Issue 2: Table Of Contents, 2010 University of Richmond
From Judge To Dean: Reflections On The Bench And The Academy, 2010 Duke Law School
From Judge To Dean: Reflections On The Bench And The Academy, David F. Levi
Faculty Scholarship
In July of 2007, having served nearly seventeen years as a United States District Judge with chambers in Sacramento, California, I moved to Durham, North Carolina, to become the fourteenth dean of the Duke University Law School. I would concede that in the grand scheme of things such a transition must be deemed unremarkable. Lawyers have become soldiers, presidents, artists, and inn keepers. Judges have left the bench to do much the same. Nonetheless, in the somewhat closed worlds of the federal bench and the legal academy, at a time when the two worlds have seemed to drift apart, such …
The Irrepressible Myth Of Klein, 2010 Florida International University College of Law
The Irrepressible Myth Of Klein, Howard M. Wasserman
Faculty Publications
The Reconstruction-era case of United States v. Klein remains the object of a “cult” among commentators and advocates, who see it as a powerful separation of powers precedent. In fact, Klein is a myth—actually two related myths. One is that it is opaque and meaninglessly indeterminate because, given its confusing and disjointed language, its precise doctrinal contours are indecipherable; the other is that Klein is vigorous precedent, likely to be used by a court to invalidate likely federal legislation. Close analysis of Klein, its progeny, and past scholarship uncovers three identifiable core limitations on congressional control over the workings of …
Clinton, Ginsburg, And Centrist Federalism, 2010 Washington & Lee University School of Law
Clinton, Ginsburg, And Centrist Federalism, Russell A. Miller
Indiana Law Journal
This Article examines Justice Ginsburg's overlooked federalism jurisprudence and concludes that it almost perfectly complements President Bill Clinton's New Democratic centrism, especially his pro-state federalism agenda. The Article concludes that their nuanced, "centrist" approach to federalism has two characteristics. First,t hey value the states 'governing autonomy and show respect for the state agents that realize that autonomy. Second, they credit the states as intersubjective actors engaged in the pursuit of their interests, albeit in political processes usually carried out at the federal level.
Situating Inherent Power Within A Rules Regime, 2010 Saint Louis University School of Law
Situating Inherent Power Within A Rules Regime, Samuel P. Jordan
All Faculty Scholarship
My goal in this short Essay is to describe the way that inherent power is understood and applied within our procedural framework, and to suggest the need for a more robust account of the contemporary relationship between inherent power and formal procedural rules. Part I describes two roles – one legitimate and one not – that inherent power can play vis-à-vis the rules. Part II examines how those roles are often confused or manipulated, with the result that inherent power remains available to justify judicial action in an undesirably large class of cases. Finally, Part III explores ways to clarify …
New York’S Inbred Judiciary: Pathologies Of Nomination And Appointment Of Court Of Appeals Judges, 2010 University at Buffalo School of Law
New York’S Inbred Judiciary: Pathologies Of Nomination And Appointment Of Court Of Appeals Judges, James A. Gardner
Journal Articles
The practice of selecting judges by popular election, commonplace among the American states, has recently come in for a good deal of criticism, much of it well-founded. But if popular election of judges is a bad method of judicial selection, what ought to replace it? Opponents of judicial election typically treat gubernatorial appointment as self-evidently better. New York’s experience with gubernatorial appointment to its highest court, the Court of Appeals, suggests that greater caution is in order. Although New York’s current method of selecting Court of Appeals judges was designed to be wide open and based entirely on merit, the …
What Elena Kagan Could Have & Should Have Said (& Still Have Been Confirmed), 2010 Georgia State University College of Law
What Elena Kagan Could Have & Should Have Said (& Still Have Been Confirmed), Eric J. Segall
Faculty Publications By Year
During her confirmation hearings, Justice Kagan backed away from numerous critical comments she had previously made about the nomination process. No one knows why she changed her mind but it is likely that the shift resulted more from a political calculation than a change of heart about the nature of the process. This Commentary suggests that Justice Kagan could have testified consistently with her previously expressed views and still have been confirmed.
What Elena Kagan Could Have & Should Have Said (& Still Have Been Confirmed): A Reply, 2010 Georgia State University College of Law
What Elena Kagan Could Have & Should Have Said (& Still Have Been Confirmed): A Reply, Eric J. Segall
Faculty Publications By Year
No abstract provided.
Iqbal And Empathy, 2010 Duke Law School
Iqbal And Empathy, Darrell A. H. Miller
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay argues that empathy does and should play an important, albeit limited role, in a judge’s decision making process. Specifically, empathy is essential for making correct, principled, and unbiased judgments, because empathy is one of the few means we have to understand human motivation. Empathy is a crucial cognitive mechanism that can help compensate for common cognitive bias. As such, empathy, appropriately restricted, should be an accepted and meaningful tool for judges to use in evaluating the sufficiency of complaints, especially as they relate to Iqbal’s plausibility pleading standard.
All Rise! Standing In Judge Betty Fletcher’S Court, 2010 Duke Law School
All Rise! Standing In Judge Betty Fletcher’S Court, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.
Faculty Scholarship
In this essay, based on a talk given at the Washington Law Review’s March 2009 symposium in honor of Senior Ninth Circuit Judge Betty Binns Fletcher and her three decades of service on that court, I selectively survey her opinions on justiciability issues: standing, ripeness, mootness, and political questions. A significant starting point for this survey is Professor Richard Pierce’s 1999 law review article, Is Standing Law or Politics?, arguing that many Supreme Court votes in standing cases generally, and appellate judges’ votes in environmental-standing cases specifically, can be explained better on the basis of politics than by reference to …
From Chevron To Massachusetts: Justice Stevens's Approach To Securing The Public Interest, 2010 University of Washington School of Law
From Chevron To Massachusetts: Justice Stevens's Approach To Securing The Public Interest, Kathryn A. Watts
Articles
During the past three decades, one Supreme Court justice— John Paul Stevens—has authored two of the most significant administrative law decisions that speak to the judiciary’s role in checking agency interpretations of the statutes that they administer. In Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Justice Stevens’s landmark 1984 decision unanimously upheld the EPA’s construction of a term found in the Clean Air Act. Subsequently, in Massachusetts v. EPA, Justice Stevens’s 2007 opinion for a five-justice majority handed a major win to global environmental security by ordering the EPA to reconsider its refusal to regulate greenhouse …
Judicial Ability And Securities Class Actions, 2010 Duke Law School
Judicial Ability And Securities Class Actions, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner
Faculty Scholarship
We exploit a new data set of judicial rulings on motions in order to investigate the relationship between judicial ability and judicial outcomes. The data set consists of federal district judges’ rulings on motions to dismiss, to approve the lead plaintiff, and to approve attorneys’ fees in securities class actions cases, and also judges’ decisions to remove themselves from cases. We predict that higher-quality judges, as measured by citations, affirmance rates, and similar criteria, are more likely to dismiss cases, reject lead plaintiffs, reject attorneys’ fees, and retain cases rather than hand them over to other judges. Our results are …
Talking Judges, 2010 Duke Law School
Talking Judges, Mitu Gulati, Jack Knight
Faculty Scholarship
What kinds of empirical questions about themselves and their colleagues on the bench are judges interested in asking? This was the topic of a recent conference at the Duke Law School. Our Essay reflects on the ways in which the judges at this conference and at a prior one talked about the empirical study of their community. To put it mildly, most of the judges were not fans of the empirical research. Our interest in this Essay is not, however, in responding to the judicial criticisms. Rather it is in drawing insights about how judges view themselves and their profession …
Watch Your Language: A Review Of The Use Of Stigmatizing Language By Canadian Judges, 2010 Dalhousie University - Schulich School of Law
Watch Your Language: A Review Of The Use Of Stigmatizing Language By Canadian Judges, Jocelyn Downie, Michelle Black
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Despite ongoing advances in understanding the causes and prevalence of mental health issues, stigmatizing language is still often directed at people who have mental illness. Such language is regularly used by parties, such as the media, who have great influence on public opinion and attitudes. Since the decisions from Canadian courtrooms can also have a strong impact on societal views, we asked whether judges use stigmatizing language in their decisions. To answer this question, we conducted a qualitative study by searching through modern Canadian case law using search terms that were indicative of stigmatizing language. We found that, although judges …
Ivan Rand's Ancient Constitutionalism, 2010 Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law
Ivan Rand's Ancient Constitutionalism, Jonathon Penney
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Few names loom larger than Ivan Rand’s in the history of Canadian law. If anything, Rand has retained his image as a courageous judge willing to bend the law in creative ways to seek justice and protect the rights of oppressed minorities. But Rand’s legal ideas have not faired as well. Over the years, his theory of “implied rights,” and view of the judicial role, has been criticized as incoherent and indefensible. The central aim of this paper is to challenge these criticisms. I want to offer a solution by reconstructing an overlooked component of his legal thought: a form …
Detecting The Stealth Erosion Of Precedent: Affirmative Action After Ricci, 2010 Univ. of Connecticut School of Law
Detecting The Stealth Erosion Of Precedent: Affirmative Action After Ricci, Sachin S. Pandya
Faculty Articles and Papers
This paper presents a method for detecting stealth precedent erosion, i.e., when an appellate court majority deliberately writes the opinion in case y to reduce the scope of its precedent x, but does not expressly refer to precedent x in the opinion. Applying this method, the paper provides a strong basis for concluding that in Ricci v. DeStefano (2009), a United States Supreme Court case decided under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Court majority eroded by stealth United Steelworkers of America v. Weber (1979), and Johnson v. Transportation Agency (1987), both cases that read Title …
Evaluating Judges And Judicial Institutions: Reorienting The Perspective, 2010 Duke Law School
Evaluating Judges And Judicial Institutions: Reorienting The Perspective, Mitu Gulati, David E. Klein, David F. Levi
Faculty Scholarship
Empirical scholarship on judges, judging, and judicial institutions, a staple in political science, is becoming increasingly popular in law schools. We propose that this scholarship can be improved and enhanced by greater collaboration between empirical scholars, legal theorists, and the primary subjects of the research, the judges. We recently hosted a workshop that attempted to move away from the conventional mode of involving judges and theorists in empirical research, where they serve as commentators on empirical studies that they often see as reductionist and mis-focused. Instead, we had the judges and theorists set the discussion agenda for the empiricists by …
Judicial Elections In The Aftermath Of White, Caperton, And Citizens United, 2010 Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Judicial Elections In The Aftermath Of White, Caperton, And Citizens United, Charles G. Geyh
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.
Judicial Elections As Popular Constitutionalism, 2010 Columbia Law School
Judicial Elections As Popular Constitutionalism, David E. Pozen
Faculty Scholarship
One of the most important recent developments in American legal theory is the burgeoning interest in "popular constitutionalism." One of the most important features of the American legal system is the selection of state judges – judges who resolve thousands of state and federal constitutional questions each year – by popular election. Although a large literature addresses each of these subjects, scholarship has rarely bridged the two. Hardly anyone has evaluated judicial elections in light of popular constitutionalism, or vice versa.
This Article undertakes that thought experiment. Conceptualizing judicial elections as instruments of popular constitutionalism, the Article aims to show, …
Treaties As Law And The Rule Of Law: The Judicial Power To Compel Domestic Treaty Implementation, 2010 University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Treaties As Law And The Rule Of Law: The Judicial Power To Compel Domestic Treaty Implementation, William M. Carter Jr.
Articles
The Supremacy Clause makes the Constitution, federal statutes, and ratified treaties part of the "supreme law of the land." Despite the textual and historical clarity of the Supremacy Clause, some courts and commentators have suggested that the "non-self-executing treaty doctrine" means that ratified treaties must await implementing legislation before they become domestic law. The non-self-executing treaty doctrine has in particular been used as a shield to claims under international human rights treaties.
This Article does not seek to provide another critique of the non-self-executing treaty doctrine in the abstract. Rather, I suggest that a determination that a treaty is non-self-executing …