On June 18, 1982, the United States Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in the "right to refuse treatment" case Mills (previously Okin) v. Rogers. I The Su~reme Court stated that the case posed a substantive issue, "a definition of l a] protected constitutional interest, as well as identification ofthe conditions under which competing state interests might outweigh it," and a procedur...

The economist also emphasizes incentive effects which markets present to economic actors. Proper incentives can promote efficient use of scarce resources, while distorted or ineffective incentives will lead to waste. In a similar fashion, incentives will be influenced by decisions made in courts of law. Decisions can be framed so as to give proper incentives to individuals in such areas as cont...

The courts, legal practitioners, scholars, and social scientists have longrecognized that judges' behavior, both verbal and nonverbal, may have importanteffects on trial processes and outcomes. For example, appellatecourts have cautioned repeatedly that juries in criminal trials accord even themost subtle behaviors of the judge great weight and deference. One judgeconcluded that juries "can be ...

Discrimination on the basis of sex in employment is illegal--usually. In cases in which employers contend that sex-based hiring is necessary to protect the privacy interests of their customer, however, and in cases in which employers contend that sex-based hiring is necessary to provide a particular type of sexual titillation for their customers, courts sometimes do allow employers to discrimin...

Amicus curiae briefs are deeply woven into the fabric of modern federal appellate practice. Indeed, amici curiae submit briefs in approximately ninety percent of the cases that the United States Supreme Court entertains, and the Justices deny a minuscule number of amicus requests to participate. Amicus practice is less ubiquitous in the United States Courts of Appeals. Amici seek to file compar...

Teen Courts are an effective judicial alternative for many youth offenders. The majority of youth courts deal solely with first-time offenders. However, repeat offenders are at a greater risk for future crime. Is Teen Court effective with more experienced offenders? In this study, the authors examine the outcomes of 26 Whatcom County Teen Court offenders with at least one prior conviction. The ...

Electronic-government (e-government) involves “[t]he use of technology to enhance the access to and delivery of government services to benefit citizens, business partners and employees”.[1] One government service in particular that has much to gain from e-government is the court service, because courts in most jurisdictions have experienced and continue to experience problems with backlogs and ...

We study a contracting model with unforeseen contingencies in which the court is an active player. Ex ante, the contracting parties cannot include the risky unforeseen contingencies in the contract they draw up. Ex post, the court observes whether an unforeseen contingency occurred and decides whether to void or uphold the contract. If the contract is voided by the court, the parties can renego...

Recall from chapter 1 that the Court’s treatment of precedent takes two broad forms, positive interpretation and negative interpretation. First, the Court can interpret a precedent positively by relying on it as legal authority and thus broaden its reach or at least reiterate its continuing legal relevance. When doing so, for example, the Court can indicate that a precedent is controlling or de...

We propose an automatic camera calibration algorithm for court sports. The obtained camera calibration parameters are required for applications that need to convert positions in the video frame to real-world coordinates or vice versa. Our algorithm uses the line markings of the court for calibration and it can be applied to a variety of different sports since the geometric model of the court ca...