Common law

About: Common law is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 30135 publications have been published within this topic receiving 280701 citations. The topic is also known as: judicial precedent & judge-made law.

"Convincing Empirical Evidence" on the Six Member Jury

Abstract: The United States Supreme Court has recently been increasing its references to what it likes to call "empirical" data. A genuine issue is occasionally documented by such data, for example the "unusual" character of capital punishment in Furman v. Georgia.' In some cases, however, the intent of such references is merely to ornament an already determined result; the famous footnote 11 in Brown v. Board of Education2 is an example. The Court generally cites "empirical" studies as lawyers cite cases, treating their summary conclusions as if they were holdings in prior cases. Applied to empirical research, this treatment encourages the notion that empirical findings, like case law, are infinitely mutable. The courts are thus diverted from using empirical studies for their intended purpose: to shed light on hitherto unknown facts. A more critical use of empirical data would better inform the courts and force them to face openly those instances in which their decisions are based on theory and merely ornamented by the "facts." Assurance of critical examination in the courts would also force researchers more carefully to connect their summary conclusions with the results of their studies. In two recent decisions concerned with replacing the traditional twelve-member jury with the six-member jury, the Supreme Court admitted that there was a crucial empirical issue: whether the reduction in jury size would affect trial results. In both opinions the Court cited empirical data as proof that there was no such effect. In Williams

Leading cases in the common law

Abstract: This work explores the phenomena in common law known as the "Leading Case" - cases which have established long-lasting and far-reaching precedents for the way judges have interpreted the law not only in England, but in other countries where English law has influenced the development of common law jurisdictions. By examining the historical circumstances surrounding a number of famous trials, this book reveals how leading cases often established principles which had little to do with the particular issues of the case itself. It should be of interest to historians and all lawyers interested in the development of common law.

Challenging the public/private divide : feminism, law, and public policy

Abstract: These fine books on aspects of law and criminality support the platitude that crime does not pay -- except for lawyers, criminologists and insurance companies. Canadian criminals put in more time in jail per dollar stolen in other countries, although these statistics predate the conviction of Alan Eagleson. Another statistic, even less likely to stir patriotic pride, is that Canadian youth, as Bernard Schissel points out, have the highest per capita rate of incarceration of any country in the world.If crime rates in Canada have dropped off in recent years, corresponding to the diminishing ratio of youth in the Canadian population, we still have a lot more lawyers. Prior to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians had less than half as many lawyers per capita as the Americans but now we approach two-thirds of the American ratio (Law and Markets 77-81) creating "the danger of supply-driven and socially harmful increases in litigation" (85). Virtually, all of the contributors to Law and Markets bemoan Canada's increasing litigiousness; none defend the very quality that brought one of Canada's most honoured citizens to jail. The Fraser Institute has brought together an interesting volume that seems to bear the message of Adam Egoyan's movie The Sweet Hereafter; namely, that lawyers as ambulance-chasers are bad news. Law and Markets is concerned not with corporate criminality but with the prospect that enterprising lawyers, instigating class action suits on contingency fees, will be able to dupe civil juries, and cut into profit margins. Indeed, Richard Hazelton, the CEO of Dow Corning which filed for bankruptcy because of the silicone breast implant suit, tells a cautionary tale for Canadian businesspeople.Contributors point out that jurors lack competence to assess the scientific and technical evidence about toxic emissions, risks to health, the relationship of causality and legal accountability; prejudices about dioxin spills may skew assessment of the personal injury caused by the spillage. The one exception to the anti-litigation view of the 17 contributors to Law and Markets is Mark Mattson, an environmental litigator, who argues convincingly that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act needs radical revision or abolition. Mattson argues that the federal government should either enforce environmental standards or leave private litigators like himself to engage in civil ligation against environmental polluters. Mattson recommends that public interest groups and their lawyers split the fine levied on the offending corporations or municipalities (135). While Mattson may conform to the Fraser Institute's policy on deregulation -- "It is government intervention that stands in the way of a public right to protect community resources" (136) -- his proposals would encourage litigation, diminish shareholder profits and raise citizens' taxes. If the aim of Canadian economic regulation is, as Konrad von Finckenstein puts it, "user-friendly regulation," we are led to conclude that deregulation and user-friendly regulation are not the same thing. If the conflicting interests of Richard Hazelton and Mark Mattson reveal the current contradictions of capitalism, we might also note that the provinces geographically and ideologically closest to the Fraser Institute (British Columbia and Alberta) are the most litigious, while New Brunswick are Newfoundland are least litigious (158-9).An exciting challenge for the Fraser Institute would be to take on the human rights legislation that emerged after the Second World War, arising from a combination of anti-Nazi principle, Keynesian welfarism and acceptance of wartime control of goods and services in the public interest. Since human rights codes abridge several common law rights, of property and contract, specifically the right of business to discriminate in favour of preferred employees, buyers, tenants and customers, the Institute's views on James Walker's compelling account of the role of human rights legislation in limiting racism in the Canadian marketplace would be illuminating. …

A critical introduction to law and literature

Abstract: Preface Introduction: law and literature: walking the boundary with Robert Frost and the Supreme Court Part I Eminent Domains: The Text of the Law and the Law of the Text: 1 Law's language 2 Literature under the law Part II Law and Literature in History: 3 Renaissance humanism and the new culture of contract 4 Crime and punishment in the eighteenth century 5 The woman question in Victorian England 6 The Common Law and the ache of modernism 7 Rumpole in Africa: law, literature and post-colonial society 8 Race and representation in contemporary America Conclusion Bibliography