Courts Commons^™

Adaptation Nation: Three Pivotal Transitions In American Law & Society Since 1886, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Waiver, Work Product, And Worry: A Case For Clarifying The Waiver Doctrine In Oklahoma, Mitchell B. Bryant

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Combating Prosecutorial Misconduct In Closing Arguments, Michael D. Cicchini

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Removing Race From The Jury Deliberation Room: The Shortcomings Of Pena-Rodriguez V. Colorado And How To Address Them, Lauren Crump

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment explores ways in which racial bias undermines

the American jury system and argues that simply having a racial

bias exception to the no-impeachment rule does not go far enough

to guard against racially motivated jury verdicts. In order to

guarantee the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury, defendants

must always be able to question potential jurors about

racial bias, and universal court policies need to be adopted across

the country that allow for a consistent approach for investigating

claims of racial bias in jury deliberations. Part I of this comment

examines the history of American juries and …

Testimonial Injustice In International Criminal Law, Shannon Fyfe

Scholarly Articles

In this article, I consider the possibilities and limitations for testimonial justice in an international criminal courtroom. I begin by exploring the relationship between epistemology and criminal law, and consider how testimony contributes to the goals of truth and justice. I then assess the susceptibility of international criminal courts to the two harms of testimonial injustice: epistemic harm to the speaker, and harm to the truth-seeking process. I conclude that international criminal courtrooms are particularly susceptible to perpetrating testimonial injustice. Hearers in the international criminal courtroom should practice testimonial justice, but the institution is not structured in a way that …

Expanding The Search For America's Missing Jury, Richard Lorren Jolly

Michigan Law Review

A review of Suja A. Thomas, The Missing American Jury: Restoring the Fundamental Constitutional Role of the Criminal, Civil, and Grand Juries.

Trouble Counting To Three: Circuit Splits And Confusion In Interpreting The Prison Litigation Reform Act's Three Strikes Rule, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1915(G), Molly Guptill Manning

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Aspirations Of Objectivity: Systemic Illusions Of Justice In The Biased Courtroom, Meagan B. Roderique

Scripps Senior Theses

Given the ever-growing body of evidence surrounding implicit bias in and beyond the institution of the law, there is an equally growing need for the law to respond to the accurate science of prejudice in its aspiration to objective practice and just decision-making. Examined herein are the existing legal conceptualizations of implicit bias as utilized in the courtroom; implicit bias as peripheral to law and implicit bias as effectual in law, but not without active resolution. These views and the interventional methods, materials, and procedures they inspire are widely employed to appreciably “un-bias” legal actors and civic participants; however, without …

The Story Of The Dubai International Financial Centre Courts: A Retrospective, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Can Western-based, English-speaking, common law commercial courts operate successfully in an environment that are not their own—such as in the Middle East? This question is not a simple thought experiment but rather the reality that has occurred since the mid-2000s in the Emirate of Dubai. This monograph recounts the history of how the ‘Dubai International Financial Centre Courts’ emerged. Drawing on extensive interviews with key stakeholders involved in the process, along with rich original documents as well as all of the Courts’ judgments, this narrative offers important lessons for those seeking to understand more fully the complex interplay of how …

Politics, Power Dynamics, And The Limits Of Existing Self-Regulation And Oversight In Icc Preliminary Examinations, Asaf Lubin

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Professor Lubin's contribution to volume 2 is titled, "Politics, Power Dynamics, and the Limits of Existing Self-Regulation and Oversight in ICC Preliminary Examinations," pp. 77-150.

Should the normative framework that governs the International Criminal Court’s (‘ICC’) oversight concerning preliminary examinations undergo a reform? The following chapter answers this question in the affirmative, making the claim that both self-regulation by the Office of the Prosecutor (‘OTP’) and quality control by the Pre-Trial Chamber (‘PTC’) currently suffer from significant deficiencies, thus failing to reach the optimum point on the scale between absolute prosecutorial discretion and absolute control. The chapter demonstrates some of …

Report And Recommendations Of The Arizona Task Force On Court Management Of Digital Evidence, Arizona Task Force On Court Management Of Digital Evidence

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The court record has three components, each historically paper-based and tangible: (1) filings; (2) transcripts; and (3) exhibits. Given technology changes, filings and transcripts now are often kept as digital files. Exhibits, however, continue to be received and held by the court in tangible form. Technology changes mean that will soon change, and will change drastically. The 2016 Joint Technology Committee Resource Bulletin: Managing Digital Evidence in Courts, warned that “[c]ourt management systems are not currently designed to manage large quantities of digital evidence, which means that courts and industry must find creative ways to deal immediately with the dramatically …

Indirect And Invisible Organizational Costs: Making Informed Decisions About Litigation And Settlement, Michaela Keet, Heather Heavin, Shawna Sparrow

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

When anticipating litigation costs for organizations, lawyers and clients tend to focus on direct litigation costs, while overlooking the impact of process costs. In making an evaluation whether to litigate or settle, we assert that lawyers should account for indirect organizational costs within any cost-benefit analysis. This article reviews organizational literature and empirical studies in order to present a template of three spheres of impact: business opportunity, reputation, and organizational psychology. With greater awareness, organizational lawyers can identify and weigh these costs, with the objective of helping their clients better understand the financial impact of dispute resolutions for the organization. …

The Curious Origin Of Texas Pleading, Justice Jason Boatright

SMU Law Review

For 150 years, judges and legal scholars said that the Texas pleading system came from Spain. They explained that Mexico used a simple Spanish pleading system that English-speaking immigrants to Mexican Texas liked more than the complicated procedure they had known in the United States. After separating from Mexico, the story goes, Texas retained the Spanish system.

But that story is probably wrong. The Republic of Texas enacted its first pleading law in 1836. It does not look like Spanish pleading laws; it looks like an 1824 law written by Stephen F. Austin for his colony’s alcalde courts. Austin’s law …

Practitioners' Perception Of Court-Connected Mediation In Five Regions: An Empirical Study, Shahla F. Ali

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Courts throughout the world face the challenge of designing court mediation programs to provide opportunities for party-directed reconciliation on the one hand, while ensuring access to formal legal channels on the other. In some jurisdictions, mandated programs require initial attempts at mediation, while in others, voluntary programs encourage party-selected participation. This Article explores the attitudes and perceptions of eighty-three practitioners implementing court mediation programs in five regions in order to understand the dynamics, challenges, and lessons learned from the perspectives of those directly engaged in the work of administering, representing, and mediating civil claims. Given the highly contextual nature of …

The Unexpected Scope Of The Cfaa: And How Netflix Users Could Be Committing A Federal Crime, Michael Levy

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The Ninth Circuit's broad interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) in United States v. Nosal II criminalizes everyday activities like password sharing, undermining the Act's original purpose to prevent hacking. The court ruled that accessing a computer after authorization has been revoked constitutes a violation, even if the access is for innocuous purposes. This interpretation disproportionately benefits large service providers, allowing them to suppress legitimate user claims and exposing millions of Americans to potential prosecution for common online practices.

A Tale Of Two Standards: Why Wyoming Courts Should Apply The Actual Substantial Evidence Standard When Reviewing Workers’ Compensation Cases, Michael C. Duff

All Faculty Scholarship

In Wyoming, as in almost all states, facts in contested workers’ compensation cases are developed within an administrative agency. When agency factual findings are challenged in court, the level of judicial deference applied to the agency is important and may be outcome determinative. Wyoming courts claim to apply the “substantial evidence” standard of review, often expressed as evidence that a “reasonable mind could accept” as supporting an agency determination. The Wyoming Supreme Court, however, also sometimes upholds workers’ compensation agency decisions that are deemed “not contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.” It is unclear whether this latter formulation …

President Donald Trump And Federal Bench Diversity, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

President Donald Trump constantly reminds United States citizens about the myriad circuit and district court appointments that his White House is making to the federal judiciary. Last September, Trump proposed the seventh “wave,” which included three people of color among sixteen judicial nominees. This wave permitted the administration to triple the number of ethnic minority picks whom it had selected, which means that the Executive Branch has proffered ten persons of color in appeals court and district court submissions, yet none is a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) individual. Nevertheless, a problematic pattern, which implicates a stunning lack of …

Keeping The Rule Of Law Simple: Comments On Gowder, The Rule Of Law In The Real World, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

Let me start by just stating my experience of reading The Rule of Law in the Real World¹ because it will help make sense of the structure of my remarks. The first third of the book: I am utterly convinced, even blown away, by the elegance and persuasiveness of the argument and the analysis; even when there is merely a summary, I am helped and bettered by it. The second third of the book: I am inclined, based on the enormous goodwill generated by the first third of the book to accept-almost uncritically-the historical discussion and the conclusions drawn …

Undocumented Citizens Of The United States: The Repercussions Of Denying Birth Certificates, Anna L. Lichtenberger

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Informal Justice: An Examination Of Why Ontarians Do Not Seek Legal Advice, Matthew Dylag

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Modern access to justice scholarship takes as its premise that the focus of legal reform must be on the legal problems experienced in the day-to-day lives of the public; not just those problems that are brought before the formal court system for adjudication. In 2014, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice [CFCJ] completed a comprehensive survey for the Cost of Justice Project inquiring into the civil legal needs among ordinary Canadians. One of the many conclusions that can be drawn from the survey data is the finding that most Ontarians do not go to lawyers in order to resolve their …