Public support for legal recognition of same-sex marriage increased markedly in Canada over the course of the 1990s. While changes in fundamental values likely account for part of the increase, the speed and magnitude of aggregate opinion change in this domain casts some doubt on strictly sociological explanations for the shift. The argument of this paper is that a sequence of high-profile Supr...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of sports and energy drinks on the surface hardness of different restorative materials over a 6-month period. Forty-two disk-shaped specimens were prepared for each of the four restorative materials tested: Compoglass F, Filtek Z250, Filtek Supreme, and Premise. Specimens were immersed for 2 min daily, up to 6 months, in six storage solutions...

Are search engine results protected speech under the First Amendment? This has become an essential question in the debate over search engine regulation. Search engine speech is at the cutting edge of several recent trends in First Amendment jurisprudence: the challenge of protection for machine-generated speech, a recent tendency toward constraining governmental economic regulatory power throug...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this paper is to describe the development and technical specifications of a framework and national key performance indicators (KPIs) for Australian mental health Court Liaison Services (CLSs) by the National Mental Health Court Liaison Performance Working Group (Working Group). METHODS Representatives from each Australian State and Territory were invited to form a Workin...

Recent Supreme Court decisions have signaled the need for sound empirical studies of the secondary effects of adult businesses on the surrounding areas for use in conjunction with local zoning restrictions. This study seeks to determine whether a relationship exists between adult erotic dance clubs and negative secondary effects in the form of increased numbers of crimes reported in the areas s...

The conventional wisdom among many legal scholars is that judicial independence can best be achieved with an appointive judiciary; judicial elections turn judges into politicians, threatening judicial autonomy. Yet the original supporters of judicial elections successfully eliminated the appointive systems of many states by arguing that judges who owed their jobs to politicians could never be t...

Author Leatrice Berman-Sandler reports on independent medical review (IMR), a state-based statutory remedy used to resolve disputes over coverage between patients and their health plans. Ms. Berman-Sandler explores the connection between ERISA preemption and IMR, and opines that in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, the stage has been set for expansion of IMR. Accordingly, Ms. Berman-Sand...

The thirty-fifth anniversary of legal abortion in the US was on 22 January 2008. During these years, millions of women have been able to have the abortions they need, without risk to their lives and health. Yet millions of other women have not. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion in the USA, left a gap between legality and access that opponents turned into a chasm fi...

There are three elements in a plaintiff's prima facie case of individual disparate treatment discrimination: (1) the plaintiff suffered an adverse employment action, (2) the action was linked to the defendant, and (3) the defendant's action was motivated by a protected characteristic of the plaintiff. The third element-the defendant's intent to discriminate-is the most challenging to prove. Thu...

Existing studies of congressional influence on Supreme Court decision making have largely failed to recognize the fact that the Court has a discretionary docket. We model the effects of congressional preferences on the certiorari decision and find strong evidence that the Court’s constitutional agenda is systematically influenced by Congress. The Court’s docket is significantly less likely to c...