Monthly Archives: February 2017
Feb 28, 2017 Susan BandesCriminal Law
Back in the heady days after Mapp imposed the exclusionary rule on the states, Yale Kamisar made a prescient pronouncement: once the rule is framed as a way to deter police misconduct, instead of a way to preserve the integrity of the judicial system and its verdict, the fourth amendment loses. The benefits of deterring the police always seem to pale in comparison to the need to convict wrongdoers. And once the rule is tied to predicting police behavior, the situations in which courts predict the police will actually be deterred become fewer and fewer. And, ironically, once the rule is framed as a limit on the police in particular, it begins to feel very unfair to single the police out for criticism. Alice Ristroph argues that the erosion of the exclusionary rule can be traced to a larger problem: the misguided notion that regulating the police is the primary focus of the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments.
One important focus of criminal procedure scholarship over the last several years has been the inadequacy of constitutional litigation as a tool for regulating police. Ristroph takes up the inverse question: why should police regulation be the main focus of constitutional criminal procedure? She argues that the amendments limiting investigatory power were never meant to focus on the police in isolation (indeed, when the amendments were adopted, professional police forces as we know them today did not even exist). Instead, they are meant to enforce individual rights against government overreach. Continue reading "How Can We Resist? Suppression of Evidence and the Limits of State Coercion"
Feb 27, 2017 Margaret DaviesEquality
For a number of years, Drucilla Cornell has been studying and reflecting upon ubuntu, an African term expressing the idea that humans come into being through interconnectedness and that therefore they have a being, understanding, and set of obligations that emerge in their interconnections. The 2015 article authored by Cornell and South African scholar Karin van Marle summarises ubuntu, compares it with classical Western individualist notions of the self, and considers what it has to offer to Western feminism. The article not only serves as an introduction to a significant African concept, but also challenges Western legal feminism to reflect on its foundational concepts. Although this particular article is relatively short, it is very rich in detail and offers a number of intriguing directions for further reflection and action. In this brief review, I will summarise some key features of ubuntu as presented by Cornell and van Marle, and offer a few comments about its broader significance. My intention is to inspire readers to go to the original article: the ideas are new to me and my rendition of them is short and lacking in depth.
By contrast to Western philosophy, the idea of ubuntu does not permit questions such as “who am I?,” “what do I know?,” and “what ought I to do?” to be addressed separately in the abstract. We are not abstract beings, but become beings in a time and a place, and are always already surrounded by others. Who we are, what we know, and our ethical obligations are connected. As Cornell and van Marle explain, Continue reading "Being Interconnected"
Feb 24, 2017 Mark KendeConstitutional Law
Susan Bandes,
Compassion and the Rule of Law, 13
Intl. J. Law in Context (forthcoming 2017), available at
SSRN.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor faced a roadblock to confirmation because she had once said in a speech, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” The statement was read by supporters in concert with President Obama’s well-known view that empathy is an important requirement for judges. Her opponents put a different spin on the statement, arguing that this kind of view meant she would be biased in interpreting the law.
Professor Susan Bandes’s fascinating article, Compassion and the Rule of Law, deals well with a closely related topic. Her examples are drawn mostly from constitutional law, but the analysis has broader implications. (Bandes has authored prominent books and articles on the role of passion and emotions in the law.)
Bandes’s initial premise is that the “rule of law” should prevent arbitrary decision-making based on unpredictable emotions. Compassion is problematic—if it incorrectly distorts substantive legal rulings. But she says it can also serve a different purpose. Compassion’s “most important contribution, is as a way of understanding what is at stake for others. Or to put it another way, seeing the rights of others from the inside; as they experience them.” (P. 3.) Continue reading "A Compassion for the Law"
Feb 23, 2017 Ann BartowTechnology Law
Toni M. Massaro, Helen L. Norton & Margot E. Kaminski,
Siri-ously 2.0: What Artificial Intelligence Reveals about the First Amendment,
Minn. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2017), available at
SSRN.
The goal of “Strong Artificial Intelligence” (hereinafter “strong AI”) is to develop artificial intelligence that can imbue a machine with intellectual capabilities that are functionally equivalent to those possessed by humans. As machines such as robots become more like humans, the possibility that laws intended to mediate the behaviors of humans will be applied to machines grows.
In this article the three authors assert that the First Amendment may protect speech by strong AI. It is a claim, the authors state in their abstract, “that discussing AI speech sheds light on key features of prevailing First Amendment doctrine and theory, including the surprising lack of humanness at its core.” And it is premised on an understanding of a First Amendment which “increasingly focuses not on protecting speakers as speakers but instead on providing value to listeners and constraining the government.” Continue reading "Could There Be Free Speech for Electronic Sheep?"
Feb 22, 2017 Omari SimmonsCorporate Law
Jens Dammann,
Business Courts and Firm Performance (U. Tex. Research Paper No. 564, 2017), available at
SSRN.
Professor Jens Dammann’s paper titled Business Courts and Firm Performance is a bold attempt to answer a vexing question concerning the efficacy of state business courts. The paper can be summed up with a simple phrase and minor qualification: business courts are important (outside of Delaware). Specifically, the paper addresses the question of “whether giving publicly traded corporations access to business courts to litigate their internal corporate affairs benefits firm performance.” (P. 1. ) The paper answers this question affirmatively. More importantly, the paper provides a long-awaited empirical justification to claims that business courts, outside of Delaware, are a positive development for publicly traded firms in the sense that these courts impact a corporation’s bottom line. The underlying hypothesis of Dammann’s paper is that business courts improve corporate performance by reducing/policing managerial self-enrichment (e.g., stealing, misappropriation, entrenchment). (P. 6.)
Delaware’s business courts have been the premier forum for high-profile corporate litigation for over a half century. And many publicly traded firms incorporate in Delaware, in part, to seek access to Delaware’s Court of Chancery. Despite Delaware’s preeminence as a hub for corporate litigation among publicly traded firms, over the past thirty years, many other states have created their own specialized business trial courts. Outside of Delaware, there are approximately 25 specialized business courts and 5 complex litigation programs. (P. 3, Table 1.) State actors, often through judicial decree or legislative action, created these courts to respond, in part, to general problems related to litigating in state courts: lack of judicial expertise on business and commercial matters, lengthy proceedings, unpredictability, and so on. (P. 2.) Scholars offer and debate the reasons behind this surge of state business courts such as preventing corporate migration, attracting out-of-state companies, generating litigation business for lawyers, reincorporations, encouraging investment, and jurisdictional competition. (P. 5.) The scholarly treatment of state business courts, however, lacks a satisfying explanation for what economic value publicly traded firms actually derive from litigating internal corporate disputes in state business courts. To be fair, observers often provide anecdotal support for the idea that firms value access to highly quality business courts and derive general benefits from them such as speed, expertise, and greater certainty. Continue reading "The Impact of Business Courts (Outside of Delaware)"
Feb 21, 2017 Alexandra D. LahavCourts Law
With the advent of the new administration, aggregate litigation is under attack again. As of this writing new legislation aimed at limiting class actions has been introduced in Congress. This is the perfect time for Congresspersons and their aids to read John C. Coffee’s book, Entrepreneurial Litigation: Its Rise, Fall, and Future – both friends and enemies of the class action will benefit from reading this fair-minded and nuanced analysis.
Before delving into the reason for this recommendation, a bit of background. In the scholarly literature on class actions there have been two big ideas. The first was that class actions can have a deterrent effect on large institutions by permitting the enforcement of laws when many people suffer a wrong too small to merit bringing a suit. It is easy to forget that this is in large part what class actions are about. The earliest statement of this idea that I know of was in 1941 in a law review article by Harry Kalven, Jr. and Maurice Rosenfeld. The second big idea was the observation that the class action separates ownership of claims from control of claims, much like the corporate form separates ownership from control of the firm, giving rise to agency costs. John C. Coffee, Jr. has long championed this formulation, first presenting it in 1986. Continue reading "(Almost) Everything You Wanted to Know About Class Actions"
Feb 20, 2017 Susan FortneyLegal Profession
Jurisdictions around the world have adopted “access to justice” as an objective for regulation of the legal profession. Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of access to justice, there is no consensus on its meaning. Often commentators and advocates use the term to refer access to civil legal services for low income clients. In this article, Professor Bruce A. Green persuasively explains why such a connotation is entirely too narrow. He challenges readers to consider the meaning of “justice,” asking provocatively, “what happened to criminal justice?” One reason that I recommend reading this article is that it illuminates the pivotal role that prosecutors play in the pursuit of criminal justice and identifies specific steps that prosecutors should take to avert individual injustices, as well as systematic injustices.
To answer the question, “where are the prosecutors?” Professor Green first considers whether “access to justice” has been misappropriated by the civil pro bono movement. As noted by Professor Green, one justification advanced for focusing on civil justice is that indigent defendants who face incarceration are entitled to legal counsel. He explains that this rationale overlooks various limitations in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) and its progeny. Most notably, he clarifies that not all criminal defendants receive a qualified lawyer and that the Constitutional remedy for substandard representation is weak. To recognize the fact that there continues to be serious access to justice barriers faced by criminal defendants, Professor Green suggests that the bench and bar use their words carefully by not equating access to justice with access to civil justice. Rather he reminds us that no one should be “misled to believe that we have gone as far as necessary to secure criminal justice in this country.” Continue reading "The Role of “Good Prosecutors” in Advancing Access to Criminal Justice"
Feb 18, 2017 Not Real
For a number of years, Drucilla Cornell has been studying and reflecting upon ubuntu, ((For instance, Drucilla Cornell, uBuntu, Pluralism and the Responsibility of Legal Academics to the New South Africa, 20 Law & Critique 43, 47 (2009).)) an African term expressing the idea that humans come into being through interconnectedness and that therefore they have a being, understanding, and set of obligations that emerge in their interconnections. The 2015 article authored by Cornell and South African scholar Karin van Marle summarises ubuntu, compares it with classical Western individualist notions of the self, and considers what it has to offer to Western feminism. The article not only serves as an introduction to a significant African concept, but also challenges Western legal feminism to reflect on its foundational concepts. Although this particular article is relatively short, it is very rich in detail and offers a number of intriguing directions for further reflection and action. In this brief review, I will summarise some key features of ubuntu as presented by Cornell and van Marle, and offer a few comments about its broader significance. My intention is to inspire readers to go to the original article: the ideas are new to me and my rendition of them is short and lacking in depth.
By contrast to Western philosophy, the idea of ubuntu does not permit questions such as “who am I?,” “what do I know?,” and “what ought I to do?” to be addressed separately in the abstract. We are not abstract beings, but become beings in a time and a place, and are always already surrounded by others. Who we are, what we know, and our ethical obligations are connected. As Cornell and van Marle explain, Continue reading "Being Interconnected"
Feb 17, 2017 Martha ErtmanContracts
Lauren Henry Scholz,
Algorithmic Contracts,
Stan. Tech. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2017), available at
SSRN.
Most law students are digital natives who have been using computers since grade school, while I, a baby boomer, remain an immigrant to the world of e-communication. Yet the old and new worlds may not be as different as they sometimes seem. Five years ago, publishers expected to replace hard copies with electronic casebooks, but it turns out that millennial students seem to learn best with a hybrid of electronic and hard copy materials that allow for interactive elements like on-line multiple choice quizzes.
With exceptions like the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, digital immigrants have left to the natives the task of figuring out how doctrine should treat computer-generated communications. If electronic communications enable transactions that have never occurred before in the hard copy world, lawyers, scholars and judges must figure out whether those transactions require new and special rules or fit within the old common law rules. Lauren Henry Scholz’s article Algorithmic Contracts, forthcoming in the Stanford Technology Law Review and available in draft form on SSRN, substantially contributes to this conversation by suggesting that old-fashioned agency principles can be repurposed to govern algorithmic contracts. Continue reading "Smart Rules for Smart Contracts"
Feb 16, 2017 Michael E HerzAdministrative Law
For decades, controversy has brewed over agency (ab)use of and (over)reliance on guidance documents. On one account, agencies turn to guidance in an end run around notice-and-comment requirements, producing de facto legislative rules without either public input or, at least in some cases, judicial scrutiny. On another, guidance documents are good government in action, a helpful and illuminating benefit. In Preambles as Guidance, Kevin Stack does not take sides in this debate. But he does helpfully remind us that there is one type of guidance that (a) is not subject to the standard critique and (b) is often not appreciated as guidance at all. This overlooked creature, hiding in plain sight, is the preamble that accompanies every final rule.
The article is an exercise in APA originalism. Particularly since State Farm, the dominant understanding of the preamble has been that its central function is justificatory—in order to withstand judicial review, the agency must respond to significant comments, show that it engaged in reasoned decisionmaking, and thoroughly explain itself. But the APA’s requirement of a “statement of basis and purpose,” 5 U.S.C. §553(c), suggests a rather different goal: clarifying and helping readers understand the rule. Stack quotes the Attorney General’s Manual on the APA: “The required statement will be important in that the courts and the public may be expected to use such statements in the interpretation of the agency’s rules.” Stack’s article is an extended endorsement and elaboration of this model of rulemaking preambles, providing a clear, convincing, and elegantly written reconceptualization of a basic feature of agency rulemaking. Continue reading "Breaking News: New Form of Superior Agency Guidance Discovered Hiding in Plain Sight"
