisprudential, and academic debate on equality, but instead, to take a broad look at the philosophical concept …

The Conflicted Assumptions Of Modern Constitutional Law, H. Jefferson Powell

Faculty Scholarship

Contribution to Symposium - The Nature of Judicial Authority: A Reflection on Philip Hamburger's Law and Judicial Duty

Retail Rebellion And The Second Amendment, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

When, if ever, is there a Second Amendment right to kill a cop? This piece seeks to answer that question. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment codifies a natural right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. That right to self-defense extends to both private and public threats, including self-defense against agents of a tyrannical government. Moreover, the right is individual. Individuals -- not just communities -- have the right to protect themselves from public violence. Individuals -- not just militias -- have the right to defend themselves against tyranny. In McDonald …

Good Faith And Law Evasion, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

Laws imposing sanctions can be self-defeating by supplying incentive and guidance for actors engaged in socially undesirable activities to reshape conduct to avoid penalties. Sometimes this is deterrence. But if the new activity, as much as the old, contravenes the normative stance of the legal project, it is a failure of law. The problem of evasion warrants response in many fields - not least in criminal law despite the frequent and too simple assumption that legality-related values require narrow prohibitions that unavoidably permit evasion. Three common responses to evasion have serious deficits. Foregoing control of evasion is a mistake if …

Rlt: A Preliminary Examination Of Religious Legal Theory As A Movement, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Jewish Law From Out Of The Depths: Tragic Choices In The Holocaust, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Price Of The Ottoman Failure, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The question of the implications of secularization for Christian communities in today’s Middle East is a difficult one, both because the extent of contemporary secularization in the region is contested, and because the term itself has so many different meanings. Nonetheless, a preliminary consideration imposes itself. Whatever else it means, secularization means legal equality for religious minorities, including Christians. Formal equality often exists in the Middle East today. Yet legal restrictions – apostasy prosecutions, limitations on clergy and churches, and so on – continue to pose real threats to Christians. Moreover, as Abdullahi An-Na‘im notes, ‘tension with the traditional …

Whiskey, Soldiers, And Voting: Western Virginia Elections In The 1790s, Jud Campbell

Law Faculty Publications

Editor's Note: Elections in eighteenth-century Virginia were conducted quite differently than current elections. In this article, the author presents revealing descriptions of early elections in Montgomery County, Virginia immediately following the birth of the United States. The behavior and motivations of the electorate, as well as the candidates, provide interesting insight regarding the social structure o/that era.

A Trusting Public: How The Public Trust Doctrine Can Save The New York Forest Preserve, Katherine R. Leisch

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Student Publications

The public trust doctrine was instituted in England as a permanent limitation on the powers of the Crown. The well-established doctrine was brought to America and applied equally in the states even after the states seceded from England. The doctrine has since served as an indestructible check on the government. Article XIV of the New York State Constitution ensures protection of its wilderness in perpetuity, solidifying the forest preserve as part of the public trust. The paper traces the beginnings of the public trust doctrine and its eventual application Article XIV. The author contemplates the indestructibility of the Forest Preserve …

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 …

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 …

Collective Action Federalism: A General Theory Of Article I, Section 8, Robert D. Cooter, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

The Framers of the United States Constitution wrote Article I, Section 8 in order to address some daunting collective action problems facing the young nation. They especially wanted to protect the states from military warfare by foreigners and from commercial warfare against one another. The states acted individually when they needed to act collectively, and Congress lacked power under the Articles of Confederation to address these problems. Section 8 thus authorized Congress to promote the “general Welfare” of the United States by tackling many collective action problems that the states could not solve on their own.

Subsequent interpretations of Section …

Much Ado About Nothing Much: Protestant Episcopal Church In The Diocese Of Virginia V. Truro Church, Henry L. Chambers Jr., Isaac A. Mcbeth

University of Richmond Law Review

This essay reviews the issues the Supreme Court of Virginia resolved in Truro and notes important issues it did not resolve. Part II supplies the factual background and procedural history ofthe dispute. Part III summarizes the court's opinion and the reasoning underlying its determination that Virginia Code section57-9(A) is not applicable to this particular action. Part IV critiques the opinion, noting the issues the court resolved and how it resolved them. Part V briefly addresses issues that remain unresolved by the court's decision and discusses the implications of leaving those issues unresolved. Part VI presents the authors' conclusions.

Politics As Usual? The Political Question Doctrine In Holocaust Restitution Litigation, Sarah Willig

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Celebrating The Twenty-Fifth Issue Of The Annual Survey Of Virginia Law, Marguerite R. Ruby, Sarah Warren S. Beverly

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dictionary Is Not A Fortress: Definitional Fallacies And A Corpus-Based Approach To Plain Meaning, Stephen C. Mouritsen

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Seeking Truth On The Other Side Of The Wall: Greenleaf’S Evangelists Meet The Federal Rules, Naturalism, And Judas, Nancy J. Kippenhan

Faculty Publications and Presentations

An inquiry that seeks truth by accepting only natural answers excludes the possibility of the sacred or supernatural, building a wall that forecloses a complete exploration for the truth it seeks. Without analysis, critics dismiss sources presenting supernatural explanations, and those who believe sacred works have no factual foundation accept without investigation any popular theory that appears attractive. The rules of evidence expressly seek truth, wherever it lies. Noted legal scholar Simon Greenleaf used evidentiary principles to demonstrate the factual credibility of the Gospels in his Testimony of the Evangelists. This Article examines Greenleaf’s analysis, applying current rules of evidence …

The Inconvenience Of A “Constitution [That] Follows The Flag … But Doesn’T Quite Catch Up With It”: From Downes V. Bidwell To Boumediene V. Bush, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

Boumediene v. Bush, resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 2008, granted habeas corpus rights, at least for the time being, to the persons detained at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. The majority partially based its ruling on the doctrine of the Insular Cases, first set forth in the 1901 decision in Downes v. Bidwell. Additionally, the four dissenting justices agreed with the five in the majority that the plurality opinion of Justice Edward Douglass White in Downes – as affirmed by a unanimous court in 1922 in Balzac v. People of Porto Rico – is still the dominant …