State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Taking A Toll On The Equities: Governing The Effect Of The Plra's Exhaustion Requirement On State Statutes Of Limitations, Keri E. Mccrary

Georgia Law Review

If prisoners are required by federal law to exhaust
institutional remedies before they may file suit in federal
court, should a prisoner with a legitimate claim suffer
dismissal by the federal court if the statute of limitations
lapses during the time the prisoner spends exhausting
administrative remedies? The Prisoner Litigation Reform
Act (PLRA) of 1996 offers no guidance. Federal courts
may choose to apply equitable tolling to a prisoner's claim
should this predicament arise, saving it from dismissal
based on tardiness, but nothing requires the court to do so.
The PLRA's enigmatic exhaustion requirement has
engendered much litigation, and the …

The Case For Public Pension Reform: Early Evidence From Kentucky, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

Kentucky has managed to effect major changes to some of its pension plans in the face of poor funding ratios that threatened to swamp other budget priorities. At this point it is unclear whether the reforms are deep enough to bring the plans funding levels in line with those of “healthy” states like Wisconsin. It is also unclear whether there is the political will in other jurisdictions to curb costs by moving to defined contribution or hybrid cash balance vehicles. Transparency combined with a fear that pension obligations would soon swamp all other state budget priorities appears to have been …

Language Access Laws And Legal Issues: A Local Official's Guide, David Jung, Noemí O. Gallardo

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Research Agenda For Uncooperative Federalists, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

“I’M Not Quite Dead Yet!”: Rethinking Anti-Lapse Redistribution Of A Dead Beneficiary’S Gift, Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod

Faculty Publications

Anti-lapse statutes create a category of substitute takers when a beneficiary prematurely dies. They are based on the legislature’s presumption of how a testator or settlor would want his property distributed in these circumstances. However, a testator’s or settlor’s intent may effectively be frustrated by this presumed intent.

This Article critically examines the tension between an individual’s autonomy and societal goals in the context of anti-lapse statutes applicable to wills and trusts. It scrutinizes the current rules of construction regarding anti-lapse statutes and identifies their deficiencies in their application to wills and trusts. This Article analyzes and identifies the deficiencies …

Brief Of Federalism Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent Windsor, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case For A State-Level Debt-Financing Authority, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this essay, we argue for the adoption of state-level debt-financing authorities as part of a broader package for reforming local government borrowing.

Searching For Truth In The American Law Of Evidence And Proof, D. Michael Risinger

Georgia Law Review

The ideology of the trial process puts discovery of truth
at center stage. This is made clear by the language of
Federal Rule of Evidence 102, upon which New Georgia
Rule of Evidence 24-1-1 is obviously based. Both of these
rules make the ascertainment of truth one of the two goals
of the trial (just determination being the other). However,
the term "truth" has been used in many ways in many
different contexts and traditions. What notion of truth did
the drafters have in mind?
This Article answers that question by reference to what
has come to be known as …

Safe Haven No Longer: The Role Of Georgia Courts And Private Probation Companies In Sustaining A De Facto Debtors' Prison System, Sarah D. Bellacicco

Georgia Law Review

Georgia was specifically established as a colony for debtors-a haven where they could be safe from imprisonment. It is a haven no longer. Georgia courts are regularly imprisoning people for failing to pay debts, often through probation revocation of probationers who have failed to pay a fine or fee imposed as a condition of probation. Some of these probationers are on probation solely because they could not pay a fine on the day of sentencing, a practice which greatly increases the amount they owe due to the additional probation fees imposed. In Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court held that …

Wireless Localism: Beyond The Shroud Of Objectivity In Federal Spectrum Administration, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Recent innovations in mobile wireless technology have instigated a debate between two camps of legal scholars about how policymakers should structure federal administration of the electromagnetic spectrum. The first argues that the Federal Communications Commission should define spectrum use rights more clearly and give spectrum licensees near fee-simple property rights in frequencies that they can use and sell in secondary markets as they wish. The second camp argues that, rather than award exclusive licenses to the highest bidder, the FCC ought to open much if not most of the spectrum to unlicensed use by smartphones and tablets equipped with the …

The Omnipresent Specter Of Omnicare, Sean J. Griffith

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, written for a symposium commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Delaware Supreme Court’s opinion in Omnicare, Inc. v. NCS Healthcare, Inc., I argue, notwithstanding reports to the contrary, that Omnicare is still very much with us. Although there is a line of cases that qualifies the narrow holding of the opinion, the strong reading of Omnicare, which requires a fiduciary out in every merger agreement and elevates the “unremitting” duty to remain “fully informed” to an absolute jurisprudential principle, lives on in Delaware law, animating the Court of Chancery’s controversial rulings in the recent standstill cases. Shifting …