Rule of Law Commons^™

Government Misconduct And Convicting The Innocent: The Role Of Prosecutors, Police And Other Law Enforcement, Samuel R. Gross, Maurice J. Possley, Kaitlin Jackson Roll, Klara Huber Stephens

Other Publications

This is a report about the role of official misconduct in the conviction of innocent people. We discuss cases that are listed in the National Registry of Exonerations, an ongoing online archive that includes all known exonerations in the United States since 1989, 2,663 as of this writing. This Report describes official misconduct in the first 2,400 exonerations in the Registry, those posted by February 27, 2019.

In general, we classify a case as an “exoneration” if a person who was convicted of a crime is officially and completely cleared based on new evidence of innocence.

The Report is …

The Deliberative Dimensions Of Modern Environmental Assessment Law, Jocelyn Stacey

All Faculty Publications

Environmental assessment (EA) is a cornerstone of environmental law. It provides a legal framework for public decision making about major development projects with implications for environmental protection and the rights and title of Indigenous peoples. Despite significant literature supporting deliberation as the preferred mode of engagement with those affected by EA decisions, the specific legal demands of EA legislation remain undeveloped. This article suggests a legal foundation for deliberative environmental assessment. It argues that modern environmental assessment can be understood through three public law frames: procedural fairness, public inquiry, and framework for the duty to consult and accommodate. It further …

Herman Melville’S Billy Budd: Why This Classic Law And Literature Novel Endures And Is Still Relevant Today, Rodger Citron

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law’S Sentiments, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The chapter argues that law and the Rule of Law do not displace moral sentiments, but rather require them, and sometimes produce them. Law gives us some sense of physical security and thereby makes possible the fellow feeling and empathy that are the root of moral action. The chapter seeks to make this claim plausible by looking at fiction that describes various dystopian lawless states, including the hierarchy of the Church, which law has been loath to enter, badly policed neighborhoods, nineteenth century American slavery, and early twentieth century patriarchal marriages. One lesson of much of this fiction is that …

Bali Mawacara: Is A Quasi-Common Law System Developing In Balinese Customary Law?, Danial Kelly, Wayan P. Windia

Indonesia Law Review

The Indonesian island of Bali is internationally renowned as a popular tourist destination. Tourists from around the world have been attracted to Bali’s rich and colourful displays of culture and its friendly people for many decades. Intertwined with the predominately Hindu culture that is so readily visible is the invisible customary legal system of Bali that regulates much of the daily life of the Balinese. This autochthonous legal system exists in plurality with the Indonesian state legal system. As with all legal systems, the Balinese customary law system is in a state of flux. This article will examine the foundational …

Improving Law Enforcement’S Victim-Centric Responses To Sexual Assault: Global Best Practice Catalog, Ayesha Ashraf, Sebastián Galleguillos Agurto, Frederick Geyer, Kamela Gjoka, Jasmine Hwang, Stanley Montinat, Jessica Moor, Pierre Reyes, Tara Ventimiglia, Hongda Xu

Publications and Research

This catalog was compiled as part of a U.S. State Department Diplomacy Lab Project entitled “Improving Law Enforcement’s Victim-Centric Responses to Sexual Assault,” in fall semester of 2019, for American Citizens Services, US Embassy Bangkok. It is intended to cover best practices in law enforcement response to sexual assault across the globe, including laws, policies and programs.Ten multilingual graduate students in the capstone seminar of the Master of Arts Degree Program in International Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) established criteria for inclusion and standardized elements for each entry in this catalog. The ultimate aim …

The Clone Wars: The Right To Embryonic Gene Editing Under German Law, Keren Goldberger

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Germany has the strictest genetic engineering laws in the world and bans virtually all kinds of embryonic gene editing. Since the invention of CRISPR, however, embryonic gene editing is more precise, and the possibilities of curing genetic diseases are more real than ever. This Note will argue for the right to embryonic gene editing through an analysis of German constitutional privacy and right to life jurisprudence. Ultimately, this Note argues for a right to procreate under German law that is backed by the state’s affirmative duty to encourage and protect life. When the technology is available, German Law should not …

How Much Do Expert Opinions Matter? An Empirical Investigation Of Selection Bias, Adversarial Bias, And Judicial Deference In Chinese Medical, Chunyan Ding

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

This article investigates the nature of the operation and the role of expert opinions in Chinese medical negligence litigation, drawing on content analysis of 3,619 medical negligence cases and an in-depth survey of judges with experience of adjudicating medical negligence cases. It offers three major findings: first, that both parties to medical negligence disputes show significant selection bias of medical opinions, as do courts when selecting court-appointed experts; second, expert opinions in medical negligence litigation demonstrate substantial adversarial bias; third, courts display very strong judicial deference to expert opinions in determining medical negligence liability. This article fills the methodological gap …

American Legion V. American Humanist Association, Seth T. Bonilla

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The separation of church and state is a key element of American democracy, but its interpretation has been challenged as the country grows more diverse. In American Legion v. American Humanist Association, the Supreme Court adopted a new standard to analyze whether a religious symbol on public land maintained by public funding violated the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.

When Do Chinese National Ministries Make Law?, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

This paper documents some basic empirical facts about the issuance of formal regulations (FRs) and informal policy directives (IPDs) by China’s national ministries and agencies from 2000 to 2014. Prior scholarship (e.g. Cui 2011, Howson 2012) depicts specific instances of Chinese national agencies announcing substantive new policies (many ultra vires by statutory standards) through IPDs. I use FR and IPD quantities as measures of the agencies’ propensity to resort to legal as opposed to non-legal, merely bureaucratic mechanisms for announcing policy. I find significant variations across agencies in the quantities of FRs issued, both in absolute terms and relative to …

Professional Resistance Of Lawyers: Defending Human Rights And The Rule Of Law In Hong Kong After Umbrella Movement, Yan-Ho Lai

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Purpose: Against the backdrops of deteriorating human rights protections and the rule of law after the unprecedented Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, this paper investigates the roles and impacts of mobilised legal profession in resisting China’s authoritarian rule over and defending domestic human rights regime in Hong Kong. This paper argues that, despite the legal profession of Hong Kong becomes further divided under the political and economic statecraft, lawyer activism as a professional resistance becomes a new force to resist the political intervention of the rule of law as well as deepening the cultural and institutional foundations of the rule …

The Devil In The Detail: Mitigating The Constitutional & Rule Of Law Risks Associated With The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In The Legal Domain, Catrina Denvir, Tristan Fletcher, Jonathan Hay, Pascoe Pleasence

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Clark Memorandum: Fall 2019, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• In Essentials, Unity; in Nonessentials, Liberty; and in All Things, Charity
• Choose to Trust the Lord
• First Amendment Harms
• "To Do Justly, and to Love Mercy"

Read on Issuu

Statutory Realism: The Jurisprudential Ambivalence Of Interpretive Theory, Abigail R. Moncrieff

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the renaissance of statutory interpretation theory, a division has emerged between "new purposivists," who argue that statutes should be interpreted dynamically, and "new textualists," who argue that statutes should be interpreted according to their ordinary semantic meanings. Both camps, however, rest their theories on jurisprudentially ambivalent commitments. Purposivists are jurisprudential realists when they make arguments about statutory meaning, but they are jurisprudential formalists in their views of the judicial power to engage in dynamic interpretation. Textualists are the inverse; they are formalistic in their understandings of statutory meaning but realistic in their arguments about judicial power. The relative triumph …

Israeli Exception-Alism: The Nation-State Law And Its Place In The Israeli Geopolitical Zeitgeist, Daniel Bral

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

Israel is no stranger to the scorn of the international community. In many respects, Israel is held to a different standard than other nations. In July 2018, that hypothesis was tested when Israel’s Knesset passed The Basic Law: Israel – The Nation State of the Jewish People. Though largely symbolic, the Law declares, inter alia, “[t]he exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People.” Critics lambasted the clause for allegedly violating international law by rejecting non-Jews’ right to exercise self-determination in the State of Israel. This note argues that the …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Protest Is The Disaster: Constitutional Implications Of State And Local Emergency Power, Karen J. Pita Loor

Seattle University Law Review

The President’s use of emergency authority has recently ignited concern among civil rights groups over national executive emergency power. However, state and local emergency authority can also be dangerous and deserves similar attention. This article demonstrates that, just as we watch over the national executive, we must be wary of and check on state and local executives—and their emergency management law enforcement actors—when they react in crisis mode. This paper exposes and critiques state executives’ use of emergency power and emergency management mechanisms to suppress grassroots political activity and suggests avenues to counter that abuse. I choose to focus on …

Panel 1: Prison Reform In The United States And Abroad, Brenda V. Smith, William Hellerstein, Deborah Labelle, Juan E. Mendez

Presentations

Professor Emeritus Herman Schwartz’s distinguished career has focused attention on the cause of human rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law. From the UN to Helsinki Watch, and from Israel and Eastern Europe to the United States, his work on emerging democracies, constitutional reform, and rule of law has inspired a generation of students, scholars, and practitioners to engage in this important work. Join us for a symposium on prison reform, comparative constitutionalism, voting rights, and human rights in Israel, with experts, activists, and academics in celebration of his contributions.

Survey Of Washington Search And Seizure Law: 2019 Update, Justice Charles W. Johnson, Justice Debra L. Stephens

Seattle University Law Review

This survey is intended to serve as a resource to which Washington lawyers, judges, law enforcement officers, and others can turn as an authoritative starting point for researching Washington search and seizure law. In order to be useful as a research tool, this Survey requires periodic updates to address new cases interpreting the Washington constitution and the U.S. Constitution and to reflect the current state of the law. Many of these cases involve the Washington State Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Washington constitution. Also, as the U.S. Supreme Court has continued to examine Fourth Amendment search and seizure jurisprudence, its …

Enforcement Mechanisms For International Standards Of Judicial Independence: The Role Of Government And Private Actors, Rachel Stopchinski

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In 2017, the prevailing political party in Poland, Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwos6), proposed a series of radical legislative changes designed to strip the Polish judiciary of its independence. Though the European Union (EU) has extensively investigated this egregious attack on the rule of law, no concrete steps have been taken to impose sanctums on, or otherwise discipline, the Polish government for defying EU ideals. Despite the fundamental importance of judicial independence in maintaining the rule of law, there are presently no widely adopted international standards of judicial independence. Therefore, no guidelines are promulgated for governments to follow, and …