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The U.S. Supreme Court has heard several cases regarding special education. These cases have resulted in decisions that have addressed issues involving special education programming and procedural issues. On March 21, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools. This decision, which was the most recent special education case heard by the highest court in the United States, involved litigation in special education. In this brief article, we address the Supreme Court's decision in Perez by (a) examining the background of the case, (b) reviewing the decision by the lower courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, and (c) discussing the implications of the case for special educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An economic model of news contends that the pressures of limited column space and market competition force media actors to be strategic concerning which notable events receive exhaustive coverage, if any at all. Applying this framework to the Supreme Court can explain why coverage of the Justices' decision-making has historically been sensationalized and reserved for decisions sure to have a pronounced effect on public discourse. However, the emergence of social media as a practical alternative for mass media dissemination raises notable questions, chief among them being whether the economic framework fully extends to this newer medium. In this study, I analyze media coverage of the Court's decisions using Twitter and observe important distinctions among environments for news dissemination. I argue that the apparent reduction in the economic costs associated with coverage dissemination and consumption on social media platforms like Twitter requires viewing Supreme Court news in these environments through an amended theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In examining public evaluations of governing institutions, are job approval and legitimacy related? This question has dominated scholarship on Supreme Court legitimacy for decades. Conventional wisdom suggests that specific support (e.g., job approval) and diffuse support (e.g., legitimacy) are independent. Specific support captures short-term orientations based on policy alignment with the Court. Legitimacy is a long-term perspective reflecting more fundamental support for the Court as a governing institution. We challenge the paradigm that job approval and legitimacy are largely unrelated concepts. Specifically, we employ a variety of statistical techniques and panel data to show that changes in legitimacy are a direct effect of changes in public approval. Salient decisions and Court vacancies directly shape approval and indirectly shape legitimacy through their effects on approval. Longitudinal analysis confirms that changes in job approval precede and predict changes in legitimacy. These results suggest that the Court needs public approval, and its public approval is rooted in outcome-oriented perceptions of its decisions and membership. Further, sustained low levels of approval will eventually erode legitimacy and limit the Court's influence over policy. Thus, like the outwardly political executive and legislative branches, it is important for the Court to build political capital through job approval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to establish that capital punishment is not rational and cannot be rationalized without suicidally destroying the very ground on which lawful and rational punishment bases itself. It argues that in capital punishment, just as in any lawful punishment, the criminal is both held (humanly) rational and therefore culpable. But, unlike other forms of punishment, in capital punishment, the condemned is at the same time, held as irrational and irredeemable, beyond reform, and therein outside the ambit of rationality and humanity. In this sense a fundamental aporia is reached in rationalizing capital punishment because of the contradiction between the basis of punishment (the human as rational) and its operational logic (the condemned person as beyond reform therein irrational). Expressed another way, the judge proclaims a form of infallibility in their reasoning where the incorrigibility of the judgment is horrifically demonstrated and ironically reflected (and projected) in the incorrigibility of the condemned. This broad argument is pursued in two parts; one part interprets canonical texts such as Hobbes, Hegel and Foucault, while the second part interprets the Supreme Court of India's jurisprudence around the death penalty. While these are very different discourses it will be shown that they share much common ground in their expressing—and negotiating—the fundamental problem as described above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminal defendants can face significant pressures to plead guilty, but wrongful conviction scholarship has largely overlooked the study of guilty pleas. This study content analyzed 139 Australian appellate court judgments in which a guilty plea conviction was overturned, investigating the types of errors involved in these convictions, and the stage of the criminal justice process at which the errors occurred. The findings revealed that errors occurred during the police investigation, pretrial preparations, and formal court procedures, with the most frequent errors involving incorrect or inappropriate charges, inadequate legal representation, and the courts erroneously accepting a guilty plea. The findings raise important implications regarding the adequacy of safeguards to ensure guilty pleas are appropriate or factually and legally accurate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Where an unrepresented appellant does not attend their hearing at the Crown Court, there are three potential courses of action available to the court: adjourn the appeal; determine the appeal by way of a re-hearing of the evidence; or, strike the case from the list. Crown Court, appeal against conviction, absence of appellant, dismissal of appeal, litigant in person, reasonableness Keywords: Crown Court; appeal against conviction; absence of appellant; litigant in person; dismissal of appeal; reasonableness EN Crown Court appeal against conviction absence of appellant litigant in person dismissal of appeal reasonableness 227 230 4 07/04/23 20230601 NES 230601 The claimant was the driver of one of three vehicles which were involved in a damage only collision. [Extracted from the article]

It achieved the very opposite results, even as it relied on the same constitutional logic (the civil rights enshrined in the 14th amendment) the I Lochner i court had in thwarting mass movements for justice and equality. In the end, however, the national trauma of a capitalism seemingly on the verge of collapse, the weight of changing public opinion, and the aging out of some of the justices ended the dominion of the I Lochner i court. The Court v. the People By the turn of the twentieth century, the outcry against "judge-made law", the willful manipulation of the Constitution to shore up endangered bastions of wealth and power, had grown ever stronger. Even then, the Supreme Court justices at first succeeded in nullifying key pieces of Roosevelt's economic recovery legislation, while Democrats at the time, (as today), talked about adding new justices to the court. [Extracted from the article]

In Smith v Fonterra the New Zealand High Court and Court of Appeal struck out all causes of action in proceedings seeking orders that seven New Zealand companies cease direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 grounded in the three distinct claims of negligence, public nuisance and a proposed novel tort referred to as "breach of duty". The Court of Appeal's judgment is under appeal before the New Zealand Supreme Court. This commentary seeks to open up discussion around the reasons given for the various aspects of the judgment. In particular the commentary puts the view that there is scope for the creation of a novel common law climate tort. This tort must be forward-looking and preventive in orientation and may differ fundamentally from existing torts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Furthermore, there was a failure to advise the complainants as to alternative medical treatments and a failure to discuss the diagnosis and treatment of the complainants at MDT meetings. Keywords: Consent; medical procedure; surgery; deception; offences against the person EN Consent medical procedure surgery deception offences against the person 281 286 6 08/09/22 20220801 NES 220801 It has long been established that consent to a medical procedure, including surgical operations, will be valid when that procedure is performed by a medical professional (often referred to as the "medical exemption"). Conclusion The Court of Appeal found P to have deceived the complainants as to the true purpose of the medical procedures undertaken; the consent of the complainants being vitiated as a result. In light of this, it once more appears irrelevant that the complainants' consent was vitiated by the deception of P. Rather, the complainants were simply not sufficiently informed to be able to provide effective consent. [Extracted from the article]

Second, we must accept that the relevant date for the calculation of limitation in respect of one-off nuisances is the date at which the effects of the nuisance are first "felt" on the land of the claimant. Keywords: Nuisance; conflicts of law; oil spill; time limits EN Nuisance conflicts of law oil spill time limits 128 135 8 06/07/22 20220601 NES 220601 Introduction The Court of Appeal has, in recent months, been required to adjudicate three times in respect of the on-going litigation in I Jalla v Shell i .[4] This article will note the consequences of these three judgments taken together, but with particular focus on the concept of, and conclusions to be drawn from, the Court's reasoning as to the question of continuing nuisance.[5] It will be seen that the Court of Appeal's assessment - that the on-going effects emerging from an oil spill could not be considered a continuing nuisance - are significant both for the outcome of the case and also in highlighting the nature of the tort of nuisance as a tort against property. In the words of the Court of Appeal in I Jalla i , continuation in this sense is "emphatically not the sort of continuing nuisance with which this appeal is concerned".[35] The second, relevant, meaning of the term is where the facts constituting the nuisance itself are continuing, on-going or repeated. [Extracted from the article]

Based on U.S. Supreme Court decisions recognizing adolescence, we examined the likelihood of parole in one state for a population of candidates whose ages ranged from 14 to 21 at time of offense. Logistic regressions tested age on release, controlling for offense, adolescence-related, and rehabilitative variables. Contrary to expectations, a parole candidate's age at time of offense is not associated with release nor did age interact with culpability and rehabilitation measures. Instead, victim and prosecutorial opposition is related to a lower likelihood of release where the opposition effect is greater for those 18 years and older at time of offense. These findings reiterate the need for comparative research on parole decision-making as it may vary by time and place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A causation requirement would absolve an accessory of liability if the offence would have been committed with or without his assistance or encouragement, and this is, rightly or wrongly, plainly not the law, as the Supreme Court confirmed in I Jogee i . An accessory might intend, rather than merely foresee, the infliction of serious harm by way of a knife or a baseball bat, and might, rightly, be convicted of being an accessory to murder if that harm results in death. On one view OSA is an emaciated remoteness principle: mere lack of foreseeability will not do, what is required is a radical fissure between the accessory's involvement and the ensuing offence. [Extracted from the article]

Plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport have been the subject of ongoing melodrama. In the latest instalment, (R (on the application of Friends of the Earth Ltd and others) v Heathrow Airport Ltd [2020] UKSC 52), the Supreme Court comprehensively reversed the Court of Appeal's judgment, rejecting the finding that the decision maker acted unlawfully in designating the Airport National Policy Statement (ANPS). This commentary highlights that the Supreme Court judgment signals a missed opportunity to develop a more creative approach to the polycentric and dynamic issue of climate change in the context of nationally significant infrastructure projects. It argues that the decision is, if not wholly unexpected, a disappointing one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Secretary for Justice v Tong Wai Hung [2021] HKCA 404, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal affirmed that the doctrine of joint enterprise, as a matter of statutory construction, is applicable onwards to the offences of unlawful assembly and riot under the Public Order Ordinance (Cap. 245), and physical presence at the crime scene is not a pre-requisite to establish liability. The Court argued that such an interpretation strikes a balance between public order concerns and the need to avoid the risk of over-charging. This note contends that the Court of Appeal's decision will risk exposing numerous citizens, who can hardly be said to share culpability comparable to that of the actual and principal perpetrators of unlawful and riotous assemblies, to prosecution and conviction on questionable legal and evidential basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Idenix Pharms. LLC v. Gilead Sci. Inc., 941 F.3d 1149 (Fed. Cir. 2019), the Federal Circuit affirmed a judgment of invalidity of a patent claiming methods for treating Hepatitis C virus for, inter alia, lack of enablement. The Supreme Court denied Idenix's petition for a writ of certiorari, meaning that the Federal Circuit decision stands, and genus claims covering thousands of compounds that were supported by an insufficient number of examples have failed the enablement test not once, but twice. See Wyeth & Cordis Corp. v. Abbott Labs., 720 F.3d 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2013). This case report presents the context surrounding the Federal Circuit's Idenix decision and the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note considers the decision of the Court of Appeal in Fearn v Tate Galleries. It considers the Court's decision specifically with regards to whether the law of private nuisance discloses an action in pure overlooking cases. It argues that as a matter of historical precedent, the Court of Appeal is correct in assessing that the weight of authority argues against such an action. It then analyses how the Court of Appeal's reasoning can be viewed from the lens of understandings of property and ownership, and as part of the discussion of the interaction between planning and private law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The binding authority of substantive decisions made by the Crown Court in the exercise of its criminal jurisdiction is often assumed to be negligible. In 2013, the Court of Appeal appeared to confirm the correctness of that assumption. Yet there was little in the way of explanation or case law that was cited in support by the court. This article suggests that a re-evaluation of the place and treatment of such decisions within the doctrine of precedent is overdue, and considers that they should be recognised to have some binding effect if there is able to be established a reasonably satisfactory process to facilitate their systematic and public dissemination, whether electronic or otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent union-supported teachers' walkouts and strikes across several U.S. states and cities highlighted union-led and grassroots efforts to amplify teachers' voices. Yet, the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, provides a strength test for teachers' unions and members engaging in social justice/equity work within a post-Janus landscape. This article first explores traditional functions of teachers' unions. Next, it examines Janus and potential consequences for union participation, teachers' advocacy, and civil rights. Using a social justice lens, the article discusses how and why unions may need to consider strengthening "social justice unionism" by building on walkouts and strikes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for youth are unconstitutional. In 2016, the Court held in Montgomery v. Louisiana that the ruling in Miller should be applied retroactively. Drawing from qualitative interviews with justice actors, and individuals who were sentenced to LWOP as juveniles and paroled, this article examines the implementation of Miller-Montgomery in Michigan, the factors that influence decisions to release juvenile lifers, and their reentry process. In doing so, we focus specific attention to the role of publicly appointed defense attorneys and the application of holistic defense practices to support Montgomery case mitigation and juvenile lifer reentry. Findings indicate that institutional disciplinary and programming records, emotional wellness, statements by victims' family members, political considerations, and reentry plans are key considerations when deciding whether a juvenile lifer should be eligible for parole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: Voyeurism; secret filming of "private act" by participant in the act; reasonable expectation of privacy EN Voyeurism secret filming of "private act" by participant in the act reasonable expectation of privacy 259 262 4 06/06/20 20200601 NES 200601 Tony Richards (R) had filmed himself on his mobile phone having sex with two prostitutes, SD and JW, in their own bedrooms. Voyeurism, secret filming of "private act" by participant in the act, reasonable expectation of privacy. [Extracted from the article]

On August 2, [8], the 10th Circuit Court vacated its prior ruling and remanded the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, which was the first court to rule on I Endrew F. i , to hold further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling. Interpretation of the Endrew F. ruling by the U.S. Department of Education On December 7, 2017, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) in the U.S. Department of Education issued a Q-and-A document on the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in I Endrew F. i ([17]). Although the post- I Endrew F. i rulings will be incredibly important in understanding the effects of the decision, to fully assess the effects of the ruling, we need to look at information beyond just the decisions of hearing officers and judges in FAPE cases. [Extracted from the article]

Interest group participation in state courts of last resort has increased substantially over the past four decades, and the scope of this litigation activity has expanded to include a wider range of group participation. Despite the fact that organized interests increasingly recognize state high courts as legitimate policy venues, little is known about how interest groups choose the specific cases in which they participate. Beginning with the assumption that interest groups seek policy influence, this paper tests the hypothesis that groups strategically target cases that will best serve the policy and institutional interests of the group, while focusing group resources on cases and courts where they are most likely to be successful. Using an original dataset assembled from content analysis of more than 2,300 state supreme court decisions handed down between 1995 and 2010 and spanning three distinct areas of law—products liability, environmental law, and free speech and expression—this paper investigates the case-level and court-level factors that attract interest group participation as amicus curiae in state high courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How and why do networks of judges make a difference in judicial politics in patronage-based systems? Judicial networks provide important benefits to both patrons and judges by sharing information about the exchange of concrete rewards and sanctions, generating expectations about the staying power of the patrons and mobilizing judges when needed. These informational and mobilizing practices are at the heart of collective judicial autonomy. Yet judges exercise this autonomy in different ways depending on the presence of a dominant patronage network, the rigidity of the judicial hierarchy with the supreme court on top, and the intensity of intra-judicial conflict. I explore the informational and mobilizing practices of judicial associations – the most visible judicial networks – in post-Soviet Ukraine, a country with a large number of these associations, varying numbers of ruling patronage networks and two attempts at the abolition of the supreme court. Lessons from Ukraine’s judicial clientelism may help explain why competitive politics with vibrant judicial associationalism fail to entrench judicial independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent do informal networks shape the decisions of the Supreme Court of the Philippines? Though often raised in the Philippines, this question has never been studied empirically. To answer it, we constructed a set of social network variables to assess how informal ties, based on university connections and work affiliations, may have influenced the court’s decisions between 1986 and 2015 in 47 politically high-profile cases. Providing statistically significant evidence for the effects of political influence (presidential appointments) and hierarchical pressure (the vote of the Chief Justice) on related networks, our analysis suggests a continuing tension on the Supreme Court bench between professionalism and informality. Because the findings advance both theoretical and empirical understanding of larger issues at the intersection of courts and society throughout the region, we recommend more attention to the role of judicial networks, external to the courts as well as within them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent US supreme court decision in the matter of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization will have a tremendous effect on medical practice in upcoming years. Currently, there are many new therapeutic IBD treatments in the pipeline and most of them are presently under clinical trials.[7] Clinical trials are usually offered to patients who have severe disease, after failure of previous treatments. Current medical practice is to inform patients about the potential risk and emphasize the importance of strict birth control.[5] However, things can go wrong, and patients might experience unplanned pregnancies. [Extracted from the article]

This comment summarizes and reflects on the decision of the United Kingdom Supreme Court in Marks and Spencer v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Company (Jersey) Ltd. It presents the leading judgment as an attempt to obstruct the development of a welcome new understanding of implication of contract terms as an exercise in contractual construction. This attempt is unconvincing, requiring an unduly timid reading of Lord Hoffmann’s influential judgment in Attorney General of Belize v Belize Telecom Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 13 March 2012, the Appellants were convicted of aggravated burglary, false imprisonment and possession of a firearm at Southampton Crown Court. They were sentenced to imprisonment for public protection with a minimum term of ten years specified. Their application for leave and appeal against conviction and sentence was referred by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals to the full Court of Appeal, Criminal Division. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London (2005) authorized the use of eminent domain for economic redevelopment provided that there are sufficient spillover benefits to the public. This article examines the economic basis for this decision and tests the conclusions using cross-state data on “development takings” over the period 1998 to 2002. It also examines the political responses by states to limit such takings in the aftermath of Kelo. The results are consistent with the economic justification for eminent domain as a means of overcoming the holdout problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers a recent decision by the Supreme Court of Israel dealing with the right to family unification of Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCI). By situating the decision in the broader debate on Israel’s constitutional definition as a Jewish and democratic state, the article examines patterns where the definition plays an important role in defining the nature of the citizenship held by PCI and the limits of their rights. This examination focuses on three main issues that arose in the case: the scope of the protection of the right to family life, the comparative method used by some of the Justices to limit that right, and statements about the legitimacy of demographic considerations in devising immigration policies. This analysis demonstrates how the arguments and justifications used by the Court may provide building blocks for a legal framework that is proceeding in the direction of institutionalizing separate hierarchical categories of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the Irish Supreme Court's decision in Damache v. DPP. In this case, a law that allows senior members of the police force to issue search warrants in certain circumstances was challenged to be unconstitutional. In this case, Chief Justice Denham C.J. concluded that under some circumstances, search warrant is unconstitutional.

In R v T the Court of Appeal concluded that the likelihood-ratio framework should not be used for the evaluation of evidence except 'where there is a firm statistical base'. The present article argues that the court's opinion is based on misunderstandings of statistics and of the likelihood-ratio framework for the evaluation of evidence. The likelihood-ratio framework is a logical framework and not itself dependent on the use of objective measurements, databases and statistical models. The ruling is analysed from the perspective of the new paradigm for forensic-comparison science: the use of the likelihood-ratio framework for the evaluation of evidence; a strong preference for the use of objective measurements, databases representative of the relevant population, and statistical models; and empirical testing of the validity and reliability of the forensic-comparison system under conditions reflecting those of the case at trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a court case in which the appellant was made subject to a court order under section 28 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 following his conviction for three counts of rape. The person had initially received 18 years' imprisonment for his act of crime. The Court of Appeal also had to consider the section 28 order which disqualified the appellant from working with children.

The Court of Appeal has recently addressed opinion evidence in numerous cases. Recurring themes have been addressed consistently with the exception of R v T (2010). It is suggested that the rationale in T is not as persuasive as that adopted in other cases. This article advocates that,where appropriate, a Bayesian approach should be adopted. In favouring a Bayesian approach it is suggested that ambiguous phrases such as 'scientific method' may not serve courts effectively and judges have been correct, in the majority of cases, to approach opinion evidence in a pragmatic, case-specific fashion. The Court of Appeal warrants credit for emphasising the importance of pre-trial hearings and robust case management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the concepts of hearsay and relevance as they apply to evidence derived from messages and call logs, etc. found on mobile telephones. In some cases such evidence may also raise issues as to the relationship between the statutory rules governing hearsay and those specifically governing confessions by defendants, and in particular their possible use against other defendants who may be incriminated by them.The Court of Appeal has examined these issues on a number of occasions,notably in the case of R v Twist (2011), but I will argue here that a number of mistakes have been made and some difficulties have been misunderstood or overlooked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses four court cases which were heard by the Court of Appeal together as they all concerned the wording of sexual offences prevention orders (SOPOs). The offenders in all the four cases had been convicted of offences relating to indecent photographs of children on the internet. The offenders appealed that the terms imposed by the court were too wide or inappropriate in the circumstances of the case.

This article proposes a new cross-national thesis for judicial decision making. The judicial politicization theory posits that judges on highly politicized high courts will be more likely to decide cases using ideological and attitudinal factors than judges at less politicized courts. The theory holds that informal norms regarding judicial appointment by the executive are more important than the formal selection mechanism in determining whether a judiciary is highly or less politicized. The results show significant attitudinal judicial voting at each high court and strong support for the contention that judges on highly politicized courts are more likely to decide cases ideologically. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on a recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision (2007), this case addresses a school district’s responsibility regarding homophobic bullying, school culture, and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students to be free of discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article describes a case wherein the British Court of Appeal had ruled that the Crown Court had no power to impose a confiscation order when an offender was sentenced to a conditional discharge. Four unconnected applications for leave to appeal against sentence were made to the Court of Appeal following the case R. v. Clarke, with each applicant having been sentenced to a conditional discharge but had been the subject of a confiscation order. The implications of the case for the issue of precedent within the Court of Appeal are also examined.

The focus of this analysis is whether a strategic perspective provides a useful approach that enhances an understanding of broad patterns of judicial decision making on the U.S. Courts of Appeals. The authors examine whether it is reasonable in the majority of cases for appeals court judges to modify their behavior when necessary to avoid reversal by the Supreme Court. This assessment utilizes statistical analyses and interviews from twenty-eight judges on the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Based on a three-part argument, the authors conclude that a strategic perspective is not helpful in understanding the decision calculus of appeals court judges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to the cases of Kimel vs. Argentina, Salvador-Chiriboga vs. Ecuador, and Yvon Neptune. It describes the Court's procedure in monitoring State compliance with its judgment. It analyzes the Court's judgment in the Kimel case, wherein the Court revisited the issue of using criminal defamation laws to sanction adverse public criticism against public officials. On the other hand, the Court found that Yvon Neptune's right to be tried by a competent court protected under Article 8(1) of the American Convention was violated. The Court also mandated the State to compensate Neptune for the infringement of his rights and required the adaptation of judicial measures to finalise the criminal charges against him.

While theoretical justifications predict that a judge's gender and race may influence judicial decisions, empirical support for these arguments has been mixed. However, recent increases in judicial diversity necessitate a reexamination of these earlier studies. Rather than examining individual judges on a single characteristic, such as gender or race alone, this research note argues that the intersection of individual characteristics may provide an alternative approach for evaluating the effects of diversity on the federal appellate bench. The results of cohort models examining the joint effects of race and gender suggest that minority female judges are more likely to support criminal defendants' claims when compared to their colleagues on the bench, even after controlling for other important factors. This suggests that our understanding of judicial behaviors may be assisted by the inclusion of how individual characteristics overlap rather than examining those characteristics alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effects of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on Domestic Criminal Courts in Italy. It discusses a court case involving the Court of Cassation, the highest court of appeal in Italy, dealing with the controversial topic concerning the binding force and the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in the Italian system. The issue particularly focuses on the problematic theme of the relationship between the national and Strasbourg court judgments.

To better understand the relationship between the U.S. Supreme Court and state supreme courts, we examine how Supreme Court precedent affects state supreme court decision making. Examining state supreme court decisions in search and seizure cases decided by the Supreme Court between 1983 and 1993, we specifically test hypotheses about how state judicial context and Supreme Court behavior influences when the lower court is likely to be affected by Supreme Court precedent. We find that there is substantial variation in the responses to precedent by state supreme courts. We find that precedent has a substantial influence on the behavior of state supreme court justices, but judicial ideology and the level of historical conflict between the Supreme Court and the state supreme court also influence the dissemination of precedent to the states. Most interesting, the effect of judicial retention methods on the application of precedent are considerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine and empirically test a central assumption of strategic models of Supreme Court behavior. Specifically, I consider whether the Court selects legal instruments used in the majority opinions of federal statutory cases to reduce the likelihood that Congress will overturn that opinion, in particular whether the Court invokes constitutional interpretation over statutory interpretation to avoid congressional "overrides" in cases involving federal statutes. Using decisions from the 1953 to 2000 Court terms, I find evidence that when the Court anticipates that Congress may overturn its opinion, the Court is more likely to employ constitutional interpretation in its opinion. These findings confirm that opportunities for the Court to behave strategically are not limited to voting behavior but instead extend to other areas such as choice of legal instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When does the High Court (Family Division) have power to make a life-or-death decision for a person who lacks capacity to decide for themselves? The inherent jurisdiction and its basic principles are described. Power is to grant declaratory relief (in adult cases). Contrast the position where an adult is capable of making an autonomous decision, or the position under the Mental Health Act 1983. Examples are given of recent extensions of the jurisdiction; and prospective changes under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Particular issues relating to withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, and the distinction between omissions and positive acts causing death are discussed. When a court decision is needed on withholding life-sustaining treatment to a patient, other than one in PVS, is left unclear. The nature of the test to be adopted in reaching such decisions is described, as are the circumstances in which advance directives refusing treatment are binding, and the significance of views and wishes falling short of an advance directive; an example is given of the dilemmas that can arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]