|
Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.
October 25, 2022
previous issues | make a recommendation | subscribe
“With the historic confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, many are wondering what type of Justice she will be. Most of this focus has been on trying to predict what type of outcomes she will reach as a Supreme Court Justice based on how she decided cases as a lower court judge. This Article has a different focus. Given that lower courts treat the words of Supreme Court opinions as law, how Justices write these opinions has important significance. This study is the first to empirically examine the linguistic style of then-Judge Jackson. It does so by analyzing opinions she wrote as a district court judge and comparing those to the recent opinions of current and recent Supreme Court Justices, as well as opinions from then-Judge Sotomayor as a district court judge. For the analysis, this study uses the just-updated Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (‘LIWC-2’”) software to measure 15 different features of then-Judge Jackson and various Justices’ linguistic style in opinion writing. While this study cannot say anything about how Justice Jackson may vote or what her jurisprudence may look like, it does provide an insight into the linguistic style she will likely employ in writing opinions for the highest court in the land. And that style, as measured by LIWC-22, appears to be most like then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor, as well as Chief Justice Roberts.”
* Assistant Professor of Law, Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University.
“What do the Justices think they’re doing? They seem to act like appeals judges, who address questions of law as needed to reach a decision—and yet also like curators, who single out only certain questions as worthy of the Supreme Court’s attention. Most of the time, the Court’s ‘appellate mind’ and its ‘curator mind’ are aligned because the Justices choose to hear cases where a curated question of interest is also central to the outcome. But not always. In some cases, the Court discovers that it cannot reach—or no longer wishes to reach—the originally curated question. Looking at what the Justices say and do in such instances offers a revealing glimpse into the interplay between their appellate and curator roles. These cases illustrate how the norms of appellate judging can enhance, rather than constrain, the Court’s discretion in choosing which issues to address and which to avoid. Using this discretion, however, entails the risk of distorting legal doctrines beyond those curated for review.”
* Michael I. Sovern Professor of Law and Walter E. Meyer Research Professor in Law & Social Problems, Columbia Law School.
“It's an honor for me to deliver the Simon Lecture today and to celebrate the drafting of the Constitution with all of you on Constitution Day. I'm especially happy to spend this day at Cato because of all the great work Cato does defending constitutional rights.
I primarily write about criminal law, and Cato's work in this space in particular has been nothing short of outstanding. Unfortunately, the contrast between Cato's commitment to constitutional guarantees in criminal cases and the Supreme Court's is stark. And it's the Court's almost complete abdication to the government in criminal proceedings--in spite of clear constitutional language to the contrary--that is going to be the topic of my lecture today.
There is plenty of blame to go around for America's turn to mass incarceration, but today I want to explain the Supreme Court's role. The justices may not have designed our world of mass incarceration, but they have made sure its foundation stays firmly in place.”
* Vice dean and Charles Seligson Professor of Law and faculty director, Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, New York University Law School.
“Just like lawyers, judicial use of social media can present ethical pitfalls. And while most scholarly attention has focused on either active social media conduct by judges (such as posting or tweeting) or on social media ‘friendships’ between judges and others, this Article analyses the ethical dimensions of seemingly benign judicial conduct on social media platforms, such as following a third party or ‘liking,’ sharing, or retweeting the online posts of others. Using real-world examples, this Article analyses how even such ostensibly benign conduct can create the appearance of impropriety and undermine public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
* Justice John G. Browning is a partner in the Plano, Texas office of Spencer Fane LLP, a former justice on Texas’ Fifth District Court of Appeals, and Visiting Associate Professor at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law.
“While the Thirteenth Amendment’s textual exception for involuntary servitude after conviction is infamous, little attention has been paid to forced labor by people detained but not convicted. Courts have created an additional exception to the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition on involuntary servitude, commonly known as the ‘housekeeping’ exception. Under this judicially created exception, people being held pretrial, who are innocent unless found guilty, are also forced to labor behind bars.
A growing body of scholarship addresses captive labor in prison and immigration detention, but less attention has been paid to labor performed pretrial in local jails…scholars have not focused on why courts have allowed compelled ‘housekeeping’ labor prior to conviction or whether, in fact, such labor is constitutional…
This Article examines the court-created ‘housekeeping’ exception to the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery and involuntary servitude for people detained pending trial. Through a deeper understanding of the origin and evolution of the doctrine, I identify and discuss the criteria courts have employed to create and expand the ‘housekeeping’ exception. These cases also illustrate the slippery slope of the exception after creation—namely, the potential for expansion to chores beyond ‘personally related housekeeping’ and to other settings, such as immigration detention.”
* Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law.
|
