Showing papers on "Supreme Court Decisions published in 1981"

Law, the State, and the Spatial Integration of the United States

Abstract: The rules and standards of law both regulate behavior (individual or group) and provide the context within which behavior occurs. By means of a hermeneutic framework, the spatial integration of the United States economy is interpreted in terms of the structure and application of laws adjudicated by the Supreme Court. Emphasis is placed, in particular, upon the substantive aspects of law which have provided the conditions for national economic growth. It is argued that spatial integration can be derived as an outcome from earlier debates between competing classes of the revolutionary era and from an agreement between these classes that the basic unit of American society would be the individual. However, it is also shown that control of the state by the ruling class also enabled the implementation of a policy of spatial integration as part of an overall agenda of national economic development. Evidence in support of this interpretation is drawn from Supreme Court decisions relating, for example, to the Comm...

Litigation, judicial deference, and policy change

Abstract: Social scientists have reported extensively on the impact of Supreme Court decisions overturning public policy, but not on those sustaining it. This article stresses the need to study the impact of litigation, including the impact of losing lawsuits. Presenting data on the impact of San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the article demonstrates how a losing lawsuit can produce positive policy change from the consumer's perspective. After comparing the policy aftermath of Rodriguez with that of two winning school-finance cases, I suggest that the final judicial decision may not be the most significant event in litigation stimulating policy change.

Ode to Patronage: A Critical Analysis of Two Recent Supreme Court Decisions

Abstract: Two recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, Elrod v. Burns (427 U.S. 347) and Branti v. Finkel (62 L Ed 2d 595), have struck at the heart of patronage as a method of staffing the public sector. Because many political jurisdictions in the United States rely on patronage for some of their employees and because a long American political tradition supports the use of patronage, this essay will discuss some of the possible ill effects if both decisions stand. First, the historical tensions between patronage and merit systems will be discussed to set the political background of the court's decisions. Second, the facts and reasoning of each decision will be presented. Third, the obstacles these decisions raise for effective public administration will be noted.

The Undermining of the First Reconstruction: Lessons for the Second

Abstract: As Congress considers whether to renew, amend, or scuttle the Voting Rights Act, what relevant lessons can we draw from the historical record of the First (nineteenth century) Reconstruction and its undermining? The federal voting rights machinery, more sophisticated and stringent than is usually believed, represented an attempt, parallel to the VRA, to protect citizens' political rights. It was finally outflanked, as the VRA may be. The promises of southern leaders in the l870s, convincing to some credulous Yankees of the period, are also echoed in the debate a century later. There were four stages in the nineteenth and early twentieth century attack on black voting rights: the Klan stage, the dilution stage, the disfranchisement stage, and the lily-white stage. Concentrating on the second and fourth of these, which are less well known than the other two, I detail sixteen mechanisms of nineteenth century southern vote dilution (most of which are still in use) and attempt to counter the argument that the so-called "Progressive Era" in the South was a "race-proof" period and that therefore any election schemes adopted at that time could not have been intended to disadvantage blacks. Finally, I draw parallels between Supreme Court decisions around the turn of the century and the recent decisions which climaxed with ~ v. Bolden. The possibility that the Supreme Court may again emasculate federal protection of black voting rights should give pause to any Congressperson who believes that he or she can safely let the VRA lapse because the courts can be relied upon to secure these rights.

Managing without Immunity: The Challenge for State and Local Government Officials in the 1980s

Abstract: The beleagured City of Newport, Rhode Island councilman, responding to these questions put by the attorney for an organization whose entertainment permit had been cancelled by the city council, may have voiced the quiet mutterings of many state and local government officials apprehensive about recent Supreme Court decisions which have significantly expanded their personal liability as well as that of their governmental units. The consequences of these decisions can be both direct and costly.2 The Newport councilman had ample reason for feeling that the world of government was no longer as before. When he gave the testimony quoted above, the city council had already been enjoined by a state court from cancelling a permit after a promoter proposed substituting a rock group, Blood, Sweat and Tears, for a jazz performer, Sarah Vaughn. A jury was soon to award damages to the concert promoters, finding the city liable for $72,910 in compensatory damages, for they determined that the city's attempt to cancel the permit resulted in the promoters being able to sell less than half of the 14,000 available tickets. More significantly, the jury awarded $200,000 in punitive damages against the city, and assessed liability for an additional $80,000 in punitive damages against the mayor and seven city council members in their personal capacities.3 Although the courts that considered the case found that the council's decision to cancel the permit infringed upon the promoter's right of free speech, for which the Supreme Court traditionally has applied strong protection, the case reflects the extent to which liability can arise while officials are exercising their responsibility to govern. The most recurring source of liability under the most recent Supreme Court pronouncements will likely derive from the performance of administrative functions, and in particular from those related to federally sponsored and federally assisted programs. With the present litany of managemental regulation and instruction far beyond any individual's capacity to absorb, misinterpretation and misapplication are inevit-

The "New Federalism" and Prisoners' Rights: State Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective

Abstract: States Supreme Court has become a central concern of political scientists who are interested in judicial behavior. There is now a substantial body of literature showing that state and federal judges sometimes take advantage of well-established features of the judicial system in order to ignore, evade, or modify significant Supreme Court pronouncements.1 For example, by making crucial findings of fact that may distinguish a case under consideration from a Supreme Court holding or by dismissing Supreme Court language as "mere dicta," lower court judges can reach decisions which are clearly at variance with those announced by the High Court. Thus, the Supreme Court, like any top level policymaker in a large organization, must contend with the problem of lower level officials who disagree with particular policies and who may take steps to have them rendered ineffective.2 This view acknowledges that despite the hierarchical nature of the American judicial system, both state and federal judges have wide latitude in implementing Supreme Court decisions. Although existent research provides considerable insight into the activities of lower courts, very few comparative analyses of state and federal judicial decision making have been performed. As Glendon Schubert pointed out several years ago, ". . .among contemporary political scientists, there is more discussion of the virtue of comparative analysis than there is demonstration of either the theoretical or empirical benefits to be derived from comparative work."3 This state of affairs has permitted several widely held notions about the contrasting behavior of state and federal judges to remain virtually unchallenged. For example, many legal scholars believe that Supreme Court decisions which uphold constitutional claims against the states are likely to be supported more strongly by federal judges than by state

The uncertain application of the right of privacy in personal medical decisions: the Laetrile cases

Abstract: In the fifteen years since the right of privacy was given its modem enunciation2 by the United States Supreme Court, its scope has been defined to include such medically related decisions as procreation,3 abortion of a fetus,4 and contraception.5 The Court, however, has so far declined to decide whether the right of privacy is a fundamental one in the context of an ill person's right to make an informed choice among various medical treatment options. The unsettled application of a medical right to privacy is well illustrated by the conflicting decisions of state and federal courts faced with cancer patients' demands for the federally proscribed drug Laetrile. This Comment will briefly survey the history of Laetrile and the Laetrile cases that have addressed the right of privacy argument, and will then discuss the right of privacy doctrine in the constitutional context of the federal government's approach to cancer.

A Review of Niblett's Legal Protection of Computer Programs and Diamond v, Diehr and Some Thoughts on Patenting Computer Programs

Abstract: Bryan Niblett, author of Legal Protection of Computer Programs,' is one of those rare individuals who is skilled in two disciplines. He is a professor and the head of the department of computer science at the University of Swansea in Wales, and he is a barrister of the Inner Temple. If only he were also a patent attorney, he would be ideally qualified to comment on how one should protect one's proprietary interest in computer programs. But his excellent computer science credentials allow him to view this area of law from a vantage point that is more technically sound than that of most other commentators, and his lack of practical experience in the patent law field is offset by his neutrality-he does not represent clients who either favor or oppose the granting of legal protection to computer programs. Accordingly, this small volume, which is designed to serve as an introductory tutorial for both attorneys and computer scientists, is worthy of study. Niblett's book contains numerous insights into the nature of the complicated legal structures that have grown up in this area of law. We should study Niblett's book, because his qualifications as a computer scientist and barrister lend a note of authority to his prose that is missing from much of the literature on this subject. Certainly, the Supreme Court of the United States lacks technical expertise. But Supreme Court decisions are the law of the land, and this fact lends more than just a note of authority to whatever the Court says. Accordingly, in this review article I shall review not only Niblett's excellent little book but also the Supreme Court's latest attempt to determine the patentability of computer programs. In Diamond v. Diehr,' five members of the Court held that a novel computer program for controlling the curing of syn-