Rule of Law Commons^™

Back To The Briarpatch: An Argument In Favor Of Constitutional Meta-Analysis In State Action Determinations, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Brer Rabbit, after claiming repeatedly that he would prefer almost anything to being thrown into the briarpatch, expressed glee once tossed there. In fact, Brer Rabbit wanted to be in the briarpatch because, like most rabbits, he could navigate the briarpatch with relative ease: the briarpatch was home.

Over the course of a century, the Supreme Court has developed a great degree of familiarity with the state action doctrine, a doctrinal briar patch. Like Brer Rabbit, the Court has disclaimed repeatedly any interest in being there.

In this article, I argue that the existing tests for establishing the presence of …

Fictions, Fault, And Forgiveness: Jury Nullification In A New Context, David N. Dorfman, Chris K. Iijima

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Recently, critics of the Anglo-American jury system have complained that juries in criminal trials have been ignoring the law, in favor of defendants who claim that they lack criminal responsibility because they are afflicted by the various victimization syndromes now popularized in the mass media. In this Article, Professors Dorfman and Iijima counter this characterization of the "runaway" jury and argue that juries are not ignoring the law, but rather, are exercising a primary power of the jury, to nullify the application of the law when such application to a particular defendant is unjust. The Authors trace the development of …

The Case Against Section 1983 Immunity For Witnesses Who Conspire With A State Official To Present Perjured Testimony, Jennifer S. Zbytowski

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that witnesses who conspire with a state official to present perjured testimony at a judicial proceeding should not have absolute immunity from a section 1983 suit for damages. Part I provides background information on section 1983 and explains why a witness-state conspiracy satisfies the requirements of a section 1983 cause of action. Part I also summarizes the Supreme Court's doctrinal approach to section 1983 immunity. Finally, Part I examines two Supreme Court cases which are relevant to the issue of immunity for witness conspirators: Briscoe v. LaHue, and Malley v. Briggs. Part II applies the …

Imperfect Alternatives: Choosing Institutions In Law, Economics, And Public Policy, David A. Luigs

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Imperfect Alternatives: Choosing Institutions in Law, Economics, and Public Policy by Neal K. Komesar

English Law In The Age Of The Black Death, 1348-1381: A Transformation Of Governance And Law, Daniel B. Kosove

Michigan Law Review

A Review of English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348-1381: A Transformation of Governance and Law by Robert C. Palmer

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

Articles

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Dynamic Statutory Interpretation By William N. Eskridge, Jr., William D. Popkin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

International Ethics For A New Era: The Problem Of The Kind World Policeman, Fernando R. Tesón

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of American Hegemony: Political Morality in a One-Superpower World by Lea Brilmayer

Why Redraw The Map Of Africa: A Moral And Legal Inquiry, Makau Wa Mutua

Michigan Journal of International Law

The author argues in this Article that the post-colonial state, the uncritical successor of the colonial state, is doomed because it lacks basic moral legitimacy. Its normative and territorial construction on the African colonial state, itself a legal and moral nullity, is the fundamental reason for its failure. The author argues that, at independence, the West decolonized the colonial state, not the African peoples subject to it. In other words, the right to self-determination was exercised not by the victims of colonization but their victimizers, the elites who control the international state system.

Custom, Power, And The Power Of Rules, Michael Byers

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article begins by explaining briefly the differing perspectives which these two general categories of scholars - those who study international law and those who study international relations - have of international society generally, and of law and power more specifically. This article exposes the fact that power is an important but largely unnoticed subject of much international legal discourse and also canvasses attempts by international relations scholars to incorporate law into their understandings of power.

Nothing But The Truth? Transitional Regimes Confront The Past, Joan Fitzpatrick

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice (Naomi Roht-Arriaza ed.)

Sentencing Guidelines And Prosecutorial Discretion, David Boerner

Faculty Articles

This article explores the topic of sentencing guidelines. Specifically, the author weighs the intended role of such guidelines against their role in actuality, noting the discrepancy between the two. The article concludes that it is up to the values and skill of those who implement the sentencing guidelines for their proper manifestation in the legislative process.

Linguistic Indeterminacy And The Rule Of Law: On The Perils Of Misunderstanding Wittgenstein, Christian Zapf, Eben Moglen

Faculty Scholarship

The central article of faith of the traditional understanding of the Rule of Law is that precedent uniquely determines the outcome of legal cases. Skepticism about that faith, however, is widespread. Critical Legal Scholars, as well as their intellectual ancestors, the Legal Realists, have frequently attacked the legitimacy of the received model and the formalist view of the relationship between the law and its individual applications that underlies the model. The common aim of these attacks is to demonstrate that the law is indeterminate in outcome and that the supposed constraints of the Rule of Law on judges are fictions.

Inside Campaign Finance: Myths And Realities, Michael R. Phillips

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Inside Campaign Finance: Myths and Realities by Frank J. Sarauf

Brutality In Blue: Community, Authority, And The Elusive Promise Of Police Reform, Debra Ann Livingston

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force by Jerome H. Skolnick and James J. Fyfe

Problems And Prospects For The Kurdish Struggle For Self-Determination After The End Of The Gulf And Cold Wars, Richard Falk

Michigan Journal of International Law

At a dinner in Istanbul with Kurdish journalists and academicians in early 1992, a young sociologist told the author that he had just finished a survey of Kurdish attitudes toward different solutions to the Kurdish problem. His principal finding was that Kurds living in the Middle East were generally in favor of modest solutions within the boundaries of existing States, while Kurds living in exile were overwhelmingly in support of the establishment of a single sovereign State, to be called Kurdistan, that would provide a homeland for all Kurdish people. Whether or not the study would satisfy social science standards …

The Role Of Law In The Soviet System: Looking Back And Moving Forward, Sarah J. Reynolds

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of Russian Law: The End of the Soviet System and the Role of Law by F.J.M. Feldbrugge

Perspectives On The Gulf War, Majid Khadduri

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of Crisis in the Gulf: Enforcing the Rule of Law by John Norton Moore, and The Gulf Conflict, 1990-1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order by Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh

Character Evidence, James L. Kainen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Bar In America: The Role Of Elitism In A Liberal Democracy, Philip S. Stamatakos

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note argues that liberal democracy, the free market, and science have contributed to the increasing atomization of American society. When each person and her views are glorified, universal standards of good become undermined, values become relative, and a sense of community becomes evanescent. Part II argues that individualism is incapable of accounting for the commonweal and therefore is inherently amoral because morality is concerned largely with determining when an individual's will should be subservient to the will of others. Part III considers the nature of elitism and equality and attributes the demise of elitist institutions in …

Post-Totalitarian Politics, Guyora Binder

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama and Civil Society and Political Theory by Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato

Is The Rule Of Law Possible In A Postmodern World?, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Washington Law Review

The Rule of Law is the core of our political and legal ideology, but the Rule of Law increasingly is attacked as an unattainable goal. Postmoder theorists challenge whether it makes sense to believe that rules can be formulated for general application and then later neutrally applied by decision makers. Postmodern theorists reject the nlightenment world view and its political corollary, classical liberalism. The author agrees with the spirit of the postmoder critique, but argues that we can understand the Rule of Law in a manner consonant with postmodern thought. Drawing on the Continental tradition of hermeneutics, or the philosophy …

Procedure As A Guarantee Of Democracy: The Legacy Of The Perestroika Parliament, Frances H. Foster

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In this Article, the author chronicles the rise and fall of the "perestroika parliament." While Gorbachev's reforms were ultimately unsuccessful in producing effective democratic representation, the author believes that the history of these reforms provides some valuable lessons for post-Soviet Russia. Specifically, Professor Foster concludes that current reformers in Russia should learn from the failed perestroika parliament that a democratic, "rule-of-law" state requires uniform lawmaking procedures with constitutional safeguards to guarantee their integrity.

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

Articles

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.

Dialogue And Judicial Review, Barry Friedman

Michigan Law Review

This article argues that most normative legal scholarship regarding the role of judicial review rests upon a descriptively inaccurate foundation. The goal of this article is to redescribe the landscape of American constitutionalism in a manner vastly different than most normative scholarship. At times this article slips across the line into prescription, but by and large the task is descriptive. The idea is to clear the way so that later normative work can proceed against the backdrop of a far more accurate understanding of the system of American constitutionalism.

This article proceeds in three separate parts. Parts I and II …

Evidence: Indiana Moves Toward Adoption Of The Federal Rules, Ivan E. Bodensteiner

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Identifying, Protecting And Preserving Individual Rights: Traditional Federal Court Functions, Roger J. Miner '56

Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

Cause For Cautious Celebration: Hungarian Post-Communist Environmental Reform, Karen S. Libertiny

Michigan Journal of International Law

In October 1989, the Hungarian Communist regime collapsed and was replaced by a democratic government. This new government was confronted with a visible and grave concern: environmental degradation. In just three years, the new Hungarian government, sometimes of its own impetus, sometimes at the prodding of environmentalists and foreign governments, has taken tremendous steps toward establishing palpable environmental legislation. More importantly, it has created an administrative and information-gathering infrastructure capable of sustaining a cohesive system of environmental protection initiatives. Although the path to further progress is littered with obstacles, this East European country has proven itself a worthy warrior in …

The Rule Of Law And The Politics Of Fear, Richard F. Devlin Frsc

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In this essay, I employ the methodology of narrative jurisprudence to develop briefly some critical reflections on the nature and function of law in Northern Ireland, and in so doing to give voice to what bell hooks has called a "subjugated knowledge". In order to achieve this goal I will draw upon the interdisciplinary insights of neo-marxist, feminist and critical political and social theory, and psychoanalysis. In Part II, I will interpret my own experiences of law in Northern Ireland through the adumbration of neo-Marxist inspired theory of the nature and function of law in a western liberal democratic society. …

Explorations At The Edge Of Time: The Prospects For World Order, Catherine Tinker

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of the book by Richard A. Falk.