This book explores some of the most glaring misunderstandings about the U.S. Supreme Court-and makes a strong case for why our Supreme Court Justices should not be entrusted with decisions that affect every American citizen. Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is Not a Court and its Justices are Not Judges presents a detailed discussion of the Court's most important and controversial constitutional cases that demonstrates why it doesn't justify being labeled "a court of law." Eric Segall, professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law for two decades, explains why this third branch of the national government is an institution that makes important judgments about fundamental questions based on the Justices' ideological preferences, not the law. A complete understanding of the true nature of the Court's decision-making process is necessary, he argues, before an intelligent debate over who should serve on the Court-and how they should resolve cases-can be held. Addressing front-page areas of constitutional law such as health care, abortion, affirmative action, gun control, and freedom of religion, this book offers a frank description of how the Supreme Court truly operates, a critique of life tenure of its Justices, and a set of proposals aimed at making the Court function more transparently to further the goals of our representative democracy.

Meet Thaddeus Sikorski, a herculean third-generation American, courageous, persevering, and surprisingly steadfast father of this tragic odyssey to love and protect his angel children. After losing his first love, 18-year-old Thad enlist, and goes on to become a Vietnam War combatant, a San Francisco progressive street revolutionary, a graduate business student, an Internet-related technology visionary, husband, and a global business leader. In between entrepreneurial misadventures, he manages to save the life of an American President, struggles with a psychopathy attorney and murderer, discovers the truth about Silicon Valley's justice system, experiences the economic hollowing out brought on by the outsourcing of Silicon Valley technologies, and survives the emotions of remaining true to his love for his children. This extraordinary journey travels through three decades of the American technology and cultural landscape. Author Richard Kusiolek paid much attention to the details of everyday life of an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Angels in the Silicon encapsulates the experience of living in Silicon Valley for three decades of rapid technology progress, economic change, and a politically correct progressive judiciary. The novel, "Angels in the Silicon," has a powerful American story to tell. You will learn the naked truth of living in Northern California's Silicon Valley.

An authoritative guide designed for Illinois criminal trial attorneys, appellate practitioners, and judges. This book provides an in-depth review of the new Illinois Rules of Evidence along with the authors' commentaries and a compilation of the most recent Illinois decisions, statutes, and Supreme Court Rules. In addition to the new rules, the book addresses complementary Illinois common law evidence rules and provides a thorough constitutional analysis of evidence law. This comprehensive guide explains everything you need to know about the new Illinois Rules of Evidence and their impact on your daily criminal litigation practice. Ralph Ruebner is a Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at The John Marshall Law School. He has taught evidence, criminal procedure, and international human rights law. He previously served as the Executive Director of the John Marshall Law School Criminal Justice Clinic and as the Deputy State Appellate Defender in both the First and Second Appellate Districts in Illinois. He is a 1969 graduate of the American University Washington College of Law. Katarina Durcova is a Staff Attorney at the Criminal Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County. She is a 2011 graduate of The John Marshall Law School and was a John Marshall Law School Library Research Fellow. She previously worked as a judicial extern for Justice Margaret O'Mara Frossard (ret.) at the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court and as a summer law clerk in the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, the Netherlands.

This two-volume set investigates the concept, institutionalization, models and mechanism of mediation, an important form of alternative dispute resolution within China’s legal system. Grounded in traditional dispute resolution practices throughout Chinese history, mediation is born out of the Chinese legal tradition and considered to be “Eastern� in nature. Seeking to explore how mediation has developed in order to function in a modernized society, the first volume looks into the legal foundations of Chinese mediation as well as paths to the institutionalization and professionalization of mediation. The second volume examines the development of diversified dispute resolution via the elucidation of eight major types of mediation in China. By reviewing its history and enquiring into trends and prospects, the authors seek to establish a mediation system that incorporates diversified models, institutionalized and noninstitutionalized approaches, changing contexts, and a range of dimensions for society. This title will serve as a crucial reference for scholars, students and related professionals interested in alternative dispute resolution, civil litigation, and especially China’s dispute resolution policy, law, and practice.

The criminal trial is under attack. Traditional principles have been challenged or eroded; in England and Wales the right to trial by jury has been restricted and rules concerning bad character evidence, double jeopardy and the right to silence have been substantially altered to "rebalance" the system in favour of victims. In the pursuit of security, particularly from terrorism, the right to a fair trial has been denied to some altogether. In fact trials have for a long time been an infrequent occurrence, most criminal convictions being the consequence of a guilty plea. Moreover, while this very public struggle over the future of the criminal trial is conducted, there is also a less publicly observed controversy about the significance of trials in modern society. Trials are under normative attack, their value being doubted by those who seek different kinds of process - conciliatory or restorative - to address the needs of victims and move away from the imposition of state power through trials and punishments. This book seeks to develop a normative theory of the criminal trial as a way of defending the importance of trials in our criminal justice system. The trial, it is suggested, calls defendants to answer a charge and, if they are criminally responsible, to account for their conduct. The trial is seen as a communicative process through which the defendant can challenge claims of wrongdoing made against him, including the norms in the light of which those claims are made. The book develops this communicative theory by first making a careful study of the history of trials, before moving on to outline the theory, which is then developed through chapters looking at the practices and principles of trials, alternative regulatory models, the roles of participants, the relationship between investigation and trial and trials as public fora.

How do judges sentence? In particular, how important is judicial discretion in sentencing? Sentencing guidelines are often said to promote consistency, but is consistency in sentencing achievable or even desirable? Whilst the passing of a sentence is arguably the most public stage of the criminal justice process, there have been few attempts to examine judicial perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the sentencing process. Through interviews with Scottish judges and by presenting a comprehensive review and analysis of recent scholarship on sentencing - including a comparative study of UK, Irish and Commonwealth sentencing jurisprudence - this book explores these issues to present a systematic theory of sentencing. Through an integration of the concept of equity as particularised justice, the Aristotelian concept of phronesis (or 'practical wisdom'), the concept of value pluralism, and the focus of appellate courts throughout the Commonwealth on sentencing by way of 'instinctive synthesis', it is argued that judicial sentencing methodology is best viewed in terms of a phronetic synthesis of the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case. The author concludes that sentencing is best conceptualised as a form of case-orientated, concrete and intuitive decision making; one that seeks individualisation through judicial recognition of the profoundly contextualised nature of the process.

Since America's founding, the U.S. Supreme Court had issued a vast number of decisions on a staggeringly wide variety of subjects. And hundreds of judges have occupied the bench. Yet as Cass R. Sunstein, the eminent legal scholar and bestselling co-author of Nudge, points out, almost every one of the Justices fits into a very small number of types regardless of ideology: the hero, the soldier, the minimalist, and the mute. Heroes are willing to invoke the Constitution to invalidate state laws, federal legislation, and prior Court decisions. They loudly embrace first principles and are prone to flair, employing dramatic language to fundamentally reshape the law. Soldiers, on the other hand, are skeptical of judicial power, and typically defer to decisions made by the political branches. Minimalists favor small steps and only incremental change. They worry that bold reversals of long-established traditions may be counterproductive, producing a backlash that only leads to another reversal. Mutes would rather say nothing at all about the big constitutional issues, and instead tend to decide cases on narrow grounds or keep controversial cases out of the Court altogether by denying standing. As Sunstein shows, many of the most important constitutional debates are in fact contests between the four Personae. Whether the issue involves slavery, gender equality, same-sex marriage, executive power, surveillance, or freedom of speech, debates have turned on choices made among the four Personae-choices that derive as much from psychology as constitutional theory. Sunstein himself defends a form of minimalism, arguing that it is the best approach in a self-governing society of free people. More broadly, he casts a genuinely novel light on longstanding disputes over the proper way to interpret the constitution, demonstrating that behind virtually every decision and beneath all of the abstract theory lurk the four Personae. By emphasizing the centrality of character types, Sunstein forces us to rethink everything we know about how the Supreme Court works.

The first full-scale historical account of the rise and growth of the jury system in England. The American edition adds a number of notes, as well as making several corrections to American references.

2007 Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award presented by the American Society of Criminology

2007 American Society of Criminology Michael J. Hindelang Award for the Most Outstanding Contribution to Research in Criminology

By comparing how adolescents are prosecuted and punished in juvenile and criminal (adult) courts, Aaron Kupchik finds that prosecuting adolescents in criminal court does not fit with our cultural understandings of youthfulness. As a result, adolescents who are transferred to criminal courts are still judged as juveniles. Ultimately, Kupchik makes a compelling argument for the suitability of juvenile courts in treating adolescents. Judging Juveniles suggests that justice would be better served if adolescents were handled by the system designed to address their special needs.

This book offers a new interpretation of judicial review in England and Wales as being concerned with the advancement of justice and good governance, as opposed to being concerned primarily with ultra vires or common law constitutionalism. It is developed both from examining the functions and values that ought to be served by judicial review, and from analysis of empirical 'social' facts about judicial review primarily as experienced in the Administrative Court. Based on ground-up case law analysis it constructs a new taxonomy on the grounds of judicial review: mistake, procedural impropriety, ordinary common law statutory interpretation, discretionary impropriety, relevant/irrelevant considerations, breach of an ECHR protected right or equality duty, and constitutional allocation of powers, constitutional rights, or other complex constitutional principles. It explains each of these grounds, what academic and judicial support there might be for them outside case law analysis, and their similarities and differences when viewed against popular existing taxonomies. It concludes that Administrative Court judges are engaged in ordinary common law statutory interpretation in approximately half of all cases, and that where discretionary judgement is involved on the part of the initial decision-maker, judges do indeed consider their task to be one of determining whether the challenged decision was justified by reasoning of adequate quality. It finds that judges apply ordinary common law principles of statutory interpretation with historical pedigrees, including assessing the initial decision-maker's reasoning with reference to statutory purpose, and sifting relevant from irrelevant considerations, including moral considerations. The result is a ground-breaking reassessment of the grounds of judicial review in England and Wales and the practice of the Administrative Court.

Experts occupy a unique position in the litigation process. The law and the courts give them automatic authority and credibility at the outset. But the greatest challenge for experts as they navigate the court process is to preserve that high level of credibility going forward. In The Expert Expert, author Douglas L. Field presents detailed information to help an expert professional become an effective witness-and keep intact one's reputation as a capable and credible expert witness.

Geared toward physicians, architects, accountants, engineers, and many other professionals, The Expert Expert contains a comprehensive discussion of all aspects of professional expert witness practice-from the history of experts in court to current practices. It discusses how to

understand the anatomy of a tort case;

write a good expert report;

contend with contention;

deal with the opposing attorneys' questions;

give a good deposition;

succeed at trails;

avoid common pitfalls;

ensure getting selected;

deal effectively with social media; and

handle financial and money issues.

Including helpful and meaningful illustrations, The Expert Expert offers everything that either the veteran or aspiring expert needs to attain and maintain success as a professional expert witness.

Judges don't just discover the law, they create it. A renowned and much-used analysis of the process of judicial decision-making, now in a library-quality cloth edition with modern formatting and presentation. Includes embedded page numbers from the original 1921 edition for continuity of citations and syllabi. Features a new, explanatory Foreword by Justice Cardozo's premier biographer, Andrew L. Kaufman, senior professor at Harvard Law School and author of "Cardozo" (Harvard Univ. Press, 1998).Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1870-1938) offered the world a candid and self-conscious study of how judges decide cases and the law - they are lawmakers and not just law-appliers, he knew - all drawn from his insights and experience on the bench in a way that no judge had done before. Asked the basic questions, "What is it that I do when I decide a case? To what sources of information do I appeal for guidance?," Cardozo answered them in his methodical, rich, and timeless prose, explaining the proper use of such decisional tools as logic and analogy to precedent; analysis of history and tradition; application of public policy, community mores, and sociology; and even the subconscious forces that drive judges' decisions. This book has impacted the introspective examination of the lawmaking process of the courts in a way no other book has had. It continues to be read today by lawyers and judges, law students and scholars, historians and political scientists, and philosophers - among others interested in how judges really think and the tools they employ.Judges are people, and lawmakers, too. "The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men, do not turn aside in their course, and pass the judges by. We like to figure to ourselves the processes of justice as coldly objective and impersonal. The law, conceived of as a real existence, dwelling apart and alone, speaks, through the voices of priests and ministers, the words which they have no choice except to utter. ...It has a lofty sound; it is well and finely said; but it can never be more than partly true." Beyond precedential cases and tradition, judges make choices, using methods of analysis and biases that ought to be examined.Famous at the time for his trenchant and fluid opinions as a Justice on New York's highest court - he is still studied on questions of torts, contracts, and business law - and later a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Cardozo filled the lecture hall at Yale when he finally answered the frank query into what judges do and how do they do it. The lectures became a landmark book and a source for all other studies of the ways of a judge. Brought to a new generation by Professor Kaufman, and presented as part of the properly formatted Legal Legends Series of Quid Pro Books, this edition is the understandable and usable rendition of a classic work of law and politics.

The Lawyers' Guide to Personal Injury Law is an instructional textbook for attorneys who want to become experts in the field of negligence law. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the law in a multitude of areas within the field, including the various types of construction accidents, motor vehicle accidents, premises accidents, and more. The Lawyers' Guide to Personal Injury Law also provides a detailed roadmap - from intake through trial - to successfully litigating each of these claims and, ultimately, maximizing monetary compensation for accident victims and their families.

Originally published: Washington, D.C.: BNA Incorporated, 1961. iii (New Introduction), xvi, 506 pp. With a New Introduction by Bryan A. Garner, President, LawProse, Inc. This book tells how to brief and how to argue a Federal case on appeal. Its primary purpose is to explain to the lawyer how to best persuade a Federal appellate court to decide a case in his favor. It is neither a practice manual nor a text of Federal appellate procedure, being written on the assumption that all the procedural steps necessary to perfect the appeal have been or will be timely taken. Consequently this book deals with problems that are common to appeals in whatever Federal court they may be presented.
Many of the principles defined and discussed herein are applicable also to the argument, oral and written, of questions of fact and law presented and heard in Federal trial courts. The task of presenting facts and law effectively, the psychology of persuasion, the requirements of candor and accuracy-these are matters common to forensic effort in every courtroom, at every state of a litigated proceeding.
In addition to its discussion of appellate advocacy and a description of procedure in the federal appellate courts (Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals, and specialized federal courts), it provides valuable guidelines for writing briefs and appeals and the preparing oral arguments.
Among other lessons, it teaches ways to -think before writing, -state facts and phrase issues persuasively, -use argumentative headings, -employ clear, forceful English, -handle questions in oral argument, -use maps and charts effectively and -prevent "forensic halitosis."
AALS Law Books Recommended for Libraries List 26, Legal Profession, page 20, "A" Rated.
"To get into court and to maintain your right to be there is the object of all pleading and is as important in an appellate court as in a trial court () This book is a guide to handling of cases on appeal in the Federal courts by one who is eminently qualified to instruct and direct in this field."
--from the foreword by Sherman Minton, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
"Anyone familiar with Mr. Wiener's reputation as an appellate advocate and with his earlier works would expect his new book to be either required reading or strongly recommended in a course in Appellate Practice and Procedure. My own choice for next spring's seminar at this law school is to require it. This is not to say, however, that the book is directed solely to the student in law school. There are probably few practicing attorneys who would not benefit substantially from the author's ability, drawing on his vast personal experience, to expound the art of appellate advocacy in a fascinating and instructive way."
-- Monroe H. Freedman, The George Washington Law Review 30 (1961-62) 148.
"This is a brilliant book by a brilliant mind. It's the seminal 20th-century book on appellate advocacy, with wisdom, insight, and concrete examples packed into page after page."
--Bryan A. Garner
Frederick Bernys Wiener 1906-1996], or "Fritz" as he was known to his friends, was educated at Brown University and Harvard Law School, where he was a note editor on Harvard Law Review. In addition to several years in private practice, Wiener held positions in the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Judge Advocate General's Corps (as an officer during the Second World War) and the Solicitor General's Office, where he successfully argued the landmark Supreme Court case Reid v. Covert. Also a scholar of vast learning and high reputation, he wrote copiously on courts-martial, martial law and legal history.

2009 saw the centenary of the Society of Legal Scholars and the transition from the House of Lords to the new Supreme Court. The papers presented in this volume arise from a seminar organised jointly by the Society of Legal Scholars and the University of Birmingham to celebrate and consider these historic events. The papers examine judicial reasoning and the interaction between judges, academics and the professions in their shared task of interpretative development of the law. The volume gathers leading authorities on the House of Lords in its judicial capacity together with academics whose specialisms lie in particular fields of law, including tort, human rights, restitution, European law and private international law. The relationship between judge and jurist is, therefore, investigated from a variety of perspectives and with reference to different jurisdictions. The aim of the volume is to reflect upon the jurisprudence of the House of Lords and to consider the prospects for judging in the new Supreme Court.

A behind-the-scenes examination of the special court dedicated to claims that vaccines have caused harm The so-called vaccine court is a small special court in the United States Court of Federal Claims that handles controversial claims that a vaccine has harmed someone. While vaccines in general are extremely safe and effective, some people still suffer severe vaccine reactions and bring their claims to vaccine court. In this court, lawyers, activists, judges, doctors, and scientists come together, sometimes arguing bitterly, trying to figure out whether a vaccine really caused a person's medical problem. In Vaccine Court, Anna Kirkland draws on the trials of the vaccine court to explore how legal institutions resolve complex scientific questions. What are vaccine injuries, and how do we come to recognize them? What does it mean to transform these questions into a legal problem and funnel them through a special national vaccine court, as we do in the US? What does justice require for vaccine injury claims, and how can we deliver it? These are highly contested questions, and the terms in which they have been debated over the last forty years are highly revealing of deeper fissures in our society over motherhood, community, health, harm, and trust in authority. While many scholars argue that it's foolish to let judges and lawyers decide medical claims about vaccines, Kirkland argues that our political and legal response to vaccine injury claims shows how well legal institutions can handle specialized scientific matters. Vaccine Court is an accessible and thorough account of what the vaccine court is, why we have it, and what it does.

The new trend in problem-solving courts-specialized courts utilized to address crimes not adequately addressed by the standard criminal justice system-is examined in this thorough and insight-filled book. At least since the late 1980s, with the development of the first drug court in Dade County, Florida, the justice system has undergone what some believe is a revolution-the movement toward problem-solving courts. Problem-Solving Courts: Justice for the Twenty-First Century? provides a concise, thorough, well-documented, and balanced foundation for anyone interested in understanding this phenomenon. Detailing the "promise and potential perils" of problem-solving courts, the authors represented here examine the development of the problem-solving court movement, the rationale for the courts, the approaches they take, and their anticipated benefits and potential pitfalls. Using case examples and looking at various types of problem-solving courts, the book offers "foundational" information about the specific types of problem-solving courts, their goals and philosophies, their organization and operation, their variation in structure and procedures, and the extensiveness of the court. It draws conclusions about the relative merits or disadvantages of such courts and considers prospects for the future.

The Court of Justice has delivered an extensive body of caselaw concerning the obligation of domestic courts to provide effective judicial protection to claimants relying upon Community law rights - including such landmark judgments as Factortame and Francovich. This book offers a critical analysis of the Court's fast-changing approach to national procedural autonomy,and explores the difficult conceptual framework underpinning the caselaw. The author demonstrates how Community intervention in the domestic systems of judicial protection cannot remain unaffected by wider debates about the evolving European integration project, in particular, the tension between uniformity and differentiation as competing values influencing the exercise of Community regulatory competence. Because of its emphasis on an ideal of uniformity which has become increasingly untenable within the contemporary Community legal order, much of the existing academic discourse about national remedies and procedural rules now seems ripe for reconsideration. It is argued that the Court's jurisprudence on the decentralised enforcement of Treaty norms needs to be interpreted afresh, having regard to the recent growth of regulatory differentiation within the Community system. National Remedies Before the Court of Justice provides a challenging account of this crucial field of EU legal studies. It includes detailed discussion of issues such as Member State liability in damages, Community control over national limitation periods, and the principles governing state aid and competition law enforcement. This book is of value to academics and practitioners alike.

An important statistical study of the dynamics of jury selection and deliberation that offers a realistic jury simulation model, a statistical analysis of the personal characteristics of jurors and a general assessment of jury performance based on research findings by reputed scholars in the behavioral sciences. "A landmark jury study." --Contemporary Sociology "The book will stand as the third great product of social research into jury operations, ranking with Kalven and Zeisel's The American Jury and Van Dyke's Jury Selection Procedures." --American Bar Association Journal REID HASTIE has taught at Harvard University, Northwestern University and the University of Colorado (where he was Director of the Center for Research on Judgment and Policy). He is now a Professor of Behavioral Science on the faculty of the Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business and a member of the Center for Decision Research. He has published over 100 articles on topics including judgment and decision making, memory and cognition and social psychology. Hastie is widely recognized for his books on legal decision making: Social Psychology in Court (with Michael Saks, 1978), Inside the Juror (1993) and Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide (2002). STEVEN D. PENROD was a legal officer in the Naval Judge Advocate General Corps from 1971-1973. He was a professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota and the University of Nebraska. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. He is the author of Social Psychology (1983). NANCY PENNINGTON, professor of psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is acknowledged for her many publications which include Causal Reasoning and Decision Making: The Case of Juror Decisions (1981).

Constitutional 'losers' represent a thorny and longstanding problem in American constitutional law. Given our adversarial system, the way that rights cases are decided means that regardless of whether a losing side has committed any actions that cause harm to others, they typically suffer unnecessary harm as a consequence of decisions. In areas such as affirmative action and gay rights, the losers are essentially punished for losing despite neither intending nor causing injury.
In Losing Twice, Emily Calhoun draws upon conflict resolution theory, political theory, and Habermasian discourse theory to argue that in such cases, the Court must work harder to avoid inflicting unnecessary harm on Constitutional losers. But for this to happen, Calhoun contends, the role of judges needs to be reconceptualized. She contends that the Court should not perceive itself simply as an adversarial forum, but also as a 'transactional' one, where losers are not simply losers but participants in a process capable of addressing and ameliorating the effects that come with loss. Filled with lucid discussions of well known cases, Losing Twice offers an intellectually powerful argument for transforming the decision-making process in Constitutional rights disputes.