Redistricting and the Territorial Community
As the current redistricting cycle unfolds, the courts are stuck in limbo. The Supreme Court has held unanimously that political… Continue reading →
2012
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Strict Liability and Negligence in Property Theory
Property theorists typically conceptualize property as a strict liability regime. Blackstone characterized property as “that sole and despotic dominion which… Continue reading →
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Sentencing: A Role for Empathy
Is empathy an important trait for a judge? Is there a role for empathy in the law? What about the… Continue reading →
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Absolute Preferences and Relative Preferences in Property Law
The dominant form of legal discourse in contemporary America is welfarist. Though there are important alternatives, welfarism also largely prevails… Continue reading →
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On Competence, Legitimacy, and Proportionality
I asked Justice Aharon Barak, then president of the Israeli Supreme Court, why he considered himself competent to decide where… Continue reading →
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Beyond Coase: Emerging Technologies and Property Theory
In 1959, Ronald Coase published his landmark paper on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would forever change the study… Continue reading →
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Sentencing Guidelines at the Crossroads of Politics and Expertise
When Minnesota created the first sentencing commission in 1978 and the first sentencing guidelines in 1980, it was hard to… Continue reading →
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Booker Rules
In United States v. Booker, the Supreme Court excised two provisions of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA) that… Continue reading →
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Proportionality and Parole
Commentators analyzing the Supreme Court’s watershed decision in Graham v. Florida, which prohibited sentences of life without parole for juveniles… Continue reading →
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The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Conviction
Borrowing from its English forebears, the United States once had a form of punishment called civil death. Civil death extinguished… Continue reading →