Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

Issue Sequencing and Summary Disposition in an Efficient Legal Process

Abstract: This paper provides a conceptual framework for analyzing the impact of imperfect information on decision making. It goes without saying that rules that economize on information must not excessively sacrifice the accuracy of the outcome. On the other hand, gathering information is never costless. Accordingly, optimal rules will depend on the value of gathering additional information -- i.e. the social costs of reducing the incidence and magnitude of error. Statistical decision theory provides a formal methodology for developing optimal rules for gathering information. Building upon a well established economics literature, we treat the gathering of information as a stopping problem. The optimal stopping rule has the property that additional information is gathered only if the marginal value of the information exceeds the marginal cost of the information. In this paper, we formulate a multi-stage decision model of efficient procedure that incorporates these various elements. We determine for the optimal summary disposition standards that minimize the sum of information and error costs. We also determine the efficient sequence in which legal and factual issues are evaluated. We take into account the potential for replacing information gathering with presumption at an earlier stage. We also take into account the potential for grants of summary disposition for the plaintiff as well as for the defendant. Finally, we analyze the interaction between the full information standard and the use of summary disposition. We demonstrate five basic results. First, we derive optimal standards for summary disposition. We show how those standards depend on the cost of information, the weights of the issues in determining the overall merits of the case, and the initial degree of uncertainty regarding the issues, that is, the strength of the fact finder's initial presumptions. Second, we derive results on the optimal sequencing of issues. These results elucidate the type of issues that are most appropriate for summary disposition and what type more appropriately would be tried on the merits on the basis of a fuller record. Third, we establish that it generally is optimal for summary disposition to be two-sided. That is, plaintiffs as well as defendants should be able to be granted summary disposition on a particular issue. Fourth, we establish that there are two stages at which it is optimal to consider summary disposition. One stage occurs early in the process before detailed case specific facts on any issues are generated. The other stage occurs after facts have been gathered on some but not all of the relevant issues. Fifth, we establish that it generally is optimal for legal standards based on full information to be relative standards, in which issues are balanced, rather than separate absolute standards for each issue.

Pierson v. Post: The New Learning

Abstract: Pierson v. Post, 3 Caines 175 (N.Y. 1805) is one of the most commonly assigned cases in first-year Property courses. For many years our only information about the case, other than the report itself, has been a vivid but antiquarian account published in 1895. Recent years have seen a flurry of articles that provide a great deal more insight into the case and its context. This paper summarizes the “new learning” for students and teachers of Property.

Unwrapping the Box the Supreme Court Justices Have Gotten Themselves Into: Internal Confrontations over Confronting the Confrontation Clause

Abstract: Williams v. Illinois, handed down in 2012, is the latest in a new and revolutionary line of U.S. Supreme Court cases beginning with the 2004 decision of Crawford v. Washington which radically altered the Court's former approach to the Constitutional Confrontation Clause. That clause generally requires persons who make written or oral statements outside the trial, that may constitute evidence against a criminal defendant, to take the witness stand for cross-examination rather than those statements being presented at the trial only by the writing or by another person who heard the statement.Previous to Crawford, under Ohio v. Roberts, decided in 1980, the Court did not apply the requirement to statements made outside the trial if they were considered reliable. They were considered reliable only if they fit a traditional “firmly rooted” hearsay exception or were otherwise deemed reliable on the facts. But Crawford overruled Roberts. Crawford held that reliability is too subjective and flexible a concept, and that the Confrontation Clause by its terms does not command merely that evidence be reliable, but that reliability be determined in a particular way -- by live cross examination. Thus Crawford decreed that henceforth, oral or written statements made outside of the trial that are “testimonial” cannot be admitted into evidence against the criminal defendant unless defendant has an opportunity to cross examine the maker at the trial or (if the maker is unavailable then) there was a sufficient earlier opportunity for cross examination. “Testimonial” generally speaking seemed to mean statements intended or understood to potentially supply evidence (perhaps only if the statement is acquired by agents of the state in a somewhat formal or solemn setting).

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome: A Global Health Challenge

Abstract: Beginning in May 2015, Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS) experienced its first publicly reported “super-spreading” event in South Korea. By mid-June, more than 120 cases and 11 deaths in South Korea had been linked to a businessman returning from travel to Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Globally more than 1200 had been infected of whom more than 450 died — a high fatality rate of 37%.What are the most effective legal, social, and public health responses to MERS and other emerging diseases? First, the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations (IHR) did not effectively guide the MERS outbreak. The IHR, the governing framework for global health threats, should be amended to allow for graduated alert levels and building health system core capabilities.Second, MERS, like all emerging health threats requires a strategic and measured public health response, including government transparency, protection of health workers and robust infection prevention and control, humane isolation and quarantine measures, travel restrictions that adhere to WHO guidance, and school closures only when strictly necessary. Third, international rules and governance must effectively address the contentious history of “ownership” of MERS-CoV. There are glaring gaps in the international system for equitable virus sharing and assertion of intellectual property rights over biological materials and genetic viral sequences. Finally, we propose the development of robust health systems throughout the world to contain the spread of MERS-CoV — as well as the next infectious disease threat.

Affordable Housing: Of Inefficiency, Market Distortion, and Government Failure

Abstract: In this essay, I examine the types of costs that are imposed on society as a whole due to the absence of a sufficient number of decent housing units that are affordable to the low-income population. These costs present themselves in relation to health care, education, employment, productivity, homelessness, and incarceration. Some of the costs are direct expenditures while others are the result of lost opportunities. My hypothesis is that these costs are significant and offer, at the very least, a substantial offset to the cost of creating and subsidizing the operation of the necessary number of affordable housing units that are currently missing. I suggest a series of reasons why, in the face of this potentially inefficient outcome, the market/society does not produce the required units. The essay is conceptual in nature, not empirical. I recognize the issues associated with the quantification of often opaque costs and with their causal relationship to the lack of affordable housing. It is clear, however, that the costs are sizable and the correlations are strong and therefore, I believe, the hypothesis requires empirical study.