After years of disclosure of forensic frauds, discrediting of previous forensic techniques, and exonerations of innocents incarcerated for crimes they did not commit, in 2009, at the behest of Congress, the National Academies of Science published a thoughtful, but devastating critique of the practice of forensic science in the criminal courts of the United States.
During recent decades, the teaching and discussion of Evidence law have come to focus almost entirely on the topics covered by the Federal Rules of Evidence and their state equivalents. Just as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure caused teachers and scholars to focus on what they cover, the Federal Rules of Evidence have come to define our understanding of what Evidence law is about.
Any new practice involving communication can pose a challenge to established free speech law. A few such practices are of exceptional value in promoting a clearer understanding of free speech law and, crucially, of the increasingly important deficiencies of even our best free speech theories. The practice of projecting light messages onto targeted property is just such a practice.
Students seek to bust the curve in law school. The law faculty’s job is to ensure that in doing so, students will be well positioned for success in life and the profession. In a constantly changing economy and society, the faculty does its job by keeping ahead of the curve itself.
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The written submissions from Upward! combine to relate a story of law school curricular, student body, and course design that responds to the changing needs and realities of the profession and student demand.
Earlier this year, a trial court in Indiana ordered IBM to post a $25 million appeal bond staying execution of a $78 million judgment. The litigation arose from IBM’s breach of a contract requiring it to automate much of Indiana’s welfare services. The amounts of both the judgment and appeal bond are perhaps extraordinary. Still, the IBM case highlights lessons for attorneys requesting stays in more commonplace civil cases.
This Article begins by explaining why a party would need to request an appeal bond and the requirements for doing so. It then addresses how courts determine the amount to fix for such a bond. It concludes by offering some practical considerations for both defendants (judgment-debtors) and plaintiffs (judgment-creditors).
The Federal Sentencing Guidelines were originally imposed by Congress in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA). This statute was an attempt to create a determinate sentencing system, which included large-scale elimination of parole and severe restriction of good time credit in order to create a system in which criminals would serve most or all of the time to which they were sentenced.
For nearly 100 years prior to the enactment of the SRA, the U.S. federal criminal system was an indeterminate sentencing system, under which “[s]tatutes specified the penalties for crimes but nearly always gave the sentencing judge wide discretion” in whether an individual should be incarcerated and for how long, and as to whether the use of parole was appropriate.
False Facts and Holy War: How the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause Cases Fuel Religious Conflict
Like the Muses, the Justices of the Supreme Court are nine in number. Like the Muses, the justices can tell false things as well as true ones. In the messy area of government-religious speech, the Supreme Court’s opinions sometimes contain facts that seem plausible but are false.
