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Describes a course on civil litigation with the federal government at Drake University Law School (Iowa). Notes course objectives, including the practical aspects of federal government civil litigation, the concept of sovereign immunity in a democratic society, theories of statutory interpretation, and use of attorney fee shifting in such cases. (DB)

IV. HOW MAY THE LAWYER ENGAGE WITH REAL EVIDENCE? THE LAW ON OBSERVATION AND EXAMINATION For the next two parts of this Article, I assume that the documents or items [...]

11. 2011 Term: Privacy and Administrative Law Claims a. Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper: Strict Scrutiny Bolsters Immunity from Damages Claims Absent Unequivocal Waiver Congress enacted the Privacy Act in [...]

In the article, the author discusses how the establishment clause in the U.S. Constitution affects the decisions of judges in legal disputes involving church and state. Also cited are how religious affiliations affected the decisions of judges with and without religious organizations, and the results showing that judges with no religious affiliations are more likely to reject Establishment Clause claims.

We analyze various factors that influence judicial decisions in cases involving Free Exercise Clause or religious accommodation claims and decided by lower federal courts. Religious liberty claims, including those moored [...]

Drawing on our continuing empirical study of decisions on the free exercise of religion, we suggest that the federal courts were approaching equilibrium in outcomes from 2006 to 2015. In a departure from our prior studies examining the preceding twenty years, we now observe that claimants from the majority of religions did not experience either success or failure at significantly different rates. The principle of expansive and inclusive religious freedom in the United States has been blemished by a persistent history of inequality and intolerance. In prior studies, we found that Catholics, Baptists, and Muslims suffered marked disadvantages when they sought accommodation for religious practices. From 2006 to 2015, by contrast, variation in claimant outcomes from Catholic, Baptist, Islamic, and most (but not all) other traditions did not achieve significance. Consistent with a possible trend toward equilibrium, our Case-Type variables are remarkably robust and significant. In an ideal religious liberty doctrinal regime, the balance between accommodating religious exercise and upholding important government purposes will shift with the character of the dispute defined by these conflicting interests. Our encouraging results indicate that the driving force in religious liberty decisions increasingly lies in the case's contextual background rather than the claimant's religious identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT With the enduring doctrine of federal sovereign immunity, it is too late in the day to suggest that the United States should be treated as an ordinary party in [...]

In our ongoing empirical examination of religious liberty decisions in the federal courts, extended now into a third decade, we find the persistence of ideological influence in Establishment Clause decisions for the period of 2006-2015. Because a non-partisan judiciary is essential to preserve the rule of law, we should sound the alarm when partisan influences appear to be weighting the outcome. At the same time, one might take comfort in a systematic narrowing of the partisan gap in this most recent ten-year period for our study. For 1996-2005, we had found an Establishment Clause claimant's chances for success were approximately 2.25 times higher before a judge appointed by a Democratic President than one appointed by a Republican President. By this 2006-2015 period, the Establishment Clause claimant advantage before a Democratic-appointed judge had fallen to about one-third higher than before a Republican-appointed judge. Moreover, a Supreme Court precedent variable was the single most significant, robust, and powerful influence on the outcome. Thus, our findings suggest that legal controls may meaningfully confine subjective discretion and reduce the influence of extra-legal factors in federal court decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1988 hundreds of federal district judges were suddenly confronted with the need to render a decision on the constitutionality of the Sentencing Reform Act and the newly promulgated criminal Sentencing Guidelines. Never before has a question of such importance and involving such significant issues of constitutional law mandated the immediate and simultaneous attention of such a large segment of the federal trial bench. Accordingly, this event provides and archetypal model for exploring the influence of social background, ideology, judicial role and institution, and other factors on judicial decisionmaking. Based upon a unique set of written decisions involving an identical legal problem, the authors have produced an unprecedented empirical study of judicial reasoning in action. By exploiting this treasure trove of data, the authors have looked deeper into the judicial mind and observed the emergence of influences upon the manner in which a judge examined the constitutional issues, adopted a constitutional theory, and engaged in legal reasoning.