Suchergebnisse

The author recommends In The Hands of the People to every high school or college civics instructor as a basic text on America's jury system. In this book, Judge Dwyer traces the history of the jury system in Anglo-American legal history from its earliest inception to its present status in the American justice system.

In this article, I will first explore Washington's existing law, both statutory and judicial, on statutory interpretation. I will then evaluate the mechanisms for construing statutes derived from common law and legislative sources. Finally, I will recommend a new paradigm for statutory construction so that legislative intent may be more accurately conveyed to the courts, abandoning many of the time-encrusted canons in favor of principles of interpretation adhering more specifically to the legislature's actual statutory language.

This is an introduction to the Seattle University Law Review's Symposium on the initiative process in Washington. In this Symposium, the authors address a variety of issues associated with the initiative process in our state. They examine the specific case of Initiative 695, the role of the courts in reviewing initiatives, the application of the Republican Government Clause in the United States Constitution to Washington's initiative process, and the larger question of whether the entire initiative process is unconstitutional. These articles are timely analyses of a pressing public issue. This Seattle University Law Review Symposium on initiatives will highlight difficult issues facing the initiative process in Washington and will offer substantive and sensible ways of interpreting and dealing with initiatives in our state. All who value our democratic system will look forward to the thoughts of the many fine authors writing for this Symposium.

A new movement in America espousing a novel doctrine, property-rights absolutism, has gained some popular and political appeal. But the property rights absolutists tend to ignore the societal foundations of property, and especially de-emphasize the responsibilities property owners have to the community in which they live. They fail to consider properly the significance of the police power and its vital role in the American and Washington State constitutional systems. This Article debunks the newly minted mythology of the property-rights absolutists and places the police power and property rights in their proper historical perspective.

The Washington Legislature in its 1981 session enacted Senate bill 3158,1 the Tort and Product Liability Reform Act, a comprehensive change in product liability and tort law in the State of Washington. This change, perhaps the most sweeping legislative involvement in Washington tort law in this century, was accomplished after many years of extremely bitter political conflict over product liability and tort reform; Senate bill 3158, however, passed the legislature with little of the acrimony previ- ously associated with the issue. This article explores the involve- ment of the legislature in product liability and tort reform his- torically, reviews the legislative history of Senate bill 3158, and discusses the relationship of the changes contained in the Act to the present law of the State of Washington.

The extension of fourteenth amendment due process rights to students in the public schools is a relatively recent phenomenon in educational law. In contrast to the earlier emphasis upon student responsibilities, there is now an increasing recognition of student constitutional rights. In Washington, legislation and administrative rules promulgated by the State Board of Education have conferred the basic protections of constitutional due process upon pupils from kindergarten through high school. This note will discuss the effect of these enactments on the rights of students and on the educational environment in Washington. Following an examination of the Washington regulatory framework, three areas will be discussed: (1) the significance of the Washington method of establishing student rights primarily by administrative rules; (2) the constitutional requirements of procedural due process in the educational setting; and (3) the effect of the administrative rules on the doctrine of in loco parentis in Washington.

The tenability of such a unicameral legislature in Washington will be analyzed by examining: 1) the background and history of unicameralism; 2) the effect of the reapportionment cases on the need for a bicameral legislature; 3) the "efficiency" of a unicameral as opposed to a bicameral legislature; and 4) means of implementing a change from bicameralism to unicameralism. In addition, results of the authors' poll of state legislators and a sample constitutional amendment are presented.

Every judicial campaign year, millions of dollars pour into individual court races around the country. The bulk of that money is donated by lawyers, businesses, and others with financial interests in how judges, especially appellate judges, decide cases. United States Supreme Court rulings on political contributions and spending have hamstrung the ability of states to control larges-cale expenditures in judicial races. This essay reviews empirical research by political scientists who have documented the effect of large campaign donations on how judges decide cases and on the public's perception of court impartiality. It describes how legislatures and courts have addressed (or failed to address) the flood of money into judicial races. The essay then proposes a number of actions that state courts and legislatures could take to control judicial campaign spending. First, we recommend that in jurisdictions with inadequate statutory judicial campaign controls, state supreme courts should act forcefully to impose strict caps on both direct and coordinated contributions to judicial campaigns, using the American Bar Associations Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Rule 4.4(B)(l). Second, we suggest that state codes of judicial conduct should integrate the parallel mandatory disqualification mechanism in the ABA 's Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Rule 2.11 (A). Next, we contend that legislatures have sufficient cause under a strict scrutiny test to protect judicial impartiality and the appearance of impartiality by limiting total judicial campaign committee expenditures and controlling independent expenditures by outside groups. Further, we assert that if legislatures fail to act, the courts themselves have sufficient inherent authority to impose those expenditure limits. Finally, we urge states to adopt public funding systems for judicial campaigns, and we argue that the need for judicial impartiality should provide legislatures with sufficient cause to adopt restrictions that would not be constitutionally acceptable in ...