Showing papers in "Buffalo Law Review in 2000"

Localism and Regionalism

Abstract: Localism and regionalism are normally seen as conflicting, conceptions of metropolitan area governance. Localism is the belief that the existing system of a large number of relatively small governments wielding power over such critical matters as land use regulation, local taxation, and the financing of local public services ought to be preserved. Regionalism would move some power to institutions, organizations or procedures with a larger territorial scope and more population than existing local governments. Regionalism appears to be a step towards centralization, and the antithesis of the decentralization represented by localism. Yet, in the metropolitan areas that dominate America at the end of the twentieth century, regionalism is not just the enemy of localism: It is also localism's logical extension. Localism is based on a set of arguments concerning the role of local governments in promoting governmental efficiency, democracy, and community. But in contemporary metropolitan areas, the economically, socially, and ecologically relevant local area is often the region. In these areas, concerns about efficiency, democracy, and community ought to lead to a shift in power from existing localities to new processes, structures, or organizations that can promote decision-making on behalf of the region. Regionalism is, thus, localism for metropolitan areas. Localists, however, do not become regionalists when they live in metropolitan areas. Indeed, resistance to regionalism is intense in many metropolitan areas. Localism is not simply a theory intended to advance certain normative goals. It is also a means of protecting the interests of those who receive advantages from the existing governance structure. Local self-interest, rather than the political values localism is said to advance, plays a central role in the opposition to regionalism. This essay explores the relationship between localism and regionalism. It considers the meaning of regionalism in contemporary urban policy debates and the reasons why regionalism currently enjoys so much attention from academics, urbanists and policy analysts. It reviews the arguments for localism, and explains how, despite the asserted conflict between localism and regionalism, the theories underlying localism actually make a case for regionalism in contemporary metropolitan areas. Finally, it examines the role of local self-interest in the resistance to regionalism, and the efforts of regionalists to respond by making the case for regionalism in terms of local self-interest as well.

The legal bounds of physician conduct hastening death.

Abstract: For a dying medical patient whose suffering and/or indignity have passed tolerable limits, a variety of modes of hastening death might seem appealing. These include cessation of life-sustaining medical intervention (once the patient is machine dependent), stopping of eating and drinking, use of pain relievers that might hasten death, terminal sedation, suicide, and euthanasia. The legal status of some of these modes is well established. Physicians may cooperate with rejection of medical intervention and may not assist a suicide or administer euthanasia no matter how dismal the patient's condition. The legal status of the remaining modes of hastening death is less examined and less well understood. Popular wisdom says that risky analgesics and terminal sedation are lawful so long as the cooperating physician intends to relieve suffering rather than to cause the patient's death. That wisdom relies on the principle of double effect. This article vigorously contests the thesis that the physician's specific intent is the key determinant in shaping the legal status of risky analgesics and terminal sedation. Rather, principles of recklessness -- grounded in degree of mortal risk, nature of the palliative justification, and professional palliative care practices -- govern the legality of these disputed means of hastening death. This article also discusses the implications of the recklessness framework for the crimes of assistance to suicide and euthanasia. In contrast to some commentary that finds the distinctions among various modes of hastening death to be utterly arbitrary, this article argues that plausible theoretical distinctions separate the currently licit from the illicit modes of hastening death. Nonetheless, the article finds tensions and anomalies within the existing legal structure and suggests that the impetus for death with dignity will eventually impel legal acceptance of currently prohibited modes of hastening death. At the same time, the article acknowledges that the bounds will not stop at physician-assisted suicide for competent dying patients. Expansion of the legal limits will ultimately encompass both euthanasia and non-voluntary euthanasia for some fatally stricken patients.

Lawyer Role, Agency Law, and the Characterization Officer of the Court

Abstract: The law of agency has governed American lawyers since before the Revolution, but recent scholarship about legal ethics and professional role almost entirely ignores it. Most commentators would concede that attorneys are agents, but would quickly add that the lawyer is also an \"officer of the court\" who has obligations to seek justice. However, analysis of the phrase \"officer of the court\" reveals that it has surprisingly little content; it is mostly rhetoric, caused by self-love and self-promotion. What little content it has points to a role of the attorney as agent whose obligations to the court are almost identical to those owed by non-lawyers and almost entirely consistent with duties to clients. By largely ignoring agency law, and failing to throughly examine the attorney's role as an \"officer of the court,\" commentators have mistakenly grounded wide ranging arguments that lawyers must seek \"justice\" because they are officers of the court who have a special obligation to seek justice. Indeed, they argue that the lawyer's duty to seek justice is superior to the obligation of loyalty and zealous advocacy on behalf of the client. In their view, there are situations in which the lawyer's duty as an \"officer of the court\" empowers her to disobey the client's lawful instructions because following them would not promote