Jurisprudence Essays (Examples)

Moral and Legal Questions of Stem Cell Research

Stem cell research is an experimental, and research-based study as to methods of repairing the human body. y introducing stem cells into a damaged, or degenerating area of the body, the medical profession hopes to prompt the body to regrow healthy tissue, and repair the damage. Degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, or macular degeneration of a patient's eye retina are conditions in which the healthy tissues cease to function properly. There is no overt damage. There is not a disease which has physically destroyed the affected body part. ut for varying reasons, such as old age, wear and tear, or reasons medical science does not yet understand, the affected body part simply ceases to function properly. Stem cells are the type of cells, which are more numerous in, but not limited to, human embryos. They are the building blocks of the…

Bibliography

Answers to your questions about Stem Cells. 2001. ViaCord. Retrieved 15 Dec 2002.  http://www.viacord.com/Preservation/Preservation.asp?section=1&s=sourceOfStemCells  2001>

Bush, George W. "The Bush Decision on Stem-Cell Research" National Review Online.

2002 Retrieved 15 Dec 2002.  http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document081001.shtml 

Critical Legal Studies." Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. 2000. Retrieved 10 Dec 2002.  http://www.law.cornell.edu/critical/theory.html

Constitutionality of a Postcard-Only Mail Policy

Postcard-Only Prison Mail Policy

Constitutionality of a Prison Postcard-Only Mail Policy

The Constitutionality of a Prison Postcard-Only Mail Policy

The state Department of Corrections (DOC) has requested a legal opinion of its postcard-only mail policy covering all incoming and outgoing letters and packages. The DOC is facing several lawsuits alleging the restrictive mail policy is violating the Constitutional rights of inmates, as well as external parties wishing to communicate with inmates through the mail. The following opinion represents a review of the applicable case law and whether the mail policy could withstand Constitutional challenges.

Issues

The lawsuits that have been filed against the DOC for implementing a postcard-only mail policy allege violations of free speech protected by the First Amendment, privacy violations under the Fourth Amendment, and procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Brief Answer

Based on considerable…

References

Justia.com. (n.d.). U.S. law: Government as administrator of prisons. Retrieved 29 Oct. 2012 from  http://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-01/34-government-as-administrator-of-prisons.html .

Madison.com. (2009, February 15). Prison contraband: A sampling of what gets collected. Retrieved 29 Oct. 2012 from  http://host.madison.com/news/article_61400447-7e08-5a9b-a132-6e1d21377518.html .

Prison Legal News v. Columbia County et al., Case 3:12-cv-00071-SI (D. Or. 2012). Retrieved 29 Oct. 2012 from  http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/oregon/ordce/3:2012cv00071/105732/64/ .

"

MacCormick expresses a similar argument, although in different terms. According to MacCormick, the law has no natural existence, no set form and no fixed ontology. In fact, according to this line of reasoning, "the law has no natural role because the law is not a brute fact."

Instead, the law is what MacCormick calls a "thought object," similar to the concept of Love presented in the other article. According to MacCormick's thought object, the law only exists because humans believe in it. In other words, the law does not pre-exist our observation but is instead is constituted in that original decision to designate a specific law. As MacCormick states, "Law is constituted as an object of observation by the very act of observation itself."

Since the law exist because of an observation, or a decision that a law is needed, MacCormick essentially agrees with the concept of Love in…

Bibliography

Bankowski, Z. (1996): Law, Love and Computers.

MacCormick, D.N. (1989): The Ethics of Legalism.

difficult conflicts anyone in the legal profession can experience is a conflict between ethics and the obligation to zealously represent one's client. No where is this tension more apparent than in a situation where one obtains privileged information belonging to the opposing party. here are three options facing a legal professional confronted with such a situation; using the privileged information without notifying the opposing party how it was obtained, notifying the court and opposing counsel that privileged information has been obtained and that one intends to use it, or not using the privileged information. None of the solutions is perfect, but only one solution allows a paralegal to reconcile ethical obligations with the duty to zealously represent the client; informing the court that privileged information has been obtained and will be used.

If a paralegal uses the privileged information without informing the opposing party of their mistake, the paralegal has…

The second most authoritative resource would be the 1990 Kansas Court of Appeals decision, with facts similar to the client's facts, in which the defendant was found guilty of manslaughter (lesser offense). Unless there have been major changes in the legislation or the interpretation of the legislation, such decision would help the court determine how prior courts have decided to interpret the statutes in question. Learning the reasoning behind the 1990 decision would help the court decide why it should choose not to follow the third most authoritative resource, which would be the 1980 Kansas Supreme Court decision, with facts similar to the client's facts, in which the defendant was found guilty of murder. Any state Supreme Court decision interpreting a state statute that has not been overruled would usually be the most authoritative resource; however, the passage of time, and a contrary Court of Appeals decision indicate that the courts have chipped away at the reasoning behind the 1980 case.

In order to support the claim that changing theories of law or views in society account for the differences in the 1980 and 1990 results, I would then turn to the fourth, fifth, and sixth most authoritative resources. The fourth most authoritative resource is the case is the article from American Jurisprudence, 2d, explaining the differences between murder and manslaughter cases. This is authoritative because it attempts to capture the essence of the difference between murder and manslaughter, from the point-of-view of America as a whole. To support the conclusions drawn in the article, I would suggest the fifth most authoritative resource: the 1989 law review article that surveys all of the murder statutes in all the 50 states. Although Kansas can choose to define murder and manslaughter differently than they are defined by other states, it is likely that the court will look at what other states are doing, in order to determine the difference between manslaughter and murder. To shore up that argument, I would provide the sixth most authoritative resource: the Illinois Supreme Court position. Illinois is only one state, and therefore its decision is less authoritative than a survey of the position of the various states. However, due to its proximity to Kansas, what is happening in Illinois may actually be more likely to convince the court than the resources that should be considered more authoritative.

Finally, if there were jurisdictional or procedural l issues or questions, I would present the information from the A 2004 Kansas supreme Court decision on breach of warranty in automobile sales. While a recent state Supreme Court decision would generally be considered more authoritative than the other sources listed, the fact that the decision appears to have little to do with the topic of murder or manslaughter indicates that it is not very authoritative. However, if the client were charged with murder based on a breach of an automobile warranty, or other issue that played a prominent role in the 2004 Kansas Supreme Court decision, I would actually choose to present that decision as the most authoritative.

According to the court's judgment in favor of the plaintiff, no further evidence as to the source of the muscle atrophy in his shoulder and arm, because "the thing itself speaks" when all three components of res ipsa loquitur are satisfied, as they were in the case of Ybarra vs. Spangard. The plaintiff's claim for negligence against his doctors was ultimately successful because (1) arm injuries do not ordinarily occur in an appendectomy operation absent negligent action by the physicians, surgeons, or nurses in attendance during the procedure, (2) the injuries were caused by an agency or instrumentality within the exclusive control of the defendant, as the plaintiff was rendered unconscious during the surgery's preparation period, and (3) the plaintiff never volunteered or submitted to the possibility of her arm being injured when they elected to undergo a surgery in their abdominal region. One of the most interesting aspects of…

References

Aspen Publishers (Ed.). (2006). Torts: Keyed to Courses Using Franklin, Rabin, and Greens Tort Law and Alternatives. Pg. 22, Aspen Publishers Online. Retrieved from  http://books.google.com/books?id=9SXQTVq5duQC&pg=PA22&dq=ybarra+v.+spangar  d&as_brr=3&ei=yMGBS7bpIKGEzQTLjpnoBQ&cd=9#v=onepage&q=ybarra%20v.%2 0 spangard&f=false

Ghiardi, J.D. (1955). Res Ipsa Loquitur in Wisconsin. Marq. L. Rev., 39, 361. Retrieved from  http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3073&context=mulr 

Hetcher, S. (2013). The Immorality Of Strict Liability In Copyright. Marq. Intell. Prop. L. Rev., 17, 1-143. Retrieved from  http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1197&context=iplr&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fas_ylo%3D2009%26q%3Dybarra%2Bspangard%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D0%2C3#search=%22ybarra%20spangard%22 

Louisell, D.W., & Williams, H. (1960). Res Ipsa Loquitur -- Its Future in Medical Malpractice Cases. California Law Review, 48(2), 252-270. Retrieved from  http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3167&context=californial  awreview

Origins and Characteristics of the Law and Legal Systems in the U.S.

The Origins and Characteristics of the Law

and Legal Systems in the United States

The origins and characteristics of the law and legal systems of the United States

It is a commonplace observation to state that the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the U.S. are the origin of and provide the characteristics of the legal systems of the U.S. But in order to truly understand the ideas behind these landmark legal documents one must delve deeper into history. What of the texts that influenced America's Founding Fathers? Most may know that the Magna Charta, the English charter from the year 1215, was an influence. But the English weren't the only influential opinion-makers for revolutionary Americans. The Scottish and the French were too. The Scottish Declaration of Arbroath, for example, has been linked by scholars as an…

REFERENCES

1. The Inheritance of Rome, Chris Wickham, (Penguin Books Ltd. 2009)

2. John Adams, by David McCullough, (Simon & Schuster, 2001).

3. Inventing America, by Gary Wills, (1978)

4. The Scottish Invention of America, Democracy and Human Rights, by Robert Munro, et al. (2004, University Press of America.)

The reference to Montesquieu (as well as to Smith) in that part of the 'Dissertation' which deals with the 'Progress of Philosophy during the Seventeenth Century' was made just as a digression, and the further development of Jurisprudence by writers on Political Economy as well as 'the mighty influence which his [Montesquieu's] writings have had on the subsequent history of Scottish literature' (Stewart, 1854) were to be explained in the third Part of the 'Dissertation', which was never to be published.

eform

A major task of the state is thus to ensure that the conditions of economic freedom are in fact satisfied, so far as possible, by sweeping away all legal and institutional impediments to it. Generally speaking, these obstructions can be condensed to four main groups. First, there is the problem that, in all societies subject to a course of evolution, 'Laws frequently continue in force long after the…

References

Arrow, Kenneth. 1951. Social choice and individual values. New York: Wiley.

Arrow, Kenneth. 1983. Social choice and justice: Vol. 1 of Collected Papers of Kenneth J. Arrow. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press.

Becker, Gary. 1976. The economic approach to human behavior. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Hopfl, H.M. 1978. From savage to Scotsman: Conjectural history in the Scottish enlightenment. Journal of British Studies 17:19 -- 40.

Sandra O'Connor

Sandra Day was born on March 26, 1930 in El Paso, Texas to Harry and Ada Mae, owners of the Lazy--Cattle ranch in Southeastern Arizona, where Sandra grew up (United States Supreme Court 2003) as an only child until she was eight. In those early years, her family lived in isolation and with strained resources. The ranch did not have electricity and running water until she was seven years old and their nearest neighbors lived 25 miles away. Her loneliness forced her to make friends with the ranch's cowboys and pets. She read vigorously, learned to drive at seven, could fire rifles and rode horses well. ecause the hardiness of the ranch prevented her from attaining a formal education, her parents sent Sandra to her maternal grandmother in El Paso (U.S. Supreme Court). Her grandmother was Mamie Scott Wilkey.

She went to the Radford School for girls from…

Bibliography

Cook, Beverley, rev. 1997. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: Strategist on the Supreme Court. By Nancy Maveety. Landham, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Vol 7 # 4 pp 142-145.  http://www.unt.edu/lpbr/subpages/reviews/maveety.htm 

Gearan, Anne. 2003. Supreme Court's Day: Gay Rights Cases Up. Monterey County: Associated Press Wire

O'Connor Urges Law Grads to Volunteer

Hedding, Judy. 2004. A Brief Biography of Supreme Court Justice Sandra O'Connor. About, Inc. http://phoenix.aboutcom/cs/famous/a/oconnor.htm

Both of these perspectives are, from Hart's perspective, too extreme: he wants a legal theory which would be free from moral evaluations or moral commitments (unlike Finnis' approach), while remaining a descriptive theory of the practice rather than a participation in it (unlike Dworkin's approach). Hart was trying to keep a difficult middle position (Hacker, 1977-page 31). He argued that a legal theory should be constructed around the perspective of someone who accepted the legal system, but the theory itself (or, to put the matter differently, the theorist herself) need not, and should not, endorse the system (as one which is generally just or which creates binding moral obligations). In other words, the theory simultaneously:

(1) attempts to take into account the participant's perspective; and (2) manages to choose among possible participants' perspectives without having to make moral judgments; while

(3) keeping sufficient distance from the participants' perspective to allow…

Works Cited

Austin, John, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (H L.A. Hart ed., London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1955).

Austin, Regina, "Sapphire Bound! (Minority Feminist Scholarship)" (1989) Wisconsin Law Review 539.

Baird, Douglas; Gertner, Robert and Picker, Randal, Game Theory and the Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994).

Baker, Gordon, "Defeasibility and Meaning" in Law, Morality, and Society (P M.S. Hacker and J. Raz eds., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), pp. 26-57.

Cousin Vinny and American Criminal Justice

The 1992 film My Cousin Vinny starring Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei is a typical Hollywood foray into the realm of jurisprudence. So comical and seemingly realistic is the film (it takes place in the South -- where the unexpected nature of the backwoods setting gives the fish-out-of-water antics of Pesci's Gambini a convincing legitimacy) that one is willing to believe that it actually gives accurate representation of the criminal justice system and the court process in America. This paper will compare and contrast My Cousin Vinny with the actual American criminal justice system and court process, showing where the two meet and where (as in all Hollywood fare) they eventually depart.

The Film in eality

In reality, it may be noted that even the United States is using My Cousin Vinny as a guide when it comes to justice and jurisprudence -- at…

Reference List

Alshamsa, B. (2010). The U.S.A. uses My Cousin Vinny & CSI: Las Vegas as foundations for Afghan Judicial Procedures. My Private Casbah. Retrieved from  http://bintalshamsa.blogspot.com/2010/03/usa-uses-my-cousin-vinny-csi-las-vegas.html 

Bergman, P., Asimow, M. (2006). Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies.

Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel.

My Cousin Vinny cited by 7th Cir. (2009). LawofCriminalDefense.com. Retrieved from http://lawofcriminaldefense.com/blog/index.php?blog=1&title=my_cousin_vinny_cited_by_7th_cir&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

This is usually a low standard to achieve. As long as a person acts in a way which avails the person of the protection of the laws of that state, that person has subjected themselves to the jurisdiction of that state (International Shoe).

Next, the complaint will allege subject matter jurisdiction, i.e., that the lawsuit fulfill the requirements for this court to hear it? Pertinent requirements can include how much money haws plaintiff sued for or whether the case poses a question about a federal statute or the U.S. constitution. In many cases involving litigants from different states, the Plaintiff will allege that he is suing the Defendant for an amount greater than $75,000.00, which is the minimum monetary amount for federal subject matter jurisdiction (Title 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)) and that the Plaintiff does not reside in the state in the same state as any defendant (Am Jur Pleading…

Works Cited

Alternative dispute resolution. U.S. Office of Special Counsel (2010, January 18).

Retrieved from  http://www.osc.gov/adr.htm 

Altonaga, Honorable Cecilia Marie. (2002, May 04). Federal court judge's practice guide. Retrieved from http://www.flabar.org/divpgm/pu/fcpcsurvey.nsf

American Jurisprudence 2d (1997). St. Paul, MN: Thompson Reuters.

Gustav adbruch believed that positivistic theory renders both jurists and the normal person defenseless against our laws and legal system. He felt that no matter how arbitrary, cruel or criminal certain laws were, our legal process would make its ordinary citizens totally subservient to them. Morals would not alter precedence. This work will try to understand the works of H.L.A. Hart and some of his ideas that he held in response to Mr. adbruch's philosophies. It is important to try to understand if H.L.A. Hart actually provided adequate responses to the criticisms made of adbruch's philosophical ties. These questions, however, can only be asked, answered and understood if the reader first gets a full grasp of the underlying philosophies. What is positivism and how does it apply to the average person on the street. When discussed, is positivism the same as legal positivism? This report will try to address these…

References

Alexy, Robert. "Famous scholars from Kiel: Gustav Radbruch." Retrieved on November 3, 2009, from http://www.uni-kiel.de/ps/cgi-bin/fo-bio.php?nid=radbruch&lang=e

Hart, H.L.A., The Concept of Law. Second Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)

Hart, H.L.A., "American Jurisprudence through English Eyes: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream." reprinted in Hart, H.L.A., Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 123-144.

Hart, H.L.A., "Book Review of The Morality of Law" 78 Harvard Law Review 1281 (1965)

However, the woman will have to get the promise in writing. Furthermore, the woman's remedy would not be to force the man to marry her, but to receive compensation for the monetary damages that she suffered as a result of the move.

hile the English Act for the Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries covered the type of agreement just described, it also covered other types of promises made in contemplation of marriage. Perhaps one of the most common of those scenarios was when a woman would allege that a man promised to marry her if they engaged in certain sexual activities. A man who made such a promise might later deny it.

The final type of contract involves those contracts that cannot be completed in less than a year. An example of that type of contract is a contract for a two-year gym membership. A typical contract would provide a…

Works Cited

Huey, Nathan A. "Email and Iowa's Statute of Frauds: Do E-Sign and UETA Really Matter?"

Iowa Law Review 88 (2003): 681-704.

National White Collar Crime Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. "IC3 2003

Internet Fraud Report." Internet Crime Complaint Center. 2004. Internet Crime

Rape Case Law and Jurisprudence

Panichas[footnoteRef:2] discriminated between aggravated rape and lesser offenses in a review of Stephen Schulhofer's book Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law. When the use of violence or its threat is used to overcome a victim's lack of consent, immediately before the assault, and this is clearly demonstrated by the evidence presented in court, then aggravated rape has occurred. If, however, victim nonconsent is questionable and the immediate use or threat of force is absent or ambiguous, then a rape conviction will not survive appeal in most states. As Panichas notes, rape jurisprudence has historically relied on common law and appellate decisions when judging whether allegations of rape have any merit and three criteria are prominent: (1) actual/credible use or threat of force, (2) force must be physical, and (3) nonconsent in the absence of force is insufficient to support a…

Americans are aware that they are entitled to "their day in court" but may not fully understand the full range of due process protections that are contained in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. To determine the facts, this paper reviews the relevant literature to provide a discussion concerning the meaning, history and importance of the constitutional concept of "due process" as contained in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. A brief discussion analyzing the conflicting positions of Justices Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter with respect to the incorporation of American citizens' rights under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and how these Justices' positions helped develop the concept of due process is followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning due process in the conclusion.

.eview and Discussion

According to Black's Law Dictionary, "due process of law" means…

References

Bernstein, D.E. (2003, November). Lochner's legacy's legacy. Texas Law Review, 82(1), 1.

Bodenhamer, D.J. (2007). Our rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapman, N.S. & McConnell, M.W. (2012, May). Due process as separation of powers. The Yale Law Journal, 121(7), 1672-1677.

Fifth amendment. (2014). Legal Information Institute. Retrieved from http://www.law.

Positive Discrimination -- Do We Need it?

For centuries, the global community has strived to eliminate discrimination against minority groups. For centuries, women had been emotionally and/or physically abused; they were prohibited from voting and working. Today, they are allowed to work outside the household, but they are still paid less than their male counterparts. Additionally, the responsibility of raising the children and completing the household chores remains heavily preponderant among the female categories.

The women represent one of the most obvious categories of people discriminated against; but they only represent a mere fraction of the overall population subjected to discrimination. And the grounds for the discrimination are multiple, to include anything and everything from gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political and religious appurtenance, age or disability.

The modern day society is making intense efforts to ensure that discrimination is eliminated -- or at least decreased to the minimum level…

References:

Barnes, C., Disabled people in Britain and discrimination: a case for anti-discrimination legislation, (1991)

Bentham, J., Jeremy Bentham to his fellow-citizens of France, on houses of Peers and Senates, (1830)

Carr, E.A., Attitudes toward and knowledge of affirmative action in higher education, (2007)

Edwards, J., Batley, R., The politics of positive discrimination: an evaluation of the Urban Programme, 1967-77, (1980)

Perjury

Aristotle believed there should be guidelines governing the act of giving testimony (Kennedy, 2004, p. 227-228). For example, a jury member should place greater weight on the reputation and social standing of the witness, than on the content of the testimony given. If a person of good character is called to testify before a formal investigative body, a reasonable listener is therefore required to open their mind to anything the witness may claim. This process of 'reciprocation' requires reasonable jury members and judges to accept as trustworthy the testimony of a reputable person, even if the events described seem incredible and go beyond their own personal experiences.

Unfortunately, the days of small village tribunals where jury members knew most of the participants in a trial, and therefore the reputations and trustworthiness of witnesses, are generally a thing of the past in the United States and much of the world.…

References

Cornell University. (2012). Title 18 -- Crimes and Criminal Procedure, Part I -- Crimes,

Chapter 79 -- Perjury. Law.Cornell.edu. Retrieved 7 Aug. 2012 from  http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/pdf/uscode18/lii_usc_TI_18_PA_I_CH_79_SE_1621.pdf .

Kennedy, Rick. (2004). A History of Reasonableness: Testimony and Authority in the Art of Thinking. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.

Lichtman, Robert M. And Cohen, Ronald D. (2004). Deadly Farce: Harvey Matusow and the Informer System in the McCarthy Era. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

S.B. 1070, ACA, AND FEDEAL PEEMPTION

1070, the ACA, and Federal Preemption

S.B. 1070, the ACA, and Federal Preemption

Tenth Amendment

The Tenth Amendment was intended to limit the scope and power of the federal government, thereby preserving some measure of state autonomy (Lash, 2006). The Tenth Amendment accomplishes this by stating explicitly that the federal government can only exercise those powers enumerated within the U.S. Constitution. All other powers are left to the states. In James Madison's words, a Federalist, the "… powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." (p. 166). The Tenth Amendment therefore allows states to retain their freedom, sovereignty, and right to self-determination, as long as it does not conflict with the powers conferred to the federal government by the Constitution.

Madison, however, never viewed the…

References

Arizona et al. v. United States, 567 U.S. ____ (2012).

Lash, Kurt T. (2006). James Madison's celebrated report of 1800: The Transformation of the Tenth Amendment. George Washington Law Review, 74, 165-200.

LII (Legal Information Institute). (2010a). Supremacy Clause. Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School. Retrieved 13 Oct. 2013 from  http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause .

LII (Legal Information Institute). (2010b). Preemption. Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School. Retrieved 13 Oct. 2013 from  http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/Preemption .

During this Diaspora, the African Slave Trade transferred 9-12 million people from one continent to another with major repercussions on cultural and political traditions in the New World. There have been a number of modern Diasporas based on the post-Cold War world in which huge populations of refugees migrated from conflict, especially from developing countries (Southeast Asia, China, Afghanistan, Iran, Latin America, South American, Rwanda, etc.).

Part 1.2.1 - Civil Law is a legal system inspired by Ancient Roman law. In Civil law, laws are written into a codified collection that is a group of ideas and systems that work in tandem to help organize societies without the need for judicial interpretation. Overall, civil law is in place to formulate general principles and to distinguish substantive rules from procedural rules, and is based on the tenet that legislation is the primary source of law.

Conceptually, civil law is a group…

In principle, Dworkin argues that the truth is always knowable for any given factual circumstances; the difficulty is that the human intellect is imperfect. In the same way, there is a finite number of individual particles of sand on the earth at any moment in time. Human intellect and capabilities are incapable of determining that precise number; it would require a hypothetically limitless intellectual capacity. Judge Hercules possesses that infinite intelligence and also has the luxury of infinite time for contemplation. Dworkin suggests that Judge Hercules would always make the right decision and that the role of human judges is simply to aspire to be as Hercules-like as possible. Dworkin's Judge Hercules is very similar to John Rawls' allegory about the veil of ignorance that he uses to illustrate the meaning of objective justice.

Principle vs. Policy

To explain the importance of valuing principle over policy in the construct and…

Though six other Justices joined in overturning Staples' conviction, it was Justice Thomas who wrote the majority opinion, and he makes it clear that anything not explicitly allowed or made illegal by the law -- either in the Government's actions or in the actions of individual citizens -- is left to individual (or local, it is implied) discretion (Oyez 2009).

How Do You Get to the Supreme Court? estraint, estraint, estraint

In keeping with his generally conservative politics, Justice Thomas is also an advocate of judicial restraint. The Staples case demonstrates this quite clearly, as do other of his published rulings. In Archer et ux v. Warner (2002), Justice Thomas dissented form the majority opinion, which used what was considered the intent of a bankruptcy exemption for fraud to overturn the decisions of lower courts and demand that the Warners pay the Archers a previously agreed-upon settlement (Oyez 2009). In…

References

Fraser, N. (1992). "Sex, lies, and the public sphere: Some reflections on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas." Critical inquiry 18(3), pp. 595-612.

Gerber, S. (1999). First principles: The jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas. New York: New York University Press.

Klonick, K. (2009). "Clarence Thomas reaches new low in self-awareness." Accessed 26 October 2009. http://trueslant.com/kateklonick/2009/10/24/clarence-thomas-reaches-new-low-in-self-awareness/

Overby, L; Henschen, B.; Walsh, M. & Strauss, J. (1992). "Courting constituents? An analysis of the Senate confirmation vote on Justice Clarence Thomas." American political science review, 86(4), pp. 997-1003.

" For most this is generally seen as a reference to the Federal Judiciary. One thinks of the arren Court, and the great number of decisions concerning civil rights, voting rights, etc. It is often not realized, however, to what an extent state judges play ar ole in shaping these issues. In many state court systems, the state system was actually more liberal than the Federal:

First and foremost, state constitutions may be used not only to broaden rights but also to restrict them. They are far easier to amend than the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, forces within a state dissatisfied with liberal court interpretations of the fundamental state law may, without nearly the same effort required on the federal level, undo those rulings....In Florida... voters adopted an amendment to the state constitutional search and seizure provision, requiring the provision to be "be construed in conformity with the 4th Amendment to…

Works Cited

 

However, the point of mergence between the two theories has been given a name for itself and it is known as the Overlap Thesis. Overall, the natural law theory of law is used to refer to the analysis of legal systems and philosophical issues of law.

Among those who sought that natural law has no valid grounds is Leo Strauss who was convinced that it has to be refused on the premises of history and of the differences between facts and values. To most of those who oppose natural law, human knowledge and thought is characterized by the historical interpretation and history is time-bound and thus unable to encompass something which is eternal. Another reason natural law has been criticized is because of its ontological and epistemological suggestions. In regards to the former, it has been noted that no matter the way reality is perceived, whether from a theological point-of-view,…

Works Cited

Rothbard, Murray N. The Ethics of Liberty. New York and London: New York University Press, 1998. Print.

Criminal Justice Agency

The American legal system is very systematic and works amazingly well. It's complicated given its intricacy as its framework is argumentative. The Supreme Court sometimes changes the law as it holds that authority. The Supreme Court decides which laws are to be upheld and which are to be altered. Learning the court system can be a tough ask but not an impossible one. In this research paper, the aim is to break down the American law into layman language. It will start from legal system of U.S. And shift to court systems. Then different kinds of courts will be examined whilst examining their separate duties.

Prelude

The constitution is responsible for the entire American legal system. The American constitution is the ultimate law on American soil. The public is bound by this American constitution as it shapes their actions accordingly. The American public is answerable under the…

References

Barak, A. (2008). The Judge in Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Baum, L. (2013). American Courts: Process and Policy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2013.

Bonfield, L. (2006). American law and the American Legal System in a Nutshell. Publisher St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West.

Carp, R et al. (2007). Judicial Process in America. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.

Combating Domestic Abuse in the United States

Domestic Abuse

In the United States, intimate partner violence afflicted nearly 4 out of 1,000 persons aged 12 or older in 2010, down from 1 in 100 in 1994 (Catalano, 2012). This translates into 0.9 million victimizations for the most recent year in which data were available. Females are victimized more often than males, however, with one male victimized for every six females. The crimes include rape, robbery, and assault against spouses and girlfriends/boyfriends, current or former. Family violence victimization rates were similar, with about 2.1 victimizations per 1,000 citizens aged 12 years or over in 2002, the most recent year with for which data is available (Durose et al., 2005). To put this statistic in perspective, approximately one in ten violent victimizations within the U.S. is the result of family violence. The gradual decline in domestic violence rates could be due to…

References

Catalano, S. (2012). Intimate partner violence, 1993-2010. NCJ 239203. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from  http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ipv9310.pdf .

Domestic Assault by an Habitual Offender, 18 U.S.C.Z. § 117 (2011).

Durose, M.R., Harlow, C.W., Langan, P.A., Motivans, M., Rantala, R.R., & Smith, E.L. (2005). Family violence statistics: Including statistics on strangers and acquaintances. NCJ 207846. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

Kolpack, D. (2012, September 19). ND man sentenced in pivotal domestic violence case. Native American Times. Retrieved from  http://www.nativetimes.com/index.php/news/crime/7841-nd-man-sentenced-in-pivotal-domestic-violence-case .

Padilla v. Kentucky: Implications for U.S. Immigration

This paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning the case, Padilla v. Kentucky,[footnoteef:1] discussing citizenship, and similar predicaments in other countries. It is this paper's thesis that the decision in Padilla has significant implications for defense lawyers who must now become familiar with the complexities of immigration law or retain counsel to assist them in this area. Established in Strickland v. Washington, the test for ineffective assistance of counsel is comprised of two parts: (1) defendants must first show that their counsel was constitutionally deficient and (2) show that the deficiency prejudiced the result of their case.[footnoteef:2] In addition, cases involving guilty pleas require defendants to demonstrate that in the absence of deficient counsel, they would have insisted on a trial.[footnoteef:3] Furthermore, defendants also enjoy the Due Process Clause protections that require judges and defendants to engage in a conversation concerning…

References

Atkins, K. (2010). Defense Counsel's Duty to Warn About . . . Everything? Lawyers Weekly USA, November 8.

Borden, Jeremy Immigrants Take Guilty Pleas without Lawyers, Face Deportation, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, A-6, (February 3, 2013).

Brief for States of Louisiana et al. 2009: 9; Padilla v. Kentucky.

Brink, Malia A Gauntlet Thrown: The Transformative Potential of Padilla V. Kentucky. 39 Fordham Urban Law 1, 39 (November 2011).

(Schall, 1998)

In addition to a lightened burden of proof and broader definition there were two additional changes resulting from the amendment which served to positively affect the impact and ultimate effectiveness of the legislation. This amendment clarified the fact that judges are not allowed to assess possible mitigating factors such as medication, corrective surgery, or specialized equipment in the determination of whether or not an individual is disabled. This change is directly related to the Sutton case. Further the amendments clarified the definition of major life activities. This amendment relates directly to the Williams case in which a judge deemed that Carpal Tunnel wasn't in fact a significant impairment to major life activities, it merely precluded her from successfully completing specific tasks in the work place. Though the language of the Act is still quite ambiguous, these changes help to clarify and protect the intention of the act.

Exceptions…

References

1. Disability Discrimination Act 1995. (c.50), London: HMSO.

2. Schall, C., 1998. The Americans with Disabilities Act -- Are we keeping our promise? An analysis of the effect of the ADA on the employment of persons with disabilities. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 10(3), pp.191-203.

3. Stowe, M., 2000. Interpreting "place of public accommodation" under Title III of the ADA: A technical determination with potentially broad civil rights implications. Duke Law Journal, pp. 297- 329.

4. Grabois, R., Nosek, M., & Rossi, D., 2005. Accessibility of primary care physicians' offices for people with disabilities: An analysis of compliance with the American with Disabilities Act. Archives of Family Medicine, 8, pp. 44- 51.

'" (Aspen, 1997, p.95).

The primary step is to change the mindset of lawyers. They have to stop believing that they run the show and instead focus them as members of a team along with the judge to ensure that the legal system works for the innocent people in the right direction. Its important that every lawyer strikes a balance between his or her obligations to the clients and the justice system.

As a supplement, more stringent laws should be implemented and the actions of the prosecution should come under closer scrutiny to ensure that they will abide by the ethics and professional code of conduct as laid down by the lawmakers.

Plan for administrators

"Few problems can pose a greater threat to free, democratic societies than that of wrongful conviction -- the conviction of an innocent person. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to this problem, perhaps because…

References

Hon. Aspen, Marvin. (July 1997). Let Us Be Officers of the Court. ABA Journal.

Huff, Ronald; Rattner, Arye; Sagarin, Edward; MacNara, Donal. (October 1986). Guilty Until Proved Innocent: Wrongful Conviction and Public Policy. Crime Delinquency. 32 (4). 518-544.

BERGER v. UNITED STATES, 295 U.S. 78 (1935).

Miller v. Pate, 386 U.S. 1 (1967)

In these instances, a state might claim that the international community has acted beyond its jurisdiction as limited in Article 38 by allowing some action. Such an action is exemplified by the dispute between the NAT and Yugoslavia regarding ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Here, Yugoslavia filed an application for proceedings through the ICJ against the United States for its use of force in Kosovo, invoking Article 38. Accordingly, the ICJ reports that "as to Article 38, paragraph 5, of the Rules of Court, it provides that when a State files an application against another State which has not accepted the jurisdiction of the Court, the application is transmitted to that other State, but no action is taken in the proceedings unless and until that State has accepted the Court's jurisdiction for the purposes of the case." (ICJ, p. 1) the ICJ rejected this application on the grounds that it lacked…

Online at  http://books.google.com/books?id=TkW0I_sthHsC&pg=PA215&lpg=PA215&dq=palmeter+the+WTO+Legal+System:++Sources+of+Law&source=bl&ots=Ekdnv1cG7I&sig=5vLFKzcHmbYNFuZcYQFHbS5qWes&hl=en&ei=JZIkTeCdJ4X7lwf47Ji6AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Perkins, S.C. (1996). International Human Rights Law and Article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. Institute on Public International Law of the American Association of Law Libraries.

Online at  http://intelligent-internet.info/law/icjart.html

d.).

The doctrine of good faith and fair dealing is like the idea of fairness, is simple to expressive but hard to relate with accuracy. Most lawyers know the policy in the circumstance of personal property sales for the reason that the Uniform Commercial Code is clear on that issue. The principle is frequently murky though in regards to other matters. The principle is additionally clouded when courts and critics merge it with ideas such as disclosure, misrepresentation and fraud. Causes of action based on contract law join with those founded in tort. With the ensuing mess of conflicting legal principles, it is not unexpected that courts take a fact exact move toward deciding cases and, in doing so, often reach conflicting conclusions (Walsh, n.d.).

There have been two significant efforts to establish the connotation of good faith and to figure out what kind of conduct the duty commands. Most…

References

Weigand, Tory a. (2004). The Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing in Commercial

Contracts in Massachusetts. Retrieved December 15, 2010, from Web site:

 http://www.morrisonmahoney.com/publications/Weigand.pdf 

Uniform Commercial Code. (2005). Retrieved December 15, 2010, from Cornell University Law

" Only by purging it completely would Russia be pure enough for the clean sheet of the revolution (erth, 2008). The history of communism and fascism is replete with such nauseating disrespect for the common customs and mores of people that gird the very structures of society. e do not always see these microlaws, but they are there and have validity and society only invades upon them with great danger.

In addition to local common law, microlegal systems guide and gird international law as well. As defined by Philip Adott in the Concept of International Law, "micro-legal systems of treaties…are an integral part of a society's legal self-constituting, its self-ordering through law…the international legal system…contains a customary form of law, and treaties have a complex and subtle relationship to customary international law (Adott, 1999, pp. 42-33)." According to Adott, microlaw can potentially be international in its scope and can impact…

Works Cited

Adott, Philip. (1999). The concept of international law. European Journal of International Law, 10, 31-50.

Hidary, Rabbi Dr. Richard . (2010). Minhag and halakhah in the talmuds: a cross-

cultural study. Retrieved from  http://www.kolhamevaser.com/2010/07/minhag-and-halakhah-in-the-talmuds-a-cross-cultural-study/ 

Reisman, W. Michael. (1999). Law in brief encounters. New Haven, CT: Yale University

The Da Costa ruling, however, determined that any ruling of the European Court of Justice must necessarily apply to all national courts when interpreting Community Law (Craig 2001). In this way, the law is guaranteed to be applied evenly in and in the same manner in all member nation courts when deciding Community Law issues, whereas prior to this ruling differing interpretations of the same facets of Community Law could be applied to the same issue.

It is important to note that this ruling does not affect the various national courts of the member nations of the European Union when interpreting national law, and in fact the European Union and its various courts, including the European Court of Justice, have no sway over such interpretations, as the European Union is not a true federal entity (Craig 2001). In this way, while ensuring the equitable interpretation of Community Law in all…

References

Craig, P. (2001). "The jurisdiction of the community courts reconsidered." In the European Court of justice, de Burca & Weiler, eds. New York: Oxford University Press.

Freestone, D. & Davidson, S. (1988). The institutional framework of the European Communities. new York: Oxford University Press.

Slapper, G. & Kelly, D. (2006). The English legal system. New York: Routledge.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Illinois and argued that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to protect against race discrimination only…" Gibson, 2007, Background to Muller v. Oregon section ¶ 1). The Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment did not include the protection of women's rights.

The following depicts Justice Bradley's concurring opinion regarding Bradwell's

Man is, or should be, woman's protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood.... The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law…

REFERENCES

Babcock, Barbara Allen. (1975). Sex Discrimination and the Law: Causes. Retrieved April 3,

2009, from  http://books.google.com/books?id=pi5AAAAAIAAJ&q=Liberti+v.+York&dq=Li 

erti+v.+York&lr=&ei=ub3YScLeEIqKNKT3vIAD&pgis=1

The Columbia World of Quotations. (1996). Columbia University Press. New York.

The Fourteenth Amendment is specifically concerned with due process. Moreover, while due process may not be violated by allowing states to establish different guidelines for their criminal trials and procedures than those established in the federal system, the Court seems to recognize that if something has been established as a necessary minimum to guarantee due process in the federal system, it will also be the minimum in the states.

One thing about this case, and about most states' existing criminal systems, is that it differentiates between misdemeanors and felonies, by providing that those charged with felonies are entitled to an appointed attorney. However, the distinction between misdemeanors and felonies seems untenable; people charged with misdemeanors face the threat of the loss of liberty and property. If due process cannot be protected without an attorney, and the Court feels that this threat is the same regardless of the degree of punishment,…

" Her close attention to statutory detail (she once offered an amendment to a bill in order to insert an important missing comma) and complete mastery of facts is especially notable in light of her future judicial methodology. Anxious to return to law in 1974, O'Connor won a seat as a trial judge on the Maricopa Superior Court....In 1980 Babbit, who had been elected governor, appointed O'Connor to the Arizona Court of Appeals (an intermediate appellate court). (Friedman & Israel, 1997, p. 1761)

It is stated that when she was faced with particularly hard cases, she chose to seek out the most extreme views on each side and then find the moderate stand in the middle with the most logical demonstration of resolution. O'Connor is also said to have held that her nomination to the Supreme Court was "a classic example of being the right person in the right spot…

References

The Battle for the Court Begins; Democrats Warn Bush to Consult. (2005, July 2). The Washington Times, p. A01.

Friedman, L. & Israel, F.L. (Eds.). (1997). Their Lives and Major Opinions (Vol. 5). New York: Chelsea House.

Perry, B.A. (1991). A Representative Supreme Court? The Impact of Race, Religion, and Gender on Appointments. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Stevenson, R.W. Greenhouse L. (July 1, 2005) O'Connor, First Woman on High Court, Resigns After 24 Years New York Times Retrieved November 1, 2007 at  http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/politics/01cnd-court.html?ex=1277870400&en=7beaf086d8184bc3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

rime rates do not drop with restrictions on gun control because crimes have been shown to be intent driven rather than means driven. Which simply means that those who are interested in committing crimes will usually do so given any access or restrictions standards? It is evident from this analysis that guns have little impact upon crime rates. However, gun control advocacies use misinformation to present a dangerous position to the public.

Another important factor in media manipulation is the use of specific misinformation to influence public opinion to support severity within gun legislation. Popular gun control advocacies use strong statistics to influence the public into perceiving that gun control is not only needed, but that gun violence is an escalating crime that needs to provide greater security mandates. Oftentimes they use deceiving statistics as a means to manipulate public opinion on the prevalence of firearms. For instance, the Brady…

Counting Guns, Randolph Roth. Social Science History 26:4 winter 2002

Would Banning Firearms reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of international evidence, Gary a. Mauser & Don B. Kates. Bepress Legal Series 2006 paper 1564

Shooting down the more guns, less crime hypothesis, John J. Donohue & Ian Ayres. Center for the study of law and society Jurisprudence and social policy program. 2003 paper 5

However, this Court also recognizes that mental illness oftentimes differs from other immutable characteristics, such as mental retardation and age, in that a defendant oftentimes has the ability to control mental illness through medical interventions. hile there is tremendous evidence of Panetti's deteriorated mental state, there is very little evidence to support Panetti's assertions that he was insane at the time of the murders. Though there are serious questions regarding Panetti's competency to stand trial, much less his competency to represent himself in that trial, there simply does not appear to be any evidence that he was insane at the time of the murders. Panetti engaged in preparations that were rationally aimed at accomplishing the murder of his in-laws, but was able to refrain from killing his wife and child. In addition, he engaged in a stand-off with police that resulted in him escaping the stand-off without being killed and…

Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 322 (1976).

Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 299 (1976).

Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 409-10 (1986).

Or, as Saletan points out, those three elements "by deduction, are the due process test" (2011).

But this ought to leave a bad taste in one's mouth because all three of these elements can be manipulated to violate one's due process right.

"hich leaves us with an awkward bottom line. If the target is a suspected terrorist, "imminence" can be redefined to justify killing him. If the weapon is a drone, feasibility of arrest has already been ruled out -- that's why the drone has been sent to do the job. So in any drone strike on a U.S. citizen suspected of terrorism, only one of the three questions we supposedly apply to such cases is really open: Has he been fighting alongside al-Qaida? If he has, we can kill him. That's the same rule we apply to foreigners. In effect, citizenship doesn't matter. The "due process" test is empty"…

Works Cited

Cornell University Law School. (n.d). Bill of Rights from Cornell University Law

School. Retrieved from:

 http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmentv .

Lithwick, D. (2011, July 14). Murder Conviction Most Foul: What Justin Wolfe's case in Virginia tells us about death row cases everywhere. Slate.com. Retrieved from  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2011/07/murder_c

Decisions of ehnquist & Warren

The field of constitutional law, at least in the area of criminal procedure, has been an interesting study for the past fifty years. Unlike other areas of the law, the study of criminal procedure has undergone major transformations as a result of the decisions of the last three courts, the Warren, Burger and ehnquist courts. These three courts have changed the legal landscape in the cases involving criminal procedure and, in the process; have created a great deal of controversy (Bloom, 2010).

The application of the Bill or ights to the states has been an acrimonious issue in the U.S. Supreme Court for a number of years. It all began when the Warren Court began applying the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments directly against the states, under a doctrine that became to be known as selective incorporation. The Warren Court used the selective incorporation method…

References

Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1 (U.S. Supreme Court March 1, 1995).

Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318 (U.S. Supreme Court April 24, 2001).

Bloom, R.M. (2010). Cases on Criminal Procedure. Riverwoods, IL: CCH .

California v. Minjares, 443 U.S. 916 (U.S. Supreme Court August 22, 1979).

It is difficult to say whom the Supremacy Clause affects in particular, and why, because it has the potential to impact all Americans. For example, many of the ground-breaking Supreme Court decisions in recent time are based in some way on the Supremacy Clause. For example, the famous Civil ights Supreme Court decisions such as Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) and Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) base their decisions on the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. However, it is important to realize that they can only do so based on the fact that the states do not have the power to deprive citizens of their constitutionally protected rights. Those decisions have had a significant wide-ranging impact on all Americans; while the U.S. has yet to achieve full equality; it is fair to suggest that, without them, much of America would still be in Jim…

References

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).

McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819).

Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

Reform from within the EU does not seem possible, either. It is so structured as to prevent changes in member states' minority status and other modifications from becoming attainable. Attempts by any government to amend the Community laws are considered doomed to failure, because Parliament has almost no part in European law-making (Andrews).

Conclusion

Common and civil law systems are inherently opposed, although their shared goal is to conduct a just, speedy and most inexpensive settling of conflicts (Messitte 1999). American courts have increasingly acknowledged the need to continuously evaluate and modify their processes and altogether improve the quality of justice. Efforts cover many other aspects of court activity, ranging from dispute resolution mechanisms, such as arbitration and mediation, to procedures, such as default and summary judgment used I the early stage of a trial without needing to proceed to a formal trial (Messitte).

Jury trial has disappeared in the…

Bibliography

Adams, James, ed. The Jury Enigma. Court Management Observer, 2003.  http://www.cmobs.com/editorial403.htm 

Andrews, D. Freedom in Jeopardy. Freedom Central, 2004. http://www.freedom.central.net/euandbritain.html

Kotz, Hein. Civil Justice Systems in Europe and the United States. Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law, Special Issue, 2003.  http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?13+Duke+j.+Comp+8+Int 'l+L.061

Massitte, Peter J. Common Law vs. Civil Law Systems. United States Information Systems, 1999. http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0999/ijdc/messitte.htm

Indeed, this understanding of the Marshall court comes full circle: The Court is the most cutting edge front of American legal society, casting decisions that are years ahead of what the general populace often wants, according to Armstrong and Woodward, but the Court is also a conservative vestige of administrations past because of lifetime tenure.

That is why the most influential Courts are those in which an appointed justice does not conform to the expectations of his presidential appointer, but rather strikes out on his or her own with a body of decisions that counter the president's and former administration's ideas.

Opinion

The viewpoint of Armstrong and Woodward as presented in "The Brethren" is a much more forgiving look at the Court's influence than the viewpoint presented in our text. However, "The Brethren" looks at the Court with its own jaded eyes as well. The book understands that justices are…

Rule of Law and Extra-Legal Doctrines

The rule of law does not need to be supported or expanded by "extra-legal" doctrines of morality. The laws as they exist today in this country are based upon a system of morality that has evolved over thousands of years. Our laws embody this system of morality and do not need to be supported by other doctrines of morality. Moral notions of good and bad laws exist to prevent the government from abusing the rights of its citizens. In order for the rule of law to allow a government to exercise power, governments should not execute laws in arbitrary fashion. Those who make and enforce the law are themselves bound to adhere to it. "The legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the…

M. Lin's release from MCF has had the effect of rendering his lawsuit moot. In this case, M. Lin was incarcerated at the time the lawsuit was filed, but not at the time it is being decided. Thus, M. Lin's cause of action fails on the issue of mootness. Additionally, of the six members whom were denied visitation privileges, five of them have had sons which whom were formerly incarcerated at MCF, but now have been released. The son of the sixth MOM member asserting denial of visitation privileges died after his release from MCF. Thus, all of the six members of MOM claims will fail as a result of mootness.

C. RIPENESS

AUTHORITY

The controversy must be ripe for decision; ripeness bars consideration of claims before they have fully developed. A case may be dismissed as unripe where a statute has never been enforced and there is no real…

Positive Philosophy in Law

Thomas Aquinas and Hans Kelsen held that the law enforced by human courts is indeed a positive law. Legal philosophers have since come up with a flurry of arguments claiming that positive law must have its source and content. These philosophers were and are of contention that the court's core mandate should be that of harmonizing heterogeneous sources of law into a coherent body of law for ease of administration of justice. Sources of law can be drawn from the ancient oman law, legislation, custom, precedent and equity, raw materials processed by courts into genuine law, statutes, precedents, and opinions of experts. With regard to content, law should be enforced to administer justice (Murphy, 2005).

This paper seeks to list some factors that a judge in a state's criminal court system would consider before sentencing burglary/theft offenders, people suspected to have committed aggravated battery, or those…

References

Lahey, B.B., Moffitt, T.E. & Caspi, A. (2003). Causes of Conduct Disorder and Juvenile

Delinquency. New York: Guilford Press.

Murphy, J.B. (2005). The philosophy of positive law: foundations of jurisprudence. New Haven

Conn.: Yale University Press

setting background presented set main tenets major legal systems explain select preferred forum resolving legal disputes business, . This assignment intended demonstrate basic understanding legal system adopted United States identifying main tenets comparing contrasting main tenets major legal system.

Legal system

The United States of America is currently the largest economy of the globe, and the source of most technological innovations and social advancements. Aside from these accomplishments, the U.S. is also reputable for its approach to people, given that it implements a legal system protecting the rights of the people, rather than seeking to stifle them, as it happens in other regions of the globe.

The legal system in the U.S. then is centered on the people and their well-being, and the laws and legislations are created based on the Anglo-American common law system. At this level then, the focus of the current project falls on the assessment of…

References:

Lengeling, D. 2008. Common law and civil law -- differences, reciprocal influences and points of intersection.  http://www.consulegis.com/fileadmin/downloads/thomas_marx_08/DLengeling_paper.pdf  accessed on January 22, 2013

2011. Key features of common law or civil law systems. World Bank.  http://ppp.worldbank.org/public-private-partnership/legislation-regulation/framework-assessment/legal-systems/common-vs.-civil-law  accessed on January 22, 2013

2013. Common law system. The Free Dictionary by Farlex.  http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Common+law+system  accessed on January 22, 2013

Criminal laws in the United States are largely and totally considered as the result of the constitutional authority and legislative bodies that enact them. The American constitution normally provides the basis for the development of legislative agencies that are empowered to criminal and other legislations. For instance, the country's constitution has established the Congress and provides it with the power to make laws. The importance of the Constitution to the substantive criminal law is evident from the fact that it establishes limits on the definitions of crime. In most cases, the criminal laws of specific states and federal governments as well as the definition of crimes and their respective penalties are found in the penal codes of every jurisdiction. The establishment of criminal legislations in the United States has evolved through the years and is based on several fundamental principles.

Creation of Laws in the United States:

Most of the…

References:

"History of American Law." (n.d.). Historyoflaw.info. Retrieved March 19, 2012, from  http://www.historyoflaw.info/history-of-american-law.html 

Kelly, M. (n.d.). Early Development of the United States Court System. Retrieved March 19,

2012, from  http://americanhistory.about.com/od/judicialbranch/a/Early-Development-Of-The-United-States-Court-System.htm 

"Lawmaking in the United States." (n.d.). UIC -- University Library. Retrieved from University

Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778, 129 S. Ct. 2079, 173 L. Ed. 2D 955

Jesse Montejo and Jerry Moore were interrupted during a burglary by the owner of the residence, Lewis Ferrari (U.S. Supreme Court, 2009). Montejo was picked up for questioning the next day and after waiving his rights under Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436, 1966), admitted to shooting and killing Lewis Ferrari during the burglary. When Montejo was arraigned two days later in court, he stood mute as the court appointed counsel.

A few hours after the arraignment, police detectives visited Montejo at the jail (U.S. Supreme Court, 2009). During the end of the ensuing discussion, Montejo waved his Miranda rights and agreed to take them to the murder weapon. During the trip to locate the murder weapon, Montejo wrote a letter of apology to the victim's widow.

The defense attempted to suppress the letter of…

References

Bretz, Emily. (2010-2011). Don't answer the door: Montejo v. Louisiana relaxes police restrictions for questioning non-custodial defendants. Michigan Law Review, 109, 221-256.

U.S. Supreme Court. (2009). Montejo v. Louisiana: certiorari to the Supreme Court of Louisiana. FindLaw.com. Retrieved 10 July 2012 from  http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=07-1529 .

Centralia 1947 Mine Explosion

Throughout the annals of the American industrialized age, countless tragedies have occurred within the workplace and these incidents have forced the public at large to consider the weighty issue of applying moral precepts to the realm of public administration. While the tomes of American jurisprudence are littered with examples of corporate enterprises and bureaucratic entities failing to uphold their basic responsibilities, perhaps no case has demonstrated the capacity to generate both outrage and activism as readily as The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped. Authored by John Bartlow Martin, this seminal case study examines the unique confluence of internal and external circumstances which eventually resulted in the 1947 explosion of Centralia Mine No. 5, a catastrophe which claimed the lives of 111 coal miners. By carefully retracing the series of events preceding the actual explosion, including a history of the Centralia…

References

Hartley, R.E., & Kenney, D. (2006). Death underground: The centralia and west frankfort mine disasters. Chicago, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Fanning, F. (2007). Public sector safety professionals: Focused on activity or results?. Perspectives Newsletter, 6(3), 11-15. Retrieved from  http://www.usmra.com/repository/category/disasters/Best-of-the -

Best_Newsletter_Article.pdf

Martin, J.B. (1948). The blast in centralia no. 5: A mine disaster no one stopped. In R.J. Stillman

Protecting Liberty

Individual rights

Bill of ights defines the protections afforded individual citizens under the Constitution against excessive government intrusions into private lives and arbitrary prosecutions. These rights are contained in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Since these Amendments were first adopted by the ratifying states the courts have interpreted the intent of each and created rules that attempt to keep the government from running roughshod over these rights. In 1944, the Federal ules of Criminal Procedures were generated by the Supreme Court and Congress turned them into law (LII, 2010).

One of the most important rights is to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment (LII, 2010). A warrant issued by a magistrate or judge is typically required before a police officer can enter a private citizen's residence or other property and conduct a search. In addition, the focus…

References

ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). (2002, Mar. 4). The Bill of Rights: A brief history. ACLU.org. Retrieved 17 Sep. 2013 from  https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-rights_drug-law-reform_immigrants-rights/bill-rights-brief-history .

Bilz, Kenworthy. (2012). Dirty hands or deterrence? An experimental examination of the exclusionary rule. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 9(1), 149-171.

LII (Legal Information Institute). (2010). Criminal procedure. Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School. Retrieved 17 Sep. 2013 from  http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/criminal_procedure .

Wilson, Melanie D. (2010). An exclusionary rule for police lies. American Criminal Law Review, 47(1), 1-55.

Parens Patriae

Four alleged juvenile delinquents in the Marion County Juvenile Court were tested for competency under the adult competency statute, were found to be incompetent and were ultimately ordered to the mental health division of Indiana. The mental health division unsuccessfully moved to vacate that order, and then appealed to the Indiana Court of Appeals. The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's order. However, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the order and remanded the case(s) for further proceedings. The two lower courts did not affectively apply Parens Patriae but the Supreme Court effectively applied the Doctrine.

Summary of In Re K.G.

was a 12?year-old boy accused of sexual battery, D.G. was a 10?year-old boy accused of child molesting, D.C.B. was an 11?year-old boy accused of arson and J.J.S. was a 13?year-old girl accused of burglary and theft. All four alleged juvenile delinquents: were in the Marion County…

Use of Parens Patriae

The Doctrine of Parens Patriae (Latin: "parent of the country") acknowledges the inherent power/authority of the state to protect individuals legally incapable of acting on their own behalf (Fairlex, Inc., 2013). Though the doctrine was developed in English Common Law, American jurisprudence usually applies Parens Patriae to the state's ability to protect the best interests of children, the mentally ill and other persons who are somehow legally incompetent to manage their own affairs (Fairlex, Inc., 2013). The first two categories are self-explanatory and the third category might include a senile or comatose person, for example.

Before discussing whether the courts appropriately applied Parens Patriae, it must be

Legal Transplants

The objective of this study is to discuss and compare two legal transplants with reference to at least one African or Asian legal system. For the purpose of this work, Turkey and legal transplants will be examined.

The work of Orucu (2008) states that Chiba (1986) relates the "concept of legal pluralism…as an effective attack on the common sense of orthodox jurisprudence by rejecting the 'oneness of state law as law or university of western law." (p.1) Chiba is reported to proffer a model of official law "as always intersecting with unofficial law and legal postulates, and never existing in isolation." (Orucu, 2008, p.1) It is the expectation that the state laws will in cohesion with "society and its normative orders, and religion and worldviews…work together to achieve a balanced and sustainable legal order." (Orucu, 2008, p.1-2) However, according to Orucu "legal centralism reflects the ambition of the…

Bibliography

Dai, J. (2009) On Several Problems in Legal Transplantation. Journal of Politics and Law, Sept. 2009. Vol. 2, No. 3.

Gunderson, JL and Waelde, TW (1994) Legislative Reform In Transition Economies: Western Transplants -- a Short-Cut to Social Market Economy Status? ICQL 1994, 43(2), 347-378.

Oguz, A. (2005) The Role of Comparative Law in the Development of Turkish Civil Law. Pace International Law Review. 1 Sept 2005. Article 9. Vol. 17, Issue 2. Fall 2008.

Orucu, E. (2008) Judicial Navigation As Official Law Meets Culture in Turkey. Int J.L.C. 2008, 4(1), 35-61.

U.S. Justice System vs. India's Justice System

This paper compares the system of justice in India with the system of justice in the United States. Although they are both democracies -- in fact India is the biggest democratic country in the world -- the two countries are quite different in their approach to formal justice. Moreover, the system of justice in India has been the subject of a great deal of criticism in recent years due to the corruption that has been found in the system.

Comparing the U.S. And Indian Justice Systems

The legal system in India is backed by the Indian Constitution and is a mix of "adversarial and accusatorial," according to the Loyola University in Chicago (LU). There is an attempt to respect both Hindu and Muslim jurisprudence and to "preserve the timeworn tenets of both" (LU). In rural areas of India, an informal system of justice…

Works Cited

Bhushan, Prashant. (2009). 'My Honest And Bonafide Perception.' Outlook India. Retrieved September 15, 2012, from  http://www.outlookindia.com .

Country Listing. (1995). India: The Criminal Justice System. Center for Children's Law and Policy. Retrieved September 14, 2012, from http://www.country-data.com.

Global Corruption Report 2007: Corruption in Judicial Systems. (2007). New York: Cambridge

Loyola Library. (2010). Criminal Justice System in India. Retrieved September 14, 2012,