Jurisprudence Commons^™

Precedent And Speech, Randy J. Kozel

Michigan Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court has shown a notable willingness to reconsider its First Amendment precedents. In recent years, the Court has departed from its prior statements regarding the constitutional value of false speech. It has revamped its process for identifying categorical exceptions to First Amendment protection. It has changed its positions on corporate electioneering and aggregate campaign contributions. In short, it has revised the ground rules of expressive freedom in ways large and small. The Court generally describes its past decisions as enjoying a presumption of validity through the doctrine of stare decisis. This Article contends that within the context …

Court Transparency And The First Amendment, David S. Ardia

Cardozo Law Review

"Publicity is the very soul of justice," legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham once warned.1 Regrettably, lady justice is at risk of losing her soul. In courts across the country, secrecy is increasingly the norm. Indeed, the extent of secrecy in American courts is astonishing, especially given the assumption by many that the First Amendment guarantees a right of public access to the courts. In reality, the United States Supreme Court has explicitly held only that there is a First Amendment right of public access to criminal trials and pre-trial proceedings. The Court has never addressed the question of whether there is …

Contract Exposition And Formalism, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Formalism in contract law has had many defenders and many critics. What courts need, however, is an account of when formalist approaches work and when they do not. This article addresses that need by developing a general theory of the rules of contract interpretation and construction—contract “exposition.” The theory distinguishes inter alia two forms of formalism. Formalities effect legal change by virtue of their form alone, and thereby obviate interpretation. Examples from contract law include “as is”, the seal and boilerplate terms. Formalities work when parties intend their legal effects, that is, when they perform juristic acts. Plain meaning rules, …

Contesting Victimhood: A Linguistic And Legal Anthropological Analysis Of Defendant Experiences In New York’S Human Trafficking Intervention Courts, Mark T. Romig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Human Trafficking Intervention Courts (HTICs) have been operating in New York City in an effort to connect victims of human trafficking to treatment programs. Unfortunately, the net that the courts cast was too wide and people who did not identify as victims of human trafficking were coerced into treatment programs that they did not need or want. Through textual discourse analysis and ethnographic observation, this paper explores the contestation of victimhood in HTICs by focusing on the experiences of defendants and how they are perceived by the police, judges, and other agents of the HTICs. Before entering the HTICs, defendants …

La Personalidad Del Embrión: La Filosofía Ante Los Límites De La Imaginación, Richard Stith

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Is The United States Judicial System Failing Transgender Women? A Critical Overview, Taylor J. House

Florida A & M University Law Review

This paper will discuss the rise of the transgender civil rights movement, the problems in the judicial system, and the rights that should be afforded to transgender women. In part one, I will address the LGBTQA civil rights movement led by transgender women. In part two, I will address the transphobia in the prison system. In part three, I will address the lack of visibility of black transgender issues in the current black civil rights movement. In the fourth part, I will address whether there should be certain fundamental rights given to transgender women. In the fifth part of this …

Whistle While You Work: Interpreting Retaliation Remedies Available To Whistleblowers In The Dodd-Frank Act, Max Birmingham

Florida A & M University Law Review

This Article asserts that judicial activism occurs when a court goes beyond the plain meaning of the text that is plain and unambiguous, to promulgate its politics. This Article does not make the argument nor infer that this is the sole definition of judicial activism. Rather, this Article is narrowing the scope by enumerating a specific act that falls within the category of judicial activism.

This argument proceeds as follows. Part I provides context of judicial activism. Part II analyzes how various courts have interpreted the statute, and whether the interpretation is consistent with canons of construction. Part III assesses …

From Gorsuch To Gorsuch: Family Reformation On Agency Power, Matthew Noxsel

Florida A & M University Law Review

Although Chevron has drawn extensive scholarship examining its doctrinal origins,17 evolution,18 and impact,19 this is not one of those inquiries. Instead, this Comment seeks to address some of the circumstances and rationale motivating certain people behind Chevron, and therefore the doctrine and its impact will be discussed in short form. Accordingly, Part II of this Comment will use Anne Gorsuch’s service at the EPA as a lens through which to view the conservative revolution that occurred before and during the Reagan years, with an eye toward a subtle change in thinking from previous generations regarding agency regulations. Part III of …

Marriage Equality: The Paralleled Progress Between Public Approval And Supreme Court Decisionmaking, Riley Erin Fredrick

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

We "Kent" Keep Transferring Kids Without A Hearing: Using Recent Supreme Court Jurisprudence To Revive Kent V. United States And End Mandatory Transfer For Juveniles, Summer Woods

Criminal Law Practitioner

No abstract provided.

Jezebels And Jungle Bunnies: How The Stereotypes Of Black Women Shape Legislation, The Legal Profession, And Feminist Jurisprudence, Kersti Myles

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Enduring Originalism, Kevin C. Walsh, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Scholarly Articles

If our law requires originalism in constitutional interpretation, then that would be a good reason to be an originalist. This insight animates what many have begun to call the "positive turn" in originalism. Defenses of originalism in this vein are "positive" in that they are based on the status of the Constitution, and constitutional law, as positive law. This approach shifts focus away from abstract conceptual or normative arguments about interpretation and focuses instead on how we actually understand and apply the Constitution as law. On these grounds, originalism rests on a factual claim about the content of our law: …

The Ozark National Scenic Riverways And The Sagebrush Rebellion In Missouri, John W. Ragsdale Jr

Faculty Works

This article focuses on the back country-the Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR) and the community around and with the rivers. It begins historically, tracing the origins and courses of stable-state, subsistence agricultural societies in the rugged hills overlooking the Current and Jacks Fork Rivers. It shows that such societies, though autonomous, are vulnerable to outside aggression. War, raiders, in­dustrial timbermen, and modern technology can shatter the environ­mental balance. Dam builders, government land managers, and tour­ism can erode internal sovereignty, custom, and self-esteem. These forces befell the Ozark highlands around the ONSR.

Out of the breakdown of land and economy, and …

Irreconcilable Similarities: The Inconsistent Analysis Of 212(C) And 212(H) Waivers, Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Professionalism, And "Spikes" For Lawyers, Shelley Kierstead

Articles & Book Chapters

Lawyers, whether advocating in court, negotiating deals on clients’ behalf, or writing advice letters and briefs, use words to make a living. Their aim is to use these “words” to problem-solve for clients and to deliver an outcome the clients consider positive. In reality, however, there are times in each lawyer’s career when he or she is not able to help clients achieve the results the clients are looking for. When this occurs, lawyers must deliver “bad news” to the client. For the purposes of this article, I define “bad news” as being “any information which adversely and seriously affects …

Dynamic Regulatory Constitutionalism: Taking Legislation Seriously In The Judicial Enforcement Of Economic And Social Rights, Richard Stacey

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

The international human rights revolution in the decades after the Second World War recognized economic and social rights alongside civil and political rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1949, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in 1966, regional treaties, and subject-specific treaties variously describe rights to food, shelter, health, and education, and set out state obligations for the treatment of children. When they first appeared, these international, economic, and social rights instruments raised questions about whether economic and social rights are justiciable in domestic legal contexts and whether they can be meaningfully enforced by courts …

Interpreting Wisconsin Statutes, Daniel R. Suhr

Marquette Law Review

"The seminal case on statutory interpretation in recent years is State ex rel. Kalal v. Circuit Court for Dane County, 2014 WI 58. . . . In Kalal, the court emphasized the importance of statutory text when it embraced the principle that a court's role is to determine what a statute means rather than determine what the legislature intended." - Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, 2014.

Humility In Criminal Justice: What It Might Invite Us To Reconsider, Dean A. Strang

Marquette Law Review

Imagine how our system of criminal justice might look different if one value ascended in the system's hierarchy of values: humility. Day to day, in my work, I do not see much humility among police officers, defense lawyers, prosecutors, probation agents, and judges. This is noteworthy, given how unavoidability uncertain--or at least contestable or close--many of the outcomes in our trial and appellate courts are to an objective eye. Even when the basic facts on guilt are fairly certain, the right sentence often is not. I propose that humility is an essential value that, properly understood, is tied to liberty; …

Short-Circuiting The New Major Questions Doctrine, Kent H. Barnett, Christopher J. Walker

Scholarly Works

In Minor Courts, Major Questions, Michael Coenen and Seth Davis advance perhaps the most provocative proposal to date to address the new major questions doctrine articulated in King v. Burwell. They argue that the Supreme Court alone should identify “major questions” that deprive agencies of interpretive primacy, prohibiting the doctrine’s use in the lower courts. Although we agree that the Court provided little guidance about the doctrine’s scope in King v. Burwell, we are unpersuaded that the solution to this lack of guidance is to limit its doctrinal development to one court that hears fewer than eighty cases per year. …

Finally, A True Elements Test: Mathis V.United States And The Categorical Approach, Rebecca Sharpless

Articles

No abstract provided.