Courts Commons^™

Replacing Tinker, Noah C. Chauvin

University of Richmond Law Review

In this Article, I wish to question whether reaffirming the animating spirit of Tinker is the best way to protect student speech rights. In allowing schools to punish student speech that school officials reasonably believe could be substantially disruptive, Tinker founds students’ free expression rights on unstable ground. This is true for two reasons. First, the Tinker standard allows school officials to regulate student speech based on their own perceptions of what its impacts will be. While these perceptions must be reasonable, courts have shown extraordinary deference to educators’ claims that student speech could be substantially disruptive. Second, the substantial …

Appoint Candace Jackson-Akiwumi To The Seventh Circuit, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

On November 30, Seventh Circuit Judge Joel Flaum assumed senior status when he completed over four decades of rigorous public service as a prominent jurist. On that day, the Senate resumed the prolonged lame duck session, which the GOP upper chamber majority began after voters had elected Joe Biden to replace former President Donald Trump. Trump correctly refrained from nominating Flaum’s successor. Four months later, President Biden dutifully announced that he would name Candace Jackson-Akiwumi to replace Flaum. Jackson-Akiwumi is a particularly qualified, mainstream nominee. Because she comprehensively answered senators’ complex, probing questions, and the Seventh Circuit lacks any people …

How President Biden Can Fill The Central District Of California Bench, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

President Joseph Biden confronts an enormous opportunity to seat highly qualified, mainstream federal judges in plenty of appeals court and district court openings which former President Donald Trump neglected to fill in his four-year term. The remarkable California trial level vacant emergency slots, particularly in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, are the United States’ worst-case scenario and consummate promise. The Central District of California tribunal had experienced as many as ten lengthy open court slots among twenty-eight posts during the Trump administration, but it encounters six vacancies today.

A Music Industry Circuit Split: The De Minimis Exception In Digital Sampling, Michaela S. Morrissey

University of Richmond Law Review

When hip-hop icon Biz Markie released his album “All Samples Cleared!” he joked of the end of what was known as the “Golden Age” of digital sampling in the hip-hop and rap music industry. The Golden Age began in the late 1980s, and because there was no regulation of the practice, it was a period of musical enlightenment in which musicians could freely utilize digital sampling without legal repercussion. However, in 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed down an opinion that sent shock waves across the music industry. In Bridgeport Music Inc. v. Dimension …

Qualified Immunity, Sovereign Immunity, And Systemic Reform, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Scholarship

Qualified immunity has become a central target of the movement for police reform and racial justice since George Floyd’s murder. And rightly so. Qualified immunity, which shields government officials from damages for constitutional violations even in many egregious cases, should have no place in federal law. But in critical respects, qualified immunity has become too much a focus of the conversation about constitutional-enforcement reform. The recent reappraisal offers unique opportunities to explore deeper problems and seek deeper solutions.

This Article argues that the public and policymakers should reconsider other aspects of the constitutional-tort system—especially sovereign immunity and related protections for …

Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Acknowledgments, Christopher J. Sullivan

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Overhauling Rules Of Evidence In Pro Se Courts, Andrew C. Budzinski

University of Richmond Law Review

State civil courtrooms are packed to the brim with litigants, but not with lawyers. Since the early 1990s, more and more litigants in state courts have appeared without legal counsel. Pro se litigation has grown consistently and enormously over the past few decades. State court dockets are dominated by cases brought by unrepresented litigants, most often in domestic violence, family law, landlord-tenant, and small claims courts.

Yet, the American courtroom is not designed for use by those unrepresented litigants—it is designed for use by attorneys. The American civil court is built upon a foundation of dense procedural rules, thick tomes …

Utilizing Tax Incentives To Increase Gender Parity On Corporate Boards, Mary E. Tursi

University of Richmond Law Review

Women are drastically underrepresented in positions of power and prominence in the United States. As of 2021, women hold only thirty percent of board seats on the S&P 500. The number is much smaller for private corporations. One study found that in 2020, women occupied only eleven percent of board seats for private corporations. Given these statistics, it is unsurprising that a 2021
study predicts that corporate boards will not reach gender parity until 2032.

This underrepresentation matters for several reasons. First, the lack of gender equity on corporate boards is blatantly sexist. This disparity should matter for anyone who …

Make Some Sense Of Scent Trademarks: The United States Needs A Graphical Representation Requirement, Gabrielle E. Brill

University of Richmond Law Review

When it comes to consumer loyalty, some businesses have decided to go beyond attracting the eyes. Why not keep customers via their nostrils? Accordingly, the scent marketing industry is booming. Jennifer Dublino, Vice President of Development at ScentWorld Events, remarks that “smell is one of the most unique of human senses. Scent enters the limbic system [of the brain] and bypasses all of the cognitive and logical thought processes and goes directly to the emotional and memory areas of the brain.” Companies like ScentAir have been created specifically to help stores design fragrances that best fit their image and objectives …

Pretextual Stops: The Rest Of The Story, J.E.B. Stuart Vi

University of Richmond Law Review

Pretextual stops made by law enforcement officers—stops aimed at serving some purpose other than the official reason for the stop—have received renewed attention in the public discourse following several high-profile law enforcement confrontations with people of color. Naturally, the conversations about pretextual stops have centered around their most horrid iteration: discriminatory stops made by bad cops. These stops are damaging to both motorists and officers, and conversations about them are undeniably important. But there is more to pretextual stops than the nefarious purposes attributed to them.

As a former police officer who regularly made pretextual stops for reasons entirely unrelated …

The Impact Of The Rules Of Court 2021 On The Law Of Evidence, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Rules of Court 2021, effective April 2022, are meant to modernise the litigation process for civil cases by enhancing the efficiency and speed of adjudication and keeping costs at reasonable levels. At the heart of this discernible shift to a less adversarial system of civil litigation is the enlargement of the court’s discretionary powers vis-à-vis case management. This article considers, however, the potential ripple effects of the new legislation on the contiguous domain of evidence law. Three distinct but related areas of evidence law most likely to be impacted have been identified. First, would the introduction of the “interests …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Arbitration Scholars And Practitioners In Support Of Petitioners, Sarah A. Dowd, Eric B. Fisher, Travis A. Gonyou, Diane Desierto

Court Briefs

No. 21-1244
Beijing Shougang Mining Investment Company, Ltd. v. Mongolia

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

From the Summary of Argument

Parties to international arbitration and arbitral tribunals themselves value predictability and dependability. This is especially so for threshold questions concerning the authority of an arbitral tribunal to decide disputes over its own jurisdiction. Among international arbitration scholars and practitioners this threshold question is often known by the German term kompetenz-kompetenz, referring to the issue of competence to determine the competence of an arbitral panel to decide a dispute. …

The Restorative Prison: Essays On Inmate Peer Ministry & Prosocial Corrections, Michael A. Hallett

Showcase of Faculty Scholarly & Creative Activity

Drawing on work from inside some of America’s largest and toughest prisons, this book documents an alternative model of "restorative corrections" utilizing the lived experience of successful inmates, fast disrupting traditional models of correctional programming. While research documents a strong desire among those serving time in prison to redeem themselves, inmates often confront a profound lack of opportunity for achieving redemption. In a system that has become obsessively and dysfunctionally punitive, often fewer than 10% of prisoners receive any programming. Incarcerated citizens emerge from prisons in the United States to reoffend at profoundly high rates, with the majority of released …

Equal Access To Donate: Plasma Donation Centers And The Ada, Lucy Richman

Cleveland State Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against disabled persons in employment, public services, and private entities operating public accommodations. Despite clear moral and social incentives for becoming disability-friendly outside of the legal mandate, many private entities have asserted that the ADA does not apply to them. In multiple cases, plasma donation centers, one particular type of entity, have strongly disputed whether they are subject to the ADA as public accommodations. The crux of these cases has hinged on whether plasma donation centers are “service establishments” under Title III of the ADA, and three such cases have reached the …

Elucidation Strategies: A Case Study Of The U.S Supreme Court, Gordon Carroll

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

The research encompassed a study on the consistency in judicial interpretations and factors that influenced U.S. Supreme Court decisions. To do this, the study explored literature and theoretical perspectives relating to judicial interpretations and decisions. The target population entailed officers in the Office of the Solicitor General for their experience in Court rulings. Interviews were conducted among ten respondents, with data collected, coded, and analyzed. The study results were then presented, discussed, and conclusions derived from them. Generally, the study found serious inconsistencies in interpretations not only between justices but also in almost similar cases. Decisions by justices were conflicting …

The Future Of The Allen Charge In The New Millennium, Caleb Epperson

Arkansas Law Review

"In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same." Following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, social and political movements grew rapidly nationwide to combat the prevalence of police brutality against African-American communities. The impact of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement has been observed in both cities across the United States and in related movements internationally. This movement highlights the necessity for police reform and catalyzes the public’s growing call for greater criminal justice reform. To achieve the goals …

Foreign Antisuit Injunctions And The Settlement Effect, Connor Cohen

Northwestern University Law Review

International parallel proceedings, which are concurrent identical or similar lawsuits in multiple countries, often ask courts to balance efficiency and fairness against the speculative fear of insulting foreign nations. Some litigants abuse foreign duplicative litigation to exhaust their opponents’ resources and pressure them into settling out of court. This Note provides the first empirical evidence of such abuse of international parallel proceedings: when courts deny motions to enjoin foreign parallel litigation, the settlement rate rises significantly. Considering the results of this empirical project and its limitations, I encourage future studies on international parallel proceedings and settlement. I also argue for …

Confidentiality, Warning And Aids: A Proposal To Protect Patients, Third Parties And Physicians

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Quo Vadis? Assessing New York’S Civil Forfeiture Law, Steven L. Kessler

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.