Showing papers on "Supreme Court Decisions published in 1980"

The Supreme Court's Impact on the Law of Libel: Compliance by Lower Federal Courts

Abstract: EGAL SCHOLARS traditionally analogized the federal judiciary to a pyramid, with the Supreme Court at the apex, the courts of appeals in the middle, and the district courts at the base. The scholars focused their attention upon the Supreme Court, because they believed that this was where the authoritative decisions were made. For them, the study of public law revolved around analysis of Supreme Court decisions; it was essentially the study of constitutional law. The scholars did not focus much of their attention upon the lower courts, because they assumed that these courts obeyed the dictates of the Supreme Court. In short, the scholars subscribed to a hierarchical model to explain the Supreme Court's relationship with the lower courts. But beginning in the 1950s, and continuing through the 1960s and 1970s, revisionist scholars criticized this model. They said it reflected an "upper-court myth"' and therefore provided an unsatisfactory explanation of the Supreme Court's relationship with the lower courts. Jerome Frank wrote, "In legal mythology one of the most popular and most harmful myths is the upper-court myth, the myth that upper courts are the heart of courthouse government .... In considerable part, this belief arises from the fallacious notion that the legal rules, supervised by the upper courts, control decisions."2

Attorney Advertising: A Consumer Perspective:

Abstract: Supreme Court decisions that have established the consumer's right to receive commercial speech are reviewed, followed by survey results showing substantial discrepancies between the attorney selec...

Jury size and verdict consistency: "a line has to be drawn somewhere"?

Abstract: This research tests the simulated impact of Supreme Court decisions which allow for smaller than twelve-member juries. It identifies variation in judicial output that results from competing operating structures of jury decision making. The research employed a quasi-experimental design to address important problems of simulation, such as structural and functional verisimilitude. The sample consisted of 110 juries composed of nearly 1000 jurors. The findings indicate that a jury's size affects its behavior. Larger juries hang more often than smaller ones do. The degree to which this avoids the committing of a Type I or Type II judicial error remains to be seen; nevertheless, the Court was wrong in assuming that there are no differences in the behavior of twelveand six-member juries.

The Judiciary: The Supreme Court in the Governmental Process

Abstract: Revised and updated to include the latest Supreme Court decisions, this classic text, now in its tenth edition, provides a concise overview of the judiciary in general and the Supreme Court in particular. The only book available that combines theory and practice of the judicial process with civil rights and liberties, The Judiciary acquaints students with the intricacies of our courts, the people who compose them, and their relationship to other branches of government, as well as to individuals and groups.

Public Administrators' Official Immunity and the Supreme Court: Developments during the 1970s

Abstract: T he decade of the 1970s witnessed many changes in public administration in the United States. At the forefront of these have been the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, the emergence of "Proposition 13" style taxpayer protests in the wake of public sector labor strife and depleted governmental resources, the rise of "affirmative action," and the decline of the citizen participation movement. Consistent with the past, the core values of representatives, executive leadership, and neutral competence' continued to play a major role in American public administration. Toward the end of the decade, the latter two values and their accompanying concerns with accountability, responsibility, efficiency, and economy were particularly central to public administrative debate.2 Although less well-known, the 1970s also witnessed a number of Supreme Court decisions of fundamental importance to public administration in the United States. Some of these, including decisions dealing with the rights of public employees and federalism, have been analyzed elsewhere,3 but others of equal or even greater potential importance, such as those involving the immunity of administrative officials have been largely ignored. Broadly stated, the doctrine of official immunity renders government officials ". . . immune from liability for their actions ... even though their conduct, if performed in other ... contexts, would in itself be unconstitutional or otherwise contrary to criminal or civil statute."4 This article will analyze the content of Supreme Court decisions affecting public administrators' immunity and explain their importance for the contemporary administrative state.

Speech and Crime

Abstract: What kind of constitutional standards are applicable to communications likely to cause listeners to commit crimes? An examination of the tension between the highly protective approach to advocacy of crime taken by the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio and the provisions in many criminal codes that make those who encourage criminal violations generally punishablefor solicitation is followed by an analysis of the penological reasons for punishing crime-causing communications and of the relevance to such communications of the justifications for freedom of expression. After an account of the Supreme Court decisions dealing with this subject and a summary critical examination of interpretive approaches to the First Amendment, the author suggests standards for constitutional appraisal of prohibitions of communications that may cause crime. The central proposals are that most statements of fact and value be accorded virtually absolute protection; that dominantly situation-altering utterances, such as agreements, offers of agreement, and orders, be treated as outside the scope of First Amendment protection; and that simple encouragements to commit specific crimes, a kind of action-inducing communication, be granted a degree of protection that depends heavily on context, with criteria like those contained in Brandenburg applicable to public ideological solicitation but with much less restrictive standards applicable to private solicitation.

From Bakke to Fullilove Has the Supreme Court Finally Settled the Affirmative Action Controversy

Abstract: The affirmative action controversy over quotas is examined in light of recent Supreme Court decisions in the Bakke and Fullilove cases. Through important affirmative action courts decisions, the au...

The Cry of Wolfish in the Federal Courts: The Future of Federal Judicial Intervention in Prison Administration

Abstract: In Bell v. Wolfish, the United States Supreme Court held that, with respect to conditions or restrictions having no specific constitutional source for protection, a pretrial detainee in a federal correctional center has a right under the due process clause of the fifth amendment to be free from any punitive conditions or restrictions during detention. The Court further held that all of the challenged practices and conditions were valid because they were rationally related to the legitimate nonpunitive purposes of the detention center. Thus, the correctional facility could place two detainees in a cell built for one, prohibit receipt of books and magazines except directly from publishers ("publisher-only" rule), limit gift packages to one package of food at Christmas, conduct unannounced searches of the living areas outside of the inmates' presence, and conduct visual anal and genital searches for contraband after every contact visit, without probable cause. Apart from its impact on the rights of detainees, Wolfish has virtually blocked any potential expansion of prisoners' rights by the Supreme Court for the near future. The purpose of this Article is to examine the lower federal court decisions rendered in the period since Wolfish to determine whether judicial relief remains available in the federal system for prisoners' claims. To do so, it will be necessary first to explore the evolution of judicial intervention in correctional reform during the 1970s and the relationship of Wolfish to earlier Supreme Court decisions influential in defining the scope of judicial intervention in prison administration.

Planning and Accountability Systems for EEO and Affirmative Action Policy

Abstract: : This paper reviews the managerial, statistical and information management implications of using two standards, relevant labor force (RLF) and civilian labor force (CLF), in EEO and affirmative action planning and accountability A review is provided of the use of CLF and RLF in Supreme Court decisions related to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 The paper concludes with a description of the Department of Navy EEO Accountability System (DONEAS) which uses both the CLF and RLF standards for internal Navy review

JURY DECISION MAKING MODELS AND THE SUPREME COURT: THE JURY CASES FROM WILLIAMS v. FLORIDA TO BALLEW v. GEORGIA*

Abstract: This article analyzes recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in cases relating to the size and unanimity of juries as an example of the use (and abuse) of social science by the Court in the realm of policy analysis. The four cases reviewed “cast an unflattering light on the U.S. Supreme Court's ability to integrate social science findings into public law.”

Prayer and Religion in the Public Schools: What Is, and Is Not, Permitted

Abstract: Few areas of constitutional law have proven to be as controversial and as subject to misinterpretation as that concerning the constitutionality of government-sponsored religious activities in public schools. In the last three decades the Supreme Court in five decisions and the State arid lower Federal courts in dozens of related decisions have attempted to articulate the 1 / meaning of the religion clauses of the First ~mendment- for a variety of such activities, including State-sponsored prayer, Bible reading, and religious teaching. Notwithstanding continuing political controversy over many of these decisions, they provide a fairly consistent interpretation and application of the First Amendment.

Legal requisites for social work practice

Abstract: The manuscript reviews the implications of the latest lower and Supreme Court decisions for social work practice. Specific items discussed are: contracts, private and public agencies, token economies, and adversive treatment. Finally, the effects of legal decisions upon the future of social work practice are outlined.

Fetal viability and individual autonomy: resolving medical and legal standards for abortion.

Abstract: The Supreme Courts decision in Roe v. Wade resolve the tension between the right of privacy and competing state interests by confining a womans right to choose abortion to the stages of pregnancy prior to fetal viability. The Courts definition of viability as to ability of a fetus to survive outside the womb--either with or without artificial assistance--has raised difficult questions regarding the exact nature and scope of the right to choose abortion. Under recent Supreme Court decisions if a womans physician determines that a fetus is viable the state may prohibit abortion unless the physician further determines that the abortion is necessary to preserve the life or health of the woman. The Supreme Court has failed to fully articulate the rationale underlying the viability standard or the criteria for defining viability. The viability standard set forth in Roe was challenged in Planned Parenthood of Missouri v. Danforth. In this case the Court upheld the constitutionality of a Missouri abortion statute that defined viability as "that stage of fetal development when the life of the unborn child may be continued indefinitely outside the womb by natural or artificial life-supportive systems." The decision in Danforth that the Court lacked the medical expertise to construe the viability limitation marked a retreat from its active expansion of the privacy doctrine and resolute protection of a womans choice. In Colautti v. Franklin the Court invalidated a challenged viability determination requirement on vagueness grounds without ever focusing on the consequences of a technical viability standard. Suggested in this discussion is the means by which the viability standard can be altered to prevent the subordination of a womans right to choose abortion to the state interest in protecting potential life.