Judges Commons^™

On Estimating Disparity And Inferring Causation: Sur-Reply To The U.S. Sentencing Commission Staff, Sonja B. Starr, M. Marit Rehavi

Articles

In this Essay, Professors Starr and Rehavi respond to the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s empirical staff’s criticisms of their recent article, which found, contrary to the Commission’s prior work, no evidence that racial disparity in sentences increased in response to United States v. Booker. As Starr and Rehavi suggest, their differences with the Commission perhaps relate to differing objectives. The Commission staff’s reply expresses a lack of interest in identifying Booker’s causal effects; in contrast, that is Starr and Rehavi’s central objective. In addition, Starr and Rehavi’s approach also accounts for disparities arising throughout the post-arrest justice process, extending beyond the …

Mandatory Sentencing And Racial Disparity, Assessing The Role Of Prosecutors And The Effects Of Booker, Sonja B. Starr, M. Marit Rehavi

Articles

This Article presents new empirical evidence concerning the effects of United States v. Booker, which loosened the formerly mandatory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, on racial disparities in federal criminal cases. Two serious limitations pervade existing empirical literature on sentencing disparities. First, studies focus on sentencing in isolation, controlling for the “presumptive sentence” or similar measures that themselves result from discretionary charging, plea-bargaining, and fact-finding processes. Any disparities in these earlier processes are excluded from the resulting sentence-disparity estimates. Our research has shown that this exclusion matters: pre-sentencing decision-making can have substantial sentence-disparity consequences. Second, existing studies have used loose causal inference …

Simplifying The Standard Of Review In North Carolina Administrative Appeals, Sarah H. Ludington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

More Law Than Politics: The Chief, The “Mandate,” Legality, And Statesmanship, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter in a forthcoming book on NFIB v. Sebelius asks whether the various parts of Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion on the minimum coverage provision are legally justifiable. I focus on what Roberts decided, not why he decided it that way.

Law is fully adequate to explain the Chief Justice’s vote to uphold the minimum coverage provision as within the scope of Congress’s tax power. Roberts embraced the soundest constitutional understanding of the Taxing Clause. He also showed fidelity to the law by applying—and not just giving lip service to—the deeply entrenched presumption of constitutionality that judges are supposed to …

Mocking Equality: Reproduction Of Gender Hierarchy In Collegiate Mock Trial, Lily M. Foss

Scripps Senior Theses

During the information sessions that the Scripps Mock Trial Team hosts at the beginning of the school year for those interested in mock trial, it's customary for all the returning team members to talk about why we decided to join mock trial in college. We had no team at my high school, but at the end of my senior year, my AP American Government teacher decided that having a mock trial in class would give us valuable insight into the American legal system. I was chosen to give the closing statement for the defense, and I found my calling. My …

Judicial Memoirs, Thomas Simmons

Faculty Publications

Review of Ipse Dixit: How the World Looks to a Federal Judge, by Hon. William L. Dwyer and Called to Justice: The Life of a Federal Trial Judge, by Hon. Warren K. Urbom

What Alex Kozinski And The Investigation Of Earl Bradley Teach About Searching And Seizing Computers And The Dangers Of Inevitable Discovery, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

This paper tells two stories. One concerns the investigation of a Delaware physician named Earl B. Bradley that resulted in a conviction and sentence of fourteen consecutive life terms for the sexual abuse of children. The other concerns the computer problems, both judicial and extra-judicial, of Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Though in a sense unrelated, they share lessons about the practicalities of computers and their search that are worth telling. As courts continue to struggle with how to cabin the searches of computers in order to minimize privacy intrusion …

Of Law And The Revolution, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Egyptian revolution is proving to be a very legal one. That is not to say that the revolution’s demands have been legalized, nor that Egypt’s law has been revolutionized, rather, the forces that have come to the fore since the toppling of Mubarak in Feb 2011 have chosen law as the privileged form through which to bargain with each other. The density of the legal back and fro has been overwhelming: constitutional amendments, constitutional supplementary declarations, parliamentary laws, legislative amendments, military decrees, court trials, constitutional court decisions overturning laws passed, conflicting decisions from various courts, presidential decrees, emergency laws …

Latina And Latino Judges: Changing The Complexion Of The Bench, Mary Dolores Guerra

Florida A & M University Law Review

Although having a diverse bench is instrumental to a fair judicial system, the first Mexican American was not appointed to the federal bench until 1961. In that year, President John F. Kennedy appointed Reynaldo G. Garza, to the U.S. federal bench as a district court judge. Judge Garza hoped that by becoming an "effective jurist" he would quell any scrutiny over his appointment and, moreover, "encourage [the] appointment of other qualified Mexican Americans to the federal bench." Judge Garza was the only Latino appointed to the federal bench until 1979 when President Jimmy Carter appointed several Latinos to the bench, …

The Practical Implications Of Recusal Of Supreme Court Justices: A Response To Professor Swisher, Steven M. Klepper

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Women And Judging: A Feminist Approach To Judging And The Issue Of Customary Law (Eleventh Annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lecture), Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Critical Race Empiricism: A New Means To Measure Civil Procedure, Victor D. Quintanilla

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article reflects the second phase in a research line examining the effects of highly subjective pleading rules, specifically, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), and was an invited contribution to a symposium, which explored the intersection of empirical legal methods and critical race theory. In this phase, I updated the empirical legal analysis in a prior article, Beyond Common Sense: A Social Psychological Study of Iqbal’s Effect on Claims of Race Discrimination, 17 Michigan Journal of Race and Law 1 (2011), in three ways. First, I lengthened the time horizon from 18 months to 24 months, increasing the …

Book Review. Epstein, L., Et. Al., The Behavior Of Federal Judges: A Theoretical And Empirical Study Of Rational Choice, Ashley A. Ahlbrand

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Justice Kennedy’S “Gay Agenda”: Romer, Lawrence, And The Struggle For Marriage Equality, Lawrence C. Levine

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Property Jurisprudence Of Justice Kennedy, John G. Sprankling

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Panel I: Critical Legal Studies In Intellectual Property And Information Law Scholarship, Peter Goodrich, Sonia K. Katyal, Rebecca Tushnet

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

From The People's Court To American Idol: The Relationship Between Reality Television And Arbitration, On-Air And Off, Jared Bloch

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The first section discusses the background of the role of alternative dispute resolution ("ADR") in television, starting with the courtroom dramas that helped bring ADR to mainstream culture. Next, the Note will explore the regulations that helped to shape the television industry, in conjunction with a discussion of why the impact of these regulations is still being felt today. Then, the Note will discuss the effect that guilds, such as the Screen Actors Guild ("SAG") and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists ("AFTRA"), have on arbitration provisions and contracts as a whole, as well as a bigger picture analysis …

The Emotionally Intelligent Judge, Terry A. Maroney

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Judges, like all of us, have been acculturated to an ideal of dispassion. But judges experience emotion on a regular basis. Judicial emotion must be managed competently. The psychology of emotion regulation can help judges learn to prepare realistically for, and respond thoughtfully to, the emotions they are bound to feel. This short piece, written for a judicial audience, synthesizes research that can help judges accept, analyze, and shape the emotional aspects of their work.

Justice Holmes's Bad Man And The Depleted Purposes Of Punitive Damages, Jill Wieber Lens

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Issue 2: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.