Litigation Commons^™

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Analyzing Inhumane Practices In Mississippi’S Correctional Institutions Due To Overcrowding, Understaffing, And Diminished Funding, Ariel A. Williams

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine the political, social, and economic factors which have led to inhumane conditions in Mississippi’s correctional facilities. Several methods were employed, including a comparison of the historical and current methods of funding, staffing, and rehabilitating prisoners based on literature reviews. State-sponsored reports from various departments and the legislature were analyzed to provide insight into budgetary restrictions and political will to allocate funds. Statistical surveys and data were reviewed to determine how overcrowding and understaffing negatively affect administrative capacity and prisoners’ mental and physical well-being. Ultimately, it may be concluded that Mississippi has high …

Appraising Problems, Not Stuff, Chad J. Pomeroy

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

An Evaluation Framework For Allied Legal Professional Programs: Assessing Improvements In Access To Justice, Andrea L. Miller, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Kathryn Genthon

Faculty Publications

The American legal system has a civil access-to-justice gap, wherein many people with civil legal issues are unable to obtain legal assistance. People with civil legal issues who cannot afford an attorney frequently must proceed through the legal system on their own. As the number of Self-Represented Litigants (SRLs) grows, several jurisdictions have investigated the creation of an additional tier of legal service providers, who can give limited legal assistance at a lower price than attorneys. For the purposes of this report, we will refer to these service providers as Allied Legal Professionals (ALPs). ALP programs can involve a wide …

Who And What Is A City "For"? Municipal Associational Standing Reexamined, Kaitlin Ainsworth Caruso

William & Mary Law Review Online

Cities nationwide increasingly engage in affirmative, plaintiff-side litigation to protect their residents. But despite this trend, standing remains a persistent challenge in municipal affirmative litigation—particularly in federal court, and particularly in impact litigation. I have previously proposed one way to give cities standing in federal court more in line with that of states, and with the role that cities play in their residents’ lives: extending to municipalities the doctrineof associational standing, which nonprofits and associations use to speak for their members in court. Recent works have both amplified and critiqued that initial proposal. With these additional considerations in hand, we …

Bipa: What Does It Stand For?, Paige Smith

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Current State Of Punitive Damages In Environmental Litigation: An Examination Of North American Bmw V. Gore, Andrew L. Sparks

Journal of Natural Resources & Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

The Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 37(E) And Achieving Uniformity Of Case Law On Sanctions For Esi Spoliation: Focusing On The “Intent To Deprive” Culpability Under Rule 37(E)(2), Jung Won Jun, Rockyoun Ihm

Catholic University Law Review

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e) was adopted in 2015 primarily to resolve the circuit split and promote uniformity of case law on ESI (electronically stored information) spoliation sanctions. This Article examines relevant case law under the new Rule 37(e) and finds that courts have treated similar spoliation conduct differently due to the lack of a clear standard for finding the spoliator's intent to deprive another party of the use of the destroyed ESI at issue. This inconsistency has been exacerbated by the courts’ inconsistent reliance on their inherent authority to sanction based on bad faith analyses. Therefore, this Article …

Farmer Cooperatives "Take Cover": The Capper-Volstead Exemption Is Under Siege, Donald M. Barnes, Jay L. Levine

Arkansas Law Review

"When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization." There can be little dispute that food production is of vital interest to any nation’s security and economy. For this reason, the United States Congress, like many other legislatures around the world, has accorded special treatment to the agricultural industry, and particularly to farmers. One example of this special treatment is the Capper-Volstead Act, which provides farmers with immunity from antitrust liability for joint conduct undertaken by and through an “association” of producers.

Remote Court: Principles For Virtual Proceedings During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Beyond, Alicia L. Bannon, Douglas Keith

Northwestern University Law Review

Across the country, courts at every level have relied on remote technology to adapt the justice system to a once-a-century global pandemic. This Essay describes and assesses this unprecedented journey into virtual justice, paying particular attention to eviction proceedings. While many judges have touted remote court as a revolutionary innovation, the reality is more complex. Remote court has brought substantial time savings and convenience to those who are able to access and use the required technology, but it has also posed hurdles to individuals on the other side of the digital divide, particularly self-represented litigants. The remote court experience has …

Criminal Advisory Juries: A Sensible Compromise For Jury Sentencing Advocates, Kurt A. Holtzman

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently noted that “juries in our constitutional order exercise supervisory authority over the judicial function by limiting the judge’s power to punish.” Yet in the majority of jurisdictions, contemporary judge-only sentencing practices neuter juries of their supervisory authority by divorcing punishment from guilt decisions. Moreover, without a chance to voice public disapproval at sentencing, juries are muted in their ability to express tailored, moral condemnation for distinct criminal acts. Although the modern aversion to jury sentencing is neither historically nor empirically justified, jury sentencing opponents are rightly cautious of abdicating sentencing power to laypeople. Nevertheless, …

Third-Party Standing And Abortion Providers: The Hidden Dangers Of June Medical Services, Elika Nassirinia

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Standing is a long held, judicially-created doctrine intended to establish the proper role of courts by identifying who may bring a case in federal court. While standing usually requires that a party asserts his or her own rights, the Supreme Court has created certain exceptions that allow litigants to bring suit on behalf of third parties when they suffer a concrete injury, they have a “close relation” to the third party, and there are obstacles to the third party's ability to protect his or her own interests. June Medical Services, heard by the Supreme Court on June 29, 2020, …

Preserving The Citizen Suit Provision: Citizens For A Better Environment V. The Steel Company, Rebecca L. Justice

Journal of Natural Resources & Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

Defanging Environmental Law: Extracting Citizen Suit Provisions Under Seminole Tribe V. Florida, Jefferson D. Reynolds

Journal of Natural Resources & Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

Confrontation's Multi-Analyst Problem, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Confrontation Clause in the Sixth Amendment affords the “accused” in “criminal prosecutions” the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against” them. A particular challenge for courts over at least the last decade-plus has been the degree to which the Confrontation Clause applies to forensic reports, such as those presenting the results of a DNA, toxicology, or other CSI-type analysis. Should use of forensic reports entitle criminal defendants to confront purportedly “objective” analysts from the lab producing the report? If so, which analyst or analysts? For forensic processes that require multiple analysts, should the prosecution be required to produce …

A Comparison Of Public Defenders Vs. Private Attorneys, Tiffany Costello

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

This study seeks to determine whether there are any differences in conviction rates or client satisfaction between public defenders and private attorneys in state or federal courts. Although researchers have spent time examining differences between attorney type and client satisfaction or conviction rates, little information exists on the assessment of attorney type in the federal system. The study will consist of a two-part survey with approximately twenty-seven closed-ended questions about client satisfaction, conviction, court, and attorney type. The target population will be any criminal defendant in federal or state court with an attorney. In this study, the sampling method will …

Guidelines And Best Practices For Implementing The 2015 Discovery Amendments Concerning Proportionality (Third Edition), Bolch Judicial Institute

Bolch Judicial Institute Publications

This third edition of The Guidelines and Best Practices to Achieve Proportionality was developed following a proportionality conference in June 2019, at which practitioners and judges reviewed and discussed the results of several studies evaluating the 2015 amendments to the Rules of Civil Procedure. A small working group convened by the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School, led by Judge Paul Grimm and including practitioners David Kessler and Jennie Anderson, gathered these insights, revised the guidelines, issued them for public comment, and made further revisions in light of the comments. As with any group product of this nature, where …

Scientific Gerrymandering & Bifurcation, Katrina F. Kuh, Megan Edwards, Frederick A. Mcdonald

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Environmental litigation must often examine the propriety of corporate conduct in areas of scientific complexity. In the second generation of climate nuisance suits, for example, allegations of corporate participation in the climate disinformation campaign are woven into plaintiffs’ claims. Toxic tort suits, currently and most notably in the Roundup and PFAS litigation, present another area of environmental litigation grappling with the legal ramifications of alleged corporate deception about scientific information. Toxic tort suits often surface allegations, and in many cases disturbing evidence, of what we term corporate “scientific gerrymandering”— corporate efforts to finesse, slow, or even mislead scientific understanding of …

Precise Punishment: Why Precise Punitive Damage Requests Result In Higher Awards Than Round Requests, Michael Conklin

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Imagine a setting where someone asks two people what the temperature is outside. The first person says it is 80 °F, while the second person says it is 78.7 °F. Research regarding precise versus round cognitive anchoring suggests that the second person is more likely to be believed. This is because it is human nature to assume that if someone gives a precise answer, he must have good reason for doing so. This principle remains constant in a variety of settings, including used car negotiations, eBay transactions, and estimating the field goal percentage of a basketball player.

This Article reports …

Increasing Substantive Fairness And Mitigating Social Costs In Eviction Proceedings: Instituting A Civil Right To Counsel For Indigent Tenants In Pennsylvania, Robin M. White

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The U.S. Constitution provides criminal defendants the right to a court-appointed attorney but gives no similar protection to civil litigants. Although federal law does not supply any categorical rights to counsel for civil litigants, all 50 states have instituted the right in at least one category of civil law that substantially impacts individuals’ rights. Since 2017, several U.S. cities have enacted such a right for tenants facing eviction. In so doing, these cities responded to American families’ increasing rent burden, the recent publication of nationwide eviction data, the sociological research concerning the impact of eviction, and the lack of procedural …

Feres: The “Double-Edged Sword”, Kaitlan Price

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In Feres v. United States, the Supreme Court barred service members from suing the Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act if the injuries occurred “incident to military service.” In establishing this doctrine, the Court discussed the necessity of protecting the military from lawsuits to ensure effective decision-making by military leaders.

Scholars have harshly criticized Feres in the modern era, arguing Feres must be overturned to provide service members with a greater opportunity for recovery. Specifically, many scholars admonish Feres because the Supreme Court failed to provide a clear definition of “incident to military service.” Lacking a clear definition …

Young, Black, And Wrongfully Charged: A Cumulative Disadvantage Framework, Emily Haney-Caron, Erika Fountain

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The term wrongful conviction typically refers to the conviction or adjudication of individuals who are factually innocent. Decades of research has rightfully focused on uncovering contributing factors of convictions of factually innocent people to inform policy and practice. However, in this paper we expand our conceptualization of wrongful conviction. Specifically, we propose a redefinition that includes other miscarriages of justice: A wrongful conviction is a conviction or adjudication for someone who never should have been involved in the juvenile or criminal legal system in the first place. Although there are various miscarriages of justice that might appropriately be categorized under …

The Absence Or Misuse Of Statistics In Forensic Science As A Contributor To Wrongful Convictions: From Pattern Matching To Medical Opinions About Child Abuse, Keith A. Findley

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The new scrutiny that has been applied to the forensic sciences since the emergence of DNA profiling as the gold standard three decades ago has identified numerous concerns about the absence of a solid scientific footing for most disciplines. This article examines one of the lesser-considered problems that afflicts virtually all of the pattern-matching (or “individualization”) disciplines (largely apart from DNA), and even undermines the validity of other forensic disciplines like forensic pathology and medical determinations about child abuse, particularly Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma (SBS/AHT). That problem is the absence or misuse of statistics. This article begins by applying …

It’S Worth Whatever Someone Paid For It: How Courts Have Misinterpreted Bfp’S Reasoning, Jacob Ryder

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Historically, bankruptcy courts have used the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance powers—fraudulent conveyances in § 548 and preferential transfers in § 547—to avoid pre-bankruptcy-petition transfers. These avoidance powers were used even when the transfer in question was a mortgage or tax foreclosure sale. This has changed in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in BFP v. Resolution Trust Corp. The BFP Court concluded that § 548 could not be used to avoid a mortgage foreclosure sale that complied with state foreclosure law. To do so, the Court had to interpret the operative language in § 548: “reasonably equivalent value.” The Court …

The Rule Of Five Guys, Lisa Heinzerling

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court. by Richard J. Lazarus.

Considering The Therapeutic Consequences Of Recent Reforms To Civil Statutes Of Limitations For Child Sexual Abuse Claims, Emma Hetherington

Scholarly Works

In recent years, child sexual abuse has emerged as a major topic of news, documentaries, and Hollywood films. Public attention on child sexual abuse, including the Boston Globe's reporting on the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church, sexual abuse of elite gymnasts, and the #MeToo movement, have brought increased attention to the issue, sparking calls for reform and access to justice. State legislatures across the country have answered these calls for reform by seeking to improve civil statutes of limitation in order to increase survivor access to justice. Between 2002 and 2020, forty-eight states and the …

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law 04-2021, Michael M. Bowden, Barry Bridges, Political Roundtable

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

What Is A “Case”?, Lynn M. Mather

Journal Articles

This article interrogates the concept of a “case” in court, in an effort to clarify underlying concerns in debates over whether there is “too much” or “too little” litigation. One perspective on litigation takes a bottom-up view, examining the considerations and motives of disputing parties who file civil claims. This perspective includes theories about litigation and social structure, economics, dispute transformation, political participation, and psychology. An alternative top-down view examines litigation from the perspective of government, including its interest in dispute resolution, social control, and institutional capacities of courts. The article reviews and critiques existing literature on these perspectives and …

What Is Cultural Misappropriation And Why Does It Matter? 03-31-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Rcra Citizen Suit Provision And The Private Remedy Of Restitution After Kfc Western, Inc. V. Meghrig And Furrer V. Brown: Reasonable Minds May Differ, J. Thomas Blaine Lewis

Journal of Natural Resources & Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

Preclusion Of Citizens' Suits Under The Clean Water Act, Elizabeth Mckinney

Journal of Natural Resources & Environmental Law

No abstract provided.