Public Law and Legal Theory Commons^™

From Integrity Agency To Accountability Network: The Political Economy Of Public Sector Oversight In Canada, Jamie Baxter

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The federal integrity agencies that are delegated collective responsibility for public sector oversight in Canada face a common challenge to stabilize their ongoing independence from political control. While Parliament has delegated to these agencies key oversight functions that demand some degree of structural independence, they remain vulnerable to shifting political preferences and to an increasingly partisan national politics. This Article uses a political economy framework to theorize the objectives that shape political preferences for agency independence in Canada, and to suggest that structural innovations in the form of 'accountability networks' may provide one strategy to help stabilize those preferences over …

Is Using The Public Trust Doctrine To Protect Public Parkland From Visual Pollution Justifiable Doctrinal Creep?, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article asks whether the public trust doctrine should be applied to stop the construction of a multistory commercial building that will tower over the tree line of Palisades Interstate Park. The building, which received a variance from a local New Jersey zoning commission, will ruin views of the Park, particularly from scenic overlooks across the Hudson River in New York, like the Metropolitan Museum’s Cloisters and the George Washington Bridge. To make this argument, the author draws on the work of renowned public trust scholars, Professors Joseph Sax and Carol Rose, among others. Based on the doctrine’s adaptability to …

Community Lawyering: Introductory Thoughts On Theory And Practice, Michael R. Diamond

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There are several fundamental questions that one might ask in seeking the meaning of the term "community lawyer." Albeit somewhat theoretical, the most basic questions involve delving into exactly what is meant by the term "community." For what, exactly, is the community-lawyer lawyering? Further, once a client has been identified, questions will arise about how the lawyer should relate to that client and about the role the lawyer ought to play in assisting the client to achieve its goals. There is a long and rich literature concerning the latter question but a fairly sparse body of legal writing on the …

Disappearing Claims And The Erosion Of Substantive Law, J. Maria Glover

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court’s arbitration jurisprudence from the last five years represents the culmination of a three-decade-long expansion of the use of private arbitration as an alternative to court adjudication in the resolution of disputes of virtually every type of justiciable claim. Because privatizing disputes that would otherwise be public may well erode public confidence in public institutions and the judicial process, many observers have linked this decades-long privatization of dispute resolution to an erosion of the public realm. Here, I argue that the Court’s recent arbitration jurisprudence undermines the substantive law itself.

While this shift from dispute resolution in courts—the …

Disruption And Deference, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Online video streaming applications enable users to watch over the-air broadcast programs at any time and almost on any device. As such, they challenge the pertinence of traditional video distribution law and the broadcast network system on which it is based. Congress enacted the Transmit Clause of the 1976 Copyright Act to resolve the high-stakes tussle between broadcasters and cable providers. But, today, that provision is ill-suited to resolving whether unauthorized streaming infringes on broadcasters’ copyright to perform works publicly. Its scope is ambiguous enough that judges across the country were notably divided on whether it reaches online video distribution—that …

Pleading Guilty While Claiming Innocence: Reconsidering The Mysterious Alford Plea, James W. Diehm

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Accountable Care Organizations: Realigning The Incentive Problems In The U.S. Health Care System, Nicholas Hodges

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Regulating For The First Time The Decision To Grant Consumer Credit: A Look At The First Steps Taken By The United States And Australia, Jeffrey Davis

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Redefining Professionalism, Rebecca Roiphe

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Climate Change Science And Standing In Climate Change Cases: Analysis And Implications, Susan M. Johns

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Medical Advice And Vaccinating: What Liability?, Amanda Naprawa, Dorit Reiss

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Courts' Elusive Search For The Meaning Of Intellectual Disability For Evaluating Atkins Claims, Susan Unok Marks

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Edvard Much's "The Scream" Screams For Droit De Suite: Why Congress Should Enact A Federal Droit De Suite Statute Governing Artists' Resale Rights In The United States, Jacqueline Pasharikov

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

State Sanctioned Identity Theft: Why Personal Information Contained Within A Homeless Management Information System May Be Subject To Disclosure Under Florida's Public Records Laws, Michael S. Thomas

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

A Bribe New World: The Federal Government Gets Creative In Chasing Foreign Officials For Taking Bribes, Jorge Mestre

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

"When Fire Breaks Out": Recognizing The Inherently Dangerous Activity Of Prescribed Burning In Florida, Miguel Collazo Iii, D. Kent Safriet

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law: Biological Relationships And Intent V. Waiver In Establishing Protected Parental Rights, Susan M. Johns

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Proposition Animal Welfare: Enabling An Irrational Public Or Empowering Consumers To Align Advertising Depictions With Reality?, Whitney R. Morgan

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The New Drone State: Suggestions For Legislatures Seeking To Limit Drone Surveillance By Government And Nongovernment Controllers, Martin Mckown

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Protecting Volunteers Under Title Vii: Amending The Eeoc Compliance Manual Through Section 553(B) Interpretive Rulemaking, Neil A. Murphy

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Ain't Too Proud To Beg? Anti-Begging Laws' First Amendment Problem, John W. Fraser

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

It's The Autonomy, Stupid!' A Modest Defense Of Opinion 2/13 On Eu Accession To The Echr, And The Way Forward, Daniel Halberstam

Articles

The Court of Justice of the European Union has arrived! Gone are the days of hagiography, when in the eyes of the academy and informed observers the Court could do no wrong. The pendulum has finally swung the other way. The judicial darling, if there is one today, is Strasbourg, not Luxembourg. Not hours had passed before the Court's 258-paragraph long Opinion 2/13 on the Draft Agreement on EU Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights was condemned as “exceptionally poor.” Critical voices have mounted steadily ever since, leading to nothing short of widespread “outrage.”

The Scottish Independence Referendum And The Principles Of Democratic Secession, Benjamin Levites

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

On September 18, 2014, Scottish voters decided whether to sever the 307 years of unity between Scotland and the United Kingdom in an independence referendum. While the voters ultimately rejected independence, the process by which the Scots accomplished this historic exercise will inform further democratic secession movements.

This Note examines the significant implications of Scotland’s independence referendum by assessing the history of independence referendums and the present scope of relevant international law. The formative history of the independence referendum and modern precedential examples established the requirements for democratic secession. In turn, the Scottish independence referendum, in the context of evolving …

The Myth Of The Condorcet Winner, Paul H. Edelman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

There is consensus among legal scholars that, when choosing among multiple alternatives, the Condorcet winner, should it exist, is the preferred option. In this essay I will refute that claim, both normatively and positively. In addition, I will suggest that a different approach, based in behavioral economics, might be a more productive way to model the choices that legislatures make among multiple alternatives.

The Green To Blue Pipeline: Defense Contractors And The Police Industrial Complex, Karena Rahall

Faculty Articles

Images of police in tactical gear, pointing automatic weapons at unarmed demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, represented a flashpoint in public awareness that American police are rapidly militarizing. Federal grants have been quietly arming police with tanks, drones, and uniforms more suited to waging war than patrolling the streets. As police have acquired more military gear, SWAT teams and deployments have proliferated. Even small towns receive surplus military materiel to fight the “wars” on drugs and terrorism. In addition, police training uses a military approach that threatens to transform the traditional police mandate of protecting and serving into one of engaging …

Remodeling Federal Medical Malpractice Act: A Possible Improvement To The Affordable Care Act, Nancy Kubasek, Tiffany Durham

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

During the debates about healthcare reform, the Congressional Budget Office found that federal medical liability reform could drastically reduce federal budget deficits, yet political and legal scholars could not reach agreement about the best way for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to provide such reform. Instead, provisions were made to fund state level demonstration projects. The law that is considered one of the most successful models to date of conventional tort reform is the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of California. This Article exams that legislation and discusses how we might use what can be learned from …

Emergency Takings, Brian Angelo Lee

Michigan Law Review

Takings law has long contained a puzzle. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the government to pay “just compensation” to owners of private property that the government “takes.” In ordinary circumstances, this requirement applies equally whether the property is confiscated or destroyed, and it also applies to property confiscated in emergencies. Remarkably, however, courts have repeatedly held that if the government destroys property to address an emergency, then a “necessity exception” relieves the government of any obligation to compensate the owner of the property that was sacrificed for the public good. Although the roots of this startling principle …

Three Essays In Criminal Justice, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

How could the New York Times call the grand jury’s decision to no bill the indictment against officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a “verdict”? How could federal appellate judges call it a “procedural shortcut” when a state judge, in a death penalty case, signs the state attorney general’s proposed judicial opinion without even striking the word “proposed” or reviewing the full opinion? What do these incidents tell us about contemporary criminal justice? These essays explore these puzzles. The first, “Verdict and Illusion,” begins to sketch the role of illusions in justice. The second, “A Singe Voice of Justice,” interprets …

A Quantum Congress, Jorge R. Roig

Scholarly Works

This article tries to address the problem of a corrupt and broken electoral system that has been captured by special interests through big money spending in political campaigns, while at the same time preserving the spirit of the Free Speech Clause of our Constitution. In doing so, this article first reviews and summarizes the different alternatives proposed as potential fixes for the campaign finance problem. It then explains why none of the proposed alternatives can accomplish the dual goals set out above. Finally, the article briefly sketches a proposal for a fundamental reworking of our representative democracy by substituting legislative …

First Amendment Decisions - 2002 Term, Joel Gora

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.