The Claim of Issue Creation on the U.S. Supreme Court

1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Epstein ◽  
Jeffrey A. Segal ◽  
Timothy Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
The Creation ◽  
To Come ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Way

We argue that a variant of the sua sponte doctrine, namely, the practice disfavoring the creation of issues not raised in the legal record, is a norm with substantial consequences for the U.S. Supreme Court. Without it, justices would act considerably more like legislators, who are free to engage in “issue creation,” and less like jurists, who must wait for issues to come to them. Yet, McGuire and Palmer claim that justices engage in issue creation in a “significant minority” of their cases. We dispute this finding because we think it is an artifact of the way McGuire and Palmer collected their data. Indeed, for virtually every case in which they found evidence of issue creation, we show that the issue was actually present in at least one of the litigants' briefs. This suggests that justices may be policy seekers, but they are not policy entrepreneurs; an that briefs filed by third parties (such as amici curiae) are generally not a source of important issues considered by the Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court and the Electoral Process. Edited by David K. Ryden. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000. 322p. $65.00 cloth, $23.95 paper. Campaigns and the Court: The U.S. Supreme Court in Presidential Elections. By Donald Grier Stephenson, Jr. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 363p. $49.50 cloth, $19.50 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-218
Author(s):  
John B. Gates
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
To Come ◽  
Historical Flow ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Do So

The controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election has already generated major scholarly work and will do so for years to come. Both works reviewed here were written before the historic judicial events surrounding the November election of 2000. Far from irrelevant, each work offers unique insight into the fundamental rules surrounding political conflict and the historical flow of elections with major social and economic change. As such, we learn much about political science and the struggle over the proper analytical lens for understanding politics.

The Influence of Personalized Knowledge at the Supreme Court: How (Some) Former Law Clerks Have the Inside Track

2020 ◽  
pp. 106591292094813
Author(s):  
Ryan C. Black ◽  
Ryan J. Owens
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
High Court ◽  
Empirical Question ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
To Come ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Law Clerks

When arguing at the U.S. Supreme Court, former High Court law clerks enjoy significant influence over their former justices. Our analysis of forty years of judicial votes reveals that an attorney who formerly clerked for a justice is 16 percent more likely to capture that justice’s vote than an otherwise identical attorney who never clerked. What is more, an attorney who formerly clerked for a justice is 14 to 16 percent more likely to capture that justice’s vote than an otherwise identical attorney who previously clerked for a different justice. Former clerk influence is substantial, targeted, and appears to come from clerks’ personalized information about their justices. These results answer an important empirical question about the role of attorneys while raising normative concerns over fairness in litigation.

Aftermath of Death Sentence

2019 ◽  
pp. 134-165
Author(s):  
Jonathan Y. Okamura
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
The Public ◽  
Daily Newspapers ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Way

This chapter covers the period after Fukunaga was given the death sentence to more than a year later, including his execution in November 1929. It reviews the legal appeals to save him from being hanged, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The chapter also discusses the public assertions of colorblindness in the case by the Honolulu daily newspapers, the Nippu Jiji, and the presiding judge at his trial, which all sought to deny the decisive role that race played in his conviction. It outlines the advocacy efforts by the Japanese American community organized by the Hawaii Hochi to obtain a new trial for Fukunaga and the opposition to that campaign led by the Honolulu press, including the Nippu Jiji.

Ghana's New Region Creation Doctrine: The Jurisprudence of No Jurisdiction and the Faux Economics of Balkanisation

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-554
Author(s):  
Stephen Kwaku Asare
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Regional Power ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Way

Ghana recently created six new regions, amid controversy over who was entitled to vote in the region-creating referenda and its likely economic consequences. The Supreme Court declined jurisdiction to address the suffrage controversy, paving the way for voters in only the specified areas of the affected regions to vote for creating the regions. This article evaluates the Court's reasons for declining jurisdiction and the arguments made to support the creation of the regions. It concludes that there is merit in the claim that all voters in the affected regions should have participated in the referenda and raises substantial doubts about the arguments in favour of creating the regions. It also concludes that creating new regions gives the semblance of increased decentralisation but only results in deconcentration, hence more centralisation. The exercise continues the post-independence drift from regional power-sharing to fragmented powerless regions. Since the resulting fragmentation of the country provides no clear benefits but imposes certain costs, the article suggests either a constitutional amendment or statutory reforms to raise the bar for creating new regions.

scholarly journals The 2020 U.S. Supreme Court and Political Identity

Politeja ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (5 (68)) ◽  
pp. 217-238
Author(s):  
Paweł Laidler
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
To Come ◽  
The U.S

This article aims to determine current political identity of the U.S. Supreme Court by analyzing the process of appointment of its recent Justices and their ideology. The Author claims that ideology and politics play decisive role on Court’s jurisprudence, but that it was Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018 which defined the direction of Court’s adjudication for years to come. The analysis shows important role of the President and Senate in the process of indirect interpretation of the Constitution by the appointment of Justices representing certain ideology.

Can Constitutions Limit Government?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Huemer
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Way

There are systematic reasons why the U.S. constitution has failed to limit the power of the federal government in the way that it was intended to do. After examining which kinds of constitutional provisions have been respected and which have not, we can devise alternative constitutional provisions that would have a greater chance of successfully limiting the power of government. In particular, (i) there should be supermajority rule for passage of all legislation, (ii) there should be a separate, “negative legislature” with the sole power of repealing laws, and (iii) there should be a separate “constitutional court” with stronger powers for enforcing the constitution than the current Supreme Court.

Malpractice & Negligence: State Supreme Courts Limit Therapists’ Duties to Third Parties

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-205
Author(s):  
Megan Cleary
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
State Supreme Courts ◽  
Recovered Memories ◽  
Supreme Courts ◽  
Repressed Memory ◽  
University Of Colorado

In recent years, the law in the area of recovered memories in child sexual abuse cases has developed rapidly. See J.K. Murray, “Repression, Memory & Suggestibility: A Call for Limitations on the Admissibility of Repressed Memory Testimony in Abuse Trials,” University of Colorado Law Review, 66 (1995): 477-522, at 479. Three cases have defined the scope of liability to third parties. The cases, decided within six months of each other, all involved lawsuits by third parties against therapists, based on treatment in which the patients recovered memories of sexual abuse. The New Hampshire Supreme Court, in Hungerford v. Jones, 722 A.2d 478 (N.H. 1998), allowed such a claim to survive, while the supreme courts in Iowa, in J.A.H. v. Wadle & Associates, 589 N.W.2d 256 (Iowa 1999), and California, in Eear v. Sills, 82 Cal. Rptr. 281 (1991), rejected lawsuits brought by nonpatients for professional liability.

Antitrust: U.S. Supreme Court Affirms FTC Jurisdiction but Vacates Scope of Analysis on CDA Policy

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-198
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Zakhary
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Trade Commission ◽  
Ninth Circuit ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Rule Of Reason ◽  
Antitrust Analysis ◽  
Business Financing ◽  
The U.S

In California Dental Association v. FTC, 119 S. Ct. 1604 (1999), the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that a nonprofit affiliation of dentists violated section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA), 15 U.S.C.A. § 45 (1998), which prohibits unfair competition. The Court examined two issues: (1) the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) jurisdiction over the California Dental Association (CDA); and (2) the proper scope of antitrust analysis. The Court unanimously held that CDA was subject to FTC's jurisdiction, but split 5-4 in its finding that the district court's use of abbreviated rule-of-reason analysis was inappropriate.CDA is a voluntary, nonprofit association of local dental societies. It boasts approximately 19,000 members, who constitute roughly threequarters of the dentists practicing in California. Although a nonprofit, CDA includes for-profit subsidiaries that financially benefit CDA members. CDA gives its members access to insurance and business financing, and lobbies and litigates on their behalf. Members also benefit from CDA marketing and public relations campaigns.

Dealing with relapse

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Catherine Wilson Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Binge Eating ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Way

For too many years, I have been an enigma to those who have tried to help me completely recover from bulimia and binge eating. It has taken me years and countless attempts to come to a place where I can now completely own my eating while at the same time acknowledging that I need and want people around me who are encouraging and supportive but not necessarily focused on what I eat or do not eat. I am so grateful to be where I am today and I cannot thank all those who have helped me along the way enough. I feel especially grateful to those who tried to help but “failed” because I was not getting it. Well, I’ve got it now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for caring and trying and trying again and again. Each person who has attempted to help me has contributed in some way, even if it did not feel like it at the time. If you are a person who helps others around food and eating, please don’t quit. Please do not give up on even the hardest or quirkiest of cases. We need your support and encouragement.

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