scholarly journals The Fine Line between Security and Liberty: The "Secret" Court Struggle to Determine the Path of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance in the Wake of September 11th

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Bungard
Keyword(s):  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Court System ◽  
Trial Courts ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Foreign Intelligence ◽  
First Time

 The structure of the United States federal court system can be considered common knowledge: the Supreme Court sits atop a pyramid of lower circuit courts and trial courts, all of which are, for the most part, open to the public. Until 2002, most Americans were unaware of the existence of a "secret" court whose sole duty is to review and approve applications authorizing foreign intelligence surveillance conducted by the Executive Branch. The year 2002 was an unprecedented year for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ("FISC"),3 and the statute that created it, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA").4 For the first time in FISA's twenty-three year history, FISC denied an application for electronic surveillance and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ("Court of Review") was convened to hear its first appeal.5

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
James E. Pfander
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Court System ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
Article Iii Courts

This book’s introduction poses the problem of uncontested adjudication in the federal court system of the United States by focusing on the 2013 decision in United States v. Windsor. While in that case, the Supreme Court reached the merits despite the absence of a continuing dispute between the parties, Justice Antonin Scalia objected that doing so violated the adverse-party requirement, which he viewed as a constitutional requirement imposed by the case-or-controversy language of Article III. In arguing that federal courts may not entertain uncontested claims of right, Scalia’s dissent in Windsor nicely poses the question at the heart of this book. But the book reaches a different conclusion, based on the text and history of the Constitution, and the early practice of Article III courts. Having set the stage, the introduction offers an overview of the book’s argument. Part I describes the early practice of the antebellum federal courts, Part II the rise of the case-or-controversy rule in the early twentieth century, and Part III the continuing relevance of uncontested forms of adjudication. Synthesizing these strands, the book concludes that Article III courts can entertain proceedings to hear and determine uncontested applications to assert or register a claim of right under federal law.

Forum Non Conveniens and Antisuit Injunctions: An Update

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-43
Author(s):  
Andreas F. Lowenfeld
Keyword(s):  
New Jersey ◽  
New South ◽  
Product Liability ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Insurance Companies ◽  
South Wales ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Forum Non Conveniens ◽  
Court Of First Instance

In the April 1997 issue of the Journal, I reported on three cases in which the response to an action brought in the court of one country led not to an answer, but to a countersuit in another country—for an antisuit injunction, a declaration of nonliability or both. One of the cases I discussed arose out of a controversy between an asbestos manufacturer, CSR, and a group of insurance companies, the Cigna Group, that may or may not have been obligated to defend and indemnify the manufacturer in respect of claims in the United States for product liability. The manufacturer brought suit in federal court in New Jersey, raising both contract and antitrust claims. The insurers, as I reported, succeeded in securing an antisuit injunction in the Supreme Court of New South Wales (a court of first instance), and thereafter in defeating a motion by the manufacturer to stay or dismiss, on grounds of forum non conveniens, the insurers’ action seeking a declaration of nonliability. I thought that outcome was wrong: in my view, the Australian court should not have stepped into the controversy, and the insurers should have brought their challenge to the jurisdiction and suitable venue of the New Jersey court in that court.

Legal Aid for Children: Some Reflections

1979 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-32
Author(s):  
Brian Lucas
Keyword(s):  
United States Of America ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Juvenile Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Court System ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Legal Aid ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
The Supreme Court

In its Second Main Report, Law and Poverty in Australia, the Commission of Inquiry into Poverty expressed the view that “legal representation for children appearing before the children's court, whether in the criminal or protective jurisdiction, is necessary if justice is to be done.”This view coincides with the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in In re Gault. It has been said that this decision “unleashed a frontal assault on the juvenile court system.” It confirmed that juveniles were entitled to “due process” and the same protection which the Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights afforded to adults.

scholarly journals The Forensic Engineer in State and Federal Court

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard M. Ziernicki
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Expert Witness ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court System ◽  
Civil Lawsuits ◽  
Forensic Engineering ◽  
And Function

This paper outlines the legal system in the United States, the different types of courts, the differences between criminal and civil law, and the role of forensic engineering experts involved in civil lawsuits. After providing a summary of relevant procedures employed by civil and criminal courts, the paper describes the basic principles and requirements for the selection and work of a forensic engineering expert in both the state and federal court system. This paper outlines the role and function of forensic experts (specifically forensic engineers), in the United States court system. It is not a treatise on the legal system but on the role of experts. The paper presents the requirements typically used in today’s legal system to qualify a forensic engineer as an expert witness and to accept his or her work and opinions. Furthermore, this paper discusses who can be an expert witness, the expert’s report, applicable standards, conducted research, engineering opinions, and final testimony in court — and how those elements fit into the legal system. Lastly, the paper describes the concept of spoliation of evidence.

Cost Containment in the Health Care Field and the Antitrust Laws

1982 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-435
Author(s):  
David I. Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Medical Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
Care Field ◽  
Antitrust Analysis ◽  
Care Costs

AbstractThe Supreme Court of the United States and other courts currently are considering the question of the extent to which the health care field should be subject to antitrust rules. This Article explores the special characteristics of the health care field, and the problems they create for antitrust analysis. Two current cases—Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Society (awaiting decision by the Supreme Court) and Kartell v. Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Inc. (pending in the District of Massachusetts)—illustrate the issues raised by efforts to contain health care costs through the setting of maximum fees. This Article suggests that traditional antitrust principles should and will prevail over arguments that such restraints are in the public interest.

1 Courts and Foreign Affairs

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley Curtis A
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Law ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Question

This chapter provides an overview of some of the constitutional, statutory, and common law doctrines that govern the adjudication of foreign affairs–related disputes in the United States. These doctrines include requirements for federal court jurisdiction, “justiciability” limitations such as the political question doctrine, the Erie doctrine concerning federal court application of state law, and the common law “act of state” doctrine. The chapter also discusses more general interpretive principles such as the Charming Betsy canon of construction and deference to the executive branch. The chapter concludes by briefly describing the constitutional authority of U.S. government institutions other than the courts, including the situations in which state law that concerns foreign affairs will be preempted.

The Justiciability of Paraguay’s Claim of Treaty Violation

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Fisler Damrosch
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Judicial Remedy ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Government’s position asserting nonjusticiability of the treaty claims raised by Paraguay in the domestic and international lawsuits is disturbing. The Government’s amicus filings at the court of appeals and the Supreme Court denied that Paraguay’s claims belonged in federal court (or indeed in any court at all); at die International Court of Justice, the United States admitted a treaty violation but denied the competence of that tribunal to enter a judicial remedy. At one or another phase of these proceedings, the U.S. Government pressed a variety of arguments that (if accepted) would rule out virtually any judicial consideration of a treaty-based claim. The haste with which the Supreme Court denied a stay in Breard’s case foreclosed adequate consideration of the justiciability of such claims in domestic courts and also effectively barred Paraguay from achieving the relief it sought on the international plane.

BG Group Plc v. Republic of Argentina (Sup. Ct. U.S.)

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-151
Author(s):  
Christina Trahanas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
The United States ◽  
Commercial Arbitration ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
Investment Treaty ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
First Time ◽  
Investment Treaty Arbitration

On March 5, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States (the Court or Supreme Court) rendered its decision in BG Group PLC v. Republic of Argentina (BG Group). Applying principles from judicial review of commercial arbitration awards to the investment treaty context, the Court overturned a decision of the United States Court of Appeals that vacated an investment treaty arbitral award. BG Group is significant because it is the first time that the Supreme Court has reviewed an investment treaty arbitration.

Constitutional Law in 1959–1960

1961 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-135
Author(s):  
David Fellman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Important Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

The personnel of the Supreme Court remained unchanged during the 1959 Term. From the point of view of the decisions rendered in the public law field, this was an undistinguished Term. Few of the constitutional cases are likely to hold an important place among the precedents, and a considerable number of well-argued decisions turned entirely upon private law questions. But there was no dearth of writing, during the period under review, about the Court as an institution and about the Justices who sit there.Note may be made at this point of the latest chapter in the long dispute over the so-called tidelands. In 1947 the Supreme Court had ruled that, as against the claims of California, the United States possessed paramount rights in lands underlying the Pacific Ocean seaward from the low-water mark. Similar rulings were made in 1950 as regards the claims of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. But with the enactment in 1953 of the Submerged Lands Act, the United States relinquished to the coastal states all of its rights in all lands beneath navigable waters within the three-mile limit, and in excess of that limit within state boundaries as they existed at the time a state became a member of the Union, or as theretofore approved by Congress. The limit of the grant was three leagues (about ten and one-half miles) in the Gulf of Mexico and three geographical miles in the Atlantic and Pacific. The actual extent of the claims of the coastal states involved in the question was therefore left to be settled by litigation.

Governing Nature, Nurturing Government: Resource Management and the Development of the American State, 1900–1912

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce J. Schulman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Forest Service ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Bureau Of Reclamation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Gifford Pinchot

In the early years of the twentieth century, the United States created modern resource management—a collection of administrative bureaucracies that reversed long-standing policies of distributing lands into private hands and instead managed the public domain from Washington. The creation of these powerful, independent agencies underlay a broader effort to reorganize and enlarge the national government. The very same administrators who built the new conservation bureaucracies—Gifford Pinchot of the Forest Service, James R. Garfield of the Department of Interior, and Frederick Newell of the Bureau of Reclamation—also led President Theodore Roosevelt's drive for reorganization of the executive branch.

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