Courts Commons^™

The Lottery Docket, Daniel Epps, William Ortman

Michigan Law Review

We propose supplementing the Supreme Court’s caseload with a “lottery docket” of cases selected at random from final judgments of the circuit courts. The Court currently possesses almost unfettered authority to set its own agenda through its certiorari jurisdiction. By rule and custom, the Court exercises that discretion by selecting cases that it sees as important, in a narrow sense of that term. The Court’s free hand in agenda setting has obvious benefits, but it has drawbacks as well. It deprives the Court of critical information about how the law operates in ordinary cases. It signals to circuit courts that …

Punishment But Not A Penalty? Punitive Damages Are Impermissible Under Foreign Substantive Law, Paul A. Hoversten

Michigan Law Review

It is a well-established principle that no court applies the penal laws of another sovereign. But what exactly is a penal law? According to Judge Cardozo, a penal law effects “vindication of the public justice” rather than “reparation to one aggrieved.” Although courts have historically treated punitive damages as a purely civil remedy, that attitude has shifted over time. Modern American punitive damages serve not to compensate the plaintiff but to punish the defendant on behalf of the whole community. Therefore, when courts rely on foreign substantive law to impose punitive damages, they arguably violate the well-established principle that no …

Invisible Adjudication In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Michael Kagan, Rebecca Gill, Fatma Marouf

Faculty Scholarship

Non-precedent decisions are the norm in federal appellate courts, and are seen by judges as a practical necessity given the size of their dockets. Yet the system has always been plagued by doubts. If only some decisions are designated to be precedents, questions arise about whether courts might be acting arbitrarily in other cases. Such doubts have been overcome in part because nominally unpublished decisions are available through standard legal research databases. This creates the appearance of transparency, mitigating concerns that courts may be acting arbitrarily. But what if this appearance is an illusion? This Article reports empirical data drawn …

Sadomasochism: Descent Into Darkness, Annotated Accounts Of Cases, 1996-2014, Robert Peters

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

A collection of accounts of sadomasochistic sexual abuse from news reports and scholarly and professional sources about the dark underbelly of sadomasochism and the pornography that contributes to it. It focuses on crimes and other harmful sexual behavior related to the pursuit of sadistic sexual pleasure in North America and the U.K. It is intended to be a resource to educate people about how sadomasochism can lead to harmful and even deadly sadistic sexual behavior.

Who Determines What Is Egregious? Judge Or Jury: Enhanced Damages After Halo V. Pulse, Brandon M. Reed

Georgia State University Law Review

Enhanced damages in patent law are a type of punitive damage that can be awarded in the case of “egregious misconduct” during the course of patent infringement. Authorization for enhanced damages comes from 35 U.S.C. § 284, which allows the district court to increase total damages up to three times the amount of actual damages found by the jury. It is well understood that, since enhanced damages are punitive in nature, enhancement should only be considered for cases of “wanton” or “deliberate” infringement. However, determining what constitutes this “egregious” misconduct has vastly transformed over time to include a negligence standard, …

Newsroom: A Mentor And A Friend 2-21-2018, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Standing Under State Search And Seizure Provision: Why The Minnesota Supreme Court Should Have Rejected The Federal Standards And Instead Invoked Greater Protection Under Its Own Constitution In State V. Carter, Rebecca C. Garrett

Maine Law Review

In State v. Carter, the Minnesota Supreme Court considered whether a criminal defendant had “standing” to challenge an alleged search under the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution. The defendant moved to suppress evidence obtained by a police officer who had peered in the window of an apartment where the defendant was participating in a drug-packaging operation with the apartment's leaseholder. A divided court held that the defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the apartment. Therefore, the defendant had standing to challenge the legality of the police officer's observations pursuant to the Fourth …

Maine's Overburdened Law Court: Has The Time Come For A Maine Appeals Court?, Peter L. Murray

Maine Law Review

For the entire 178 years of Maine's statehood, its Supreme Judicial Court, “sitting as the Law Court,” has served as Maine's appellate court of first and last resort for all appeals from its trial courts of general jurisdiction. Over this time span, and particularly over the last three decades, the growth in number and complexity of civil and criminal appeals has placed the Law Court under an extremely heavy burden of cases. The sheer number of the appeals which the Law Court is expected to consider and decide risks exceeding the capacity of the institution for careful, thorough, and deliberate …

State V. Brackett: Does The State Have A Right Of Appeal?, Theodore A. Small

Maine Law Review

In State v. Brackett, the defendant was charged with kidnapping, gross sexual assault, burglary, and criminal threatening with the use of a dangerous weapon. The State of Maine filed an in limine motion to exclude any evidence relating to the victim's past sexual behavior, including evidence that the victim may have been a prostitute sometime prior to the incident in dispute. Although evidence of a victim's past sexual behavior is generally inadmissible. The State appealed. A divided Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, declined to rule on the merits of the appeal, holding that the appeal was …

How The Law Court Uses Duty To Limit The Scope Of Negligence Liability, Paul F. Macri

Maine Law Review

The element of duty is the least understood and most amorphous element of negligence. One reason that duty is not well understood is that duty analysis combines consideration of fact-specific issues of foreseeability of harm, relationship between the parties, and seriousness of injury with analysis of the public policy implications of finding a duty in the specific case, including the burden that will be placed on defendants by imposing a duty. This is a delicate balancing act for most courts. Over the last eleven years, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has employed duty analysis in …

Religion Lessons From Europe: Intolerant Secularism, Pluralistic Neutrality, And The U.S. Supreme Court, Antony Barone Kolenc

Pace International Law Review

Case law from the European Court of Human Rights demonstrates to the U.S. Supreme Court how a pluralistic neutrality principle can enrich the American society and harness the value of faith in the public sphere, while at the same time retaining the vigorous protection of individual religious rights. The unfortunate alternative to a jurisprudence built around pluralistic neutrality is the inevitability of intolerant secularism—an increasingly militant separation of religious ideals from the public life, leading ultimately to a repressive society that has no room in its government for religious citizens. The results of intolerant secularism are seen in a recent …

Marbury V. Madison In The U.K.: Brexit And The Creation Of Judicial Supremacy, David Campbell

Cardozo Law Review

The article argues that the UK Supreme Court's decision in *Miller* (R (Miller) v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union) marks a significant shift in the UK's constitutional framework, establishing judicial supremacy akin to the US Supreme Court's role following *Marbury v. Madison*. This shift occurred through the court's assertion of authority to instruct Parliament, challenging the traditional sovereignty of Parliament and creating a de facto constitutional court without explicit public or political debate.

High-Stakes Interpretation, Ryan D. Doerfler

Michigan Law Review

Courts look at text differently in high-stakes cases. Statutory language that would otherwise be “unambiguous” suddenly becomes “less than clear.” This, in turn, frees up courts to sidestep constitutional conflicts, avoid dramatic policy changes, and, more generally, get around undesirable outcomes. The standard account of this behavior is that courts’ failure to recognize “clear” or “unambiguous” meanings in such cases is motivated or disingenuous, and, at best, justified on instrumentalist grounds.

This Article challenges that account. It argues instead that, as a purely epistemic matter, it is more difficult to “know” what a text means—and, hence, more difficult to regard …

City Harvest Case And The Separation Of Powers, Yihan Goh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Verdict provides important example of how the courts and Parliament play different roles in Singapore's legal system. The Court of Appeal last week upheld the reduced sentences passed in the City Harvest Church (CHC) case. Six former church leaders were charged with having conspired to commit the aggravated offence of criminal breach of trust (CBT) as an "agent" under Section 409 of the Penal Code. Departing from the earlier interpretation that had stood for the past 40 years, the court decided that Section 409 applied only to professional agents, which the former church leaders were not. The charges were reduced …

Dangerous Or Benign Legal Fictions, Cognitive Biases, And Consent In Contract Law, Chunlin Leonhard

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Building on existing scholarship on legal fictions and empirical psychological research about human decision making processes, this Article offers a systematic approach to distinguishing a dangerous legal fiction from a benign one.

This Article begins by summarizing scholarly discussions about legal fictions in general, courts’ typical uses of legal fiction, and more general concerns with legal fictions. Part II of the Article summarizes scientific findings about how humans think and what our common cognitive biases are. It then explains how findings regarding the human decision-making process may shed light on why certain legal fictions can be dangerous. This Section …

Three Approaches To Freedom Of Speech, R. George Wright

Et Cetera

Although it is proper to classify many free speech writers as first rate, it is possible that the age in which they write inhibits the production of genuinely great work with a genuinely common goal. With this in mind, we must look at whether there is free speech protection for nonrepresentational art, instrumental music, and nonsense under the Court’s case law. The underlying problem for today’s free speech theorists is no doubt multifaceted. But one important aspect thereof may involve our collective poring over the glittering remnants of a shattered mirror, even as our understandings of the possible uses of …

Sb 174 - Probation And Early Release, Andrew J. Navratil, Jobena E. Hill

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act amends Georgia’s probation laws by shortening the amount of time offenders spend on probation, providing local supervision, and creating a more efficient use of resources within the criminal justice system. The Act permits the transfer from parole to probation and the use of local supervision for certain offenders. The Act also allows for early release of probationers who meet the terms of their probation. The Act creates a process to automatically generate a request for early termination of probation for certain low-level offenses after the offender successfully completes three years of probation.

When Facts Don’T Matter, Eric Berger

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

We are used to thinking that facts shape legal outcomes, but sometimes the Supreme Court wants nothing to do with facts. In some high-profile constitutional decisions, the Roberts Court has ignored important congressional findings, deeming irrelevant facts that document the very mischief Congress sought to remedy. Similarly, in these same cases the Court exploits the muddy line between facial and as-applied challenges to avoid confronting particular facts. The Justices in these cases do not question the veracity of seemingly relevant facts. Rather, they write their opinions as though these facts don’t matter. This Article examines the Court’s penchant for brushing …

Judicial Externships: Sharing Current Practices, Dinah Lennon Archambeault

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

The need for externships has risen over the years as the importance of providing experiential education to supplement traditional doctrinal law school education has become generally acknowledged. Despite the many articles on externships, few, if any, have addressed how judicial externs are selected and how judicial externships are structured in the courts.

It was necessary to conduct qualitative research to determine how various courts address their extern programs, if at all. Based on the research I have undertaken, practices vary among courts and judges. Not only is there no uniform practice with respect to which courts and even judges place …

Innovative Justice: Federal Reentry Drug Courts – How Should We Measure Success?, Timothy D. Degiusti

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

In response to the drug abuse and addiction epidemic in the United States, innovative ways of dealing with non-violent drug offenders within the criminal justice system began to emerge in the late 1980s. Special court dockets – commonly referred to as drug courts – were developed featuring an interdisciplinary team of criminal justice and mental health professionals, led by a presiding judge. Drug courts and other problem-solving courts have proliferated within the state court system, numbering 3,057 by the end of 2014. The use of such courts is expanding among the states, but the federal courts have been slow to …