ASU Law Journal Cited in New York Times

ASU Law Online
Nancy S. Marder's forthcoming article in the Arizona State Law Journal, The Conundrum of Cameras in the Courtroom, 44 Ariz. St. L.J. 1489 (2013), was quoted in the New York Times on February 18, 2012.  The New York Times piece by Adam Liptak, Bucking a Trend, Supreme Court Justices Reject Video Coverage, addresses the U.S. Supreme Court's reluctance to allow cameras into the highest court in the land. "A pair of new law review articles tries to make sense of the gaps between the American and international approaches. In one of them, in The Arizona State Law Journal, Nancy S. Marder, who teaches at the Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology, noted correctly that 'most countries do not allow cameras in their courtrooms' and concluded that…
Read More

The meaning of ‘ius in bello’

ASU Law Online
This article was written by guest author Jasper Doomen, Lecturer at Leiden University. A traditional way to characterize the norms that govern the laws of war is that between ‘ius ad bellum’ (the right to engage in war) and ‘ius in bello’ (the law of armed conflict, i.e., the right which applies in a state of war). These notions may seem unproblematic. They seem to simply refer to the rules that determine the circumstances under which one is absolved of any fault for belligerence, and those that stipulate how one should act once a state of war is a reality. Serious problems emerge, however, once the status of these rules is critically examined. To what does ‘ius in bello’ amount? The notion implies the possibility to judge whether the rules…
Read More

Is stare decisis a sand castle? An open letter to my law professor colleagues

ASU Law Online
This article was written by guest author F.E. Guerra-Pujol, Associate Professor of Law at Barry University.   Dear colleagues, As we begin another fun-filled year of teaching and thinking, I can’t help but realize that the foundation of our legal system, the common law doctrine of stare decisis, Latin for “let the decision stand,” is nothing but a pretty sand castle, one that crumbles when exposed to the unceasing and timeless waves of logic and practical experience. Let me explain. Stare decisis, or the principle of precedent, is based on a simple moral maxim: the idea that judges should treat like cases alike. The general idea, the one that we law professors teach our students on the first day of law school, is that a decision made by a court…
Read More

Book Review: The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corportations, and the Public

ASU Law Online
This article was written by guest author, Michael C. Macchiarola, Distinguished Lecturer at City University of New York.* As our inelegant Presidential contest examines unceremoniously the very foundations of free enterprise, and questions the appropriate roles and responsibilities of its participants and of government more generally, Professor Lynn Stout’s The Shareholder Value Myth offers a critique of its own, laying blame for many of the corporate world’s recent failures at the feet of the overzealous corporation and its unapologetic pursuit of shareholder value. Stout’s book represents a natural progression – or corporate law corollary – to the financial world’s growing mistrust of the Efficient Market Hypothesis in the wake of our recent crisis.[1] And, I must confess, at the outset, that I approached this book and its philosophy with a…
Read More

Alabama’s Recipe for Racial Profiling: Digging Deeper Into the Big Bowl of Legal Details

ASU Law Online
This article was written by guest author Derrick Diaz. Mr. Diaz is a 2012 graduate of Rutgers Law and is looking forward to a fruitful clerkship with the Superior Court of New Jersey. Mr. Diaz has also authored Minors and Cosmetic Surgery: An Argument for State Intervention, 14 DePaul J. Health Care L. 235 (2012). Much has been topically written on the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act (“HB 56”),[1] which was purportedly passed to “help protect [the] constitutional rights [of] Alabama citizens.”[2]  However, HB 56 actually subjects both U.S. citizens and lawful aliens to racial profiling, in addition to robbing them of their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizures.  First, HB 56's brand of reasonable suspicion lays upon Alabama law enforcement the impossible burden of differentiating between ethnic…
Read More

Succession Planning for Social Enterprises: Consider the Flexible Purpose Corporation or Benefit Corporation

ASU Law Online
This article was written by guest author Alicia Plerhoples. Ms. Plerhoples is a Visiting Assistant Professor at University of California at Hastings College of the Law and will be an Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, starting Fall 2012. This post is based on her article Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks?: Applying Traditional Corporate Law Principles to New Social Enterprise Legislation, 13 Tenn. J. Bus. L. [_] (forthcoming 2012). Theoretically, the organizational spectrum has two extremes.  On one end of the spectrum are organizations that pursue social and environmental missions and eschew profit motives, such as non-profit organizations. On the other end of the spectrum are organizations that focus solely on profit-maximization and disregard social and environmental missions—these might be called profit-maximizing businesses.[1] Somewhere between these…
Read More

The Heiligenstadt Testament: Beethoven’s Therapeutic Estate Planning Experience

ASU Law Online
This contribution was written by guest author Mark Glover.  Mr. Glover is a Teaching Fellow and Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at Louisiana State University’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center.  This post is based on his articles A Therapeutic Jurisprudential Framework of Estate Planning, 35 Seattle. U. L. Rev. 427 (2012) and The Therapeutic Function of Testamentary Formality, 61 U. Kan. L. Rev. (forthcoming). The estate planning processes can be unsettling.  Because the preparation of an estate plan and the implementation of that plan through the execution of a will and other estate planning documents necessarily requires the testator to acknowledge that at some point he will die, estate planning can be psychologically tumultuous.[i]  Indeed, few enjoy contemplating their own mortality,[ii] and this reluctance to acknowledge the inevitability of death…
Read More

In Respect of Resistance to the “Rubber Stamp”

ASU Law Online
This article was written by guest author Michael C. Macchiarola.  The author is a Distinguished Lecturer at the City University of New York. On March 15, a panel of three Second Circuit judges stayed a proceeding in the courtroom of Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York. The stay is pending resolution of Citigroup’s appeal of Judge Rakoff’s rejection of its proposed settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or “Commission”) in connection with a civil enforcement action accusing the bank of substantial securities fraud in connection with the sale of collateralized debt obligations. In granting the stay, the panel was persuaded that Citigroup presented a “strong showing of likelihood of success” in having Judge Rakoff‘s rejection of the original settlement set aside. The full appeal…
Read More

Treyvon Martin and Comments on the Florida Self Defense Law

ASU Law Online
This article was written by guest author Rory Bahadur, Associate Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law. The recent news media coverage of the so called “Florida Stand Your Ground Law,” illustrates succinctly the sleight of hand that selective nomenclature sometimes facilitates.  The so called “Stand Your Ground Law” is actually a combination of three separate statutes and the stand your ground provision is perhaps the least radical and controversial.  These statutes are as follows: Fla. Stat 776.012 titled “Use of Force in Defense of Person.” Fla. Stat. 776.013 titled “Home Protection; Use of Deadly force; Presumption of Fear or Death or Great Bodily Harm” Fla. Stat. 776.032 titled “Immunity from Criminal Prosecution and Civil Action for Justifiable use of Force” The least controversial and least radical change…
Read More

Supreme Court Neglects an Opportunity to Protect Children

ASU Law Online
This contribution was written by guest author Joe Dryden.  Mr. Dryden is an Assistant Professor of Education and Law at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas.  Mr. Dryden's research interest include student First Amendment issues , the collateral impact of educational policy, dilemmas in educational leadership and effective classroom instruction. Despite the widespread calls for guidance, the Supreme Court recently denied certiorari in three cases dealing with the balance between off-campus student expression and the compelling interest of the state to protect the learning environment and those within it from cyber bullying and cyber harassment.1 There is a desperate need for a uniform standard that can be consistently applied to reduce variability in intervention efforts, and litigation outcomes. The vacuum of guidance leaves a legal landscape marked by the misapplication of…
Read More