Topic
Supreme court
About: Supreme court is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 41858 publications have been published within this topic receiving 306787 citations. The topic is also known as: court of last resort & highest court of appeal.
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TL;DR: Applying the model of conscientious objectors to conscription suggests that if states choose to offer nonmedical exemptions, they may be able to optimally balance individual freedoms with public good by considering the sincerity of beliefs and requiring parents considering exemptions to attend individual educational counseling.
Abstract: All jurisdictions in the US require proof of vaccination for school entrance. Most states permit non-medical exemptions. Public health officials must balance the rights of individuals to choose whether or not to vaccinate their children with the individual and societal risks associated with choosing not to vaccinate (i.e., claiming an exemption). To assist the public health community in optimally reaching this balance, this analysis examines the constitutional basis of non-medical exemptions and examines policies governing conscientious objection to conscription as a possible model. The jurisprudence that the US Supreme Court has developed in cases in which religious beliefs conflict with public or state interests suggests that mandatory immunization against dangerous diseases does not violate the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. Accordingly, states do not have a constitutional obligation to enact religious exemptions. Applying the model of conscientious objectors to conscription suggests that if states choose to offer nonmedical exemptions, they may be able to optimally balance individual freedoms with public good by considering the sincerity of beliefs and requiring parents considering exemptions to attend individual educational counseling.
60 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: This article applied research in cognitive linguistics to critically evaluate the metaphoric construction of immigrants in the law, and proposed an oppositional metaphoric framework based on the concepts of migration and economic sanctuary, in contrast to existing legal metaphors that describe immigration in terms of danger, attack, and criminality.
Abstract: Metaphors tell the story of immigration law. Throughout its immigration jurisprudence, the U.S. Supreme Court has employed rich metaphoric language to describe immigrants attacking nations and aliens flooding communities. This Article applies research in cognitive linguistics to critically evaluate the metaphoric construction of immigrants in the law. Three conceptual metaphors dominate legal texts: IMMIGRANTS ARE ALIENS, IMMIGRATION IS A FLOOD, and IMMIGRATION IS AN INVASION. In order to gauge the prevalence of these metaphors, the Article engages in a textual analysis of modern Supreme Court opinions and presents original empirical data on the incidence of alienage terminology in federal court decisions. The Article explains how immigration metaphors influence not only judicial outcomes, but also social discourse and the broader debate over immigration reform. As such, the theoretical study of language has very practical consequences for the people defined by immigration metaphors. The Article concludes by proposing an oppositional metaphoric framework based on the concepts of migration and economic sanctuary. These metaphors describe immigration in terms of movement, work, and community, in contrast to existing legal metaphors that describe immigration in terms of danger, attack, and criminality. Thus, while today’s immigration metaphors signify a loss of economic security and cultural hegemony, the proposed terms emphasize immigrants’ economic contributions and potential for social belonging. This process of evaluation and substitution diminishes the power of existing metaphors to conflate and essentialize, while creating space in the legal imagination for new frames to emerge.
60 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the role of challengers in elections to the states' highest court was investigated. But the role and characteristics of the challengers in these elections were not discussed. And they did not reveal whether the challengers entering these races have sufficient experience to pose a threat to the officeholders.
Abstract: In this article, we answer two important questions about the role of challengers in elections to the states’ highest courts: (1) under what conditions do incumbents draw challengers, and (2) do these same conditions influence whether the challengers entering these races have sufficient experience to pose a threat to the officeholders (i.e., are they quality challengers). While the factors related to each electoral contest and the forces characterizing the overall political climate of the state should affect the type of challenge, if any, we also expect institutions to matter. Specifically, factors governing the attractiveness of supreme court seats, as well as the formal means by which judicial elections are organized, all should serve to enhance or inhibit competition. In an analysis of all 146 partisan and nonpartisan elections to state supreme courts from 1988 through 1995, we find that competition from both inexperienced and experienced challengers is predictable from some basic information about the ...
60 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: The authors empirically examined whether a state's choice of scientific admissibility standard does not matter in tort cases using data provided by the Federal Judicial Center, the National Center for State Courts, and the New York and Connecticut court systems.
Abstract: Nearly every treatment of scientific evidence begins with a faithful comparison between the Frye and Daubert standards. Since 1993, jurists and legal scholars have spiritedly debated which standard is preferable and whether particular states should adopt one standard or the other. These efforts beg the question: Does a state's choice of scientific admissibility standard matter? A growing number of scholars suspect that the answer is no. Under this theory, the import of the Supreme Court's Daubert decision was not in its doctrinal standard, but rather in the general consciousness it raised about the problems of unreliable scientific evidence. This Article empirically examines this question. Using data provided by the Federal Judicial Center, the National Center for State Courts, and the New York and Connecticut court systems, we apply a novel approach of using removal from state to federal court to measure litigants' perceptions of scientific admissibility standards in practice. Our analysis strongly supports the theory that a state's choice between Frye and Daubert does not matter in tort cases. The results raise larger questions about the efficacy of tort reform through procedural rules, suggesting that the judiciary in some contexts may be more responsive to educative measures than to doctrinally based procedural reforms.
60 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors test the widely assumed proposition that the original support for a decision at the Supreme Court level, the greater the subsequent compliance with that decision by the lower courts.
Abstract: This article tests the widely assumed proposition that the greater the original support for a decision at the Supreme Court level, the greater the subsequent compliance with that decision by the lower courts. Five indicators of support were used in the analysis-size of the voting majority, size of the opinion majority, number of dissenting justices, number of dissenting opinions, and author of the majority opinion. Indexes of compliance, evasion, and discord based on Shepard's Citations listings of lower court reactions to 1961-1963 Supreme Court decisions from 1963 to 1967 were used as measures of lower court responses to Supreme Court decisions. The analysis failed to support any of the hypothesized relationships.
60 citations