Doctrine of unconscionability

A rule stating that a contract's terms cannot be grossly unfavorable to one party involved so that one part is at the mercy of the other.

-Also there has to be absence of meaningful choice on the side of one party

Schools of jurisprudence

 Historical visions that early law officials had of the ideas of law and justice

a. Philosophical/natural school-Law and morality go hand in hand; an unjust law is not a law

-Lon Fuller is philosopher in support of this school.

b. Analytical school-Law and morality are seperate. It doesn't matter if an unjust doctrine is a law. It's all up to higher officials.

2 Codes of Law:

a. Primary Code-What law explicitly states

b. Secondary-What the law implies in terms of social context

-HLA Hart is legal philosopher in favor of this.

1. Historical school-Law is based off of the cultural context that the law is being enforced in.

   Volksgeist=synonom; means "spirit of the people."

3 Modern Versions:

a. Legal realism/sociological jurisprudence-If you want to understand legal system, understand its actors-Police, lawyers, judges

-"The law in action"; seperate from philosophical ideas of law-Takes social factors into making decisions about the law

A legal movement that sought to study the relationship between law and culture. 

Themes:

1. Laws dont always completely solve legal disputes. Laws lead litigators to final decisions within their laws, but they dont always narrow them down to concrete legal decisions.

2. "all law is politics"-law and politics cannot be separated.

3. The law tends to frequently serve the interests of the wealthy and not the poor.

4. All legal materials are inherently contradictory

a. A man stabs a hiker and also kills 2 campers.

b. He's charged with stabbing hiker. He admits to all 3 bodies. Belge, the lawyer, decides to keep the 2 camper bodies a secret b/c of att-client privellage.

c. At trial, man confesses to all 3 and lawyers admit they knew about the bodies but out of att-client privellage they couldn't say anything. 

d. Was there an exception to att-client privellage that would permit discolsure of the body info?

A lawyer must:

a. Know everythign about the case

b. Keep all the info. in confidence

c. Reveal it all to the court

Point is is that this cant be done

a. Man says he saw a gun and wants to offer perjured evidence

b. SC said the att-client privellage doesnt let someone present perjured evidence. Also, perjured evidence must be pointed out in court

a. Man runs into supermarket with gun...

b. Issue of Miranda rights

a. A man is coerced into telling 2 cops where a child's body is.

b. Issue: In this case's retrial, body and circumstances under which it was found was used. Defense said that evidence cant be used b/c it violated 5th ammendment right to self-incriminations 

Decision by SC: Yes this violated his 5th ammendment rights but the body would've been found either way.

1. He claims 5th and 6th ammendments violated b/c:

5th: He was questioned about another case and admitted to it; the case he admitted wasn't the original one in question

6'th: He didn't waive his right to council.

c. Court ruled:

-5'th ammendment: Not violated b/c he was already read his Miranda rights and he didn't ask for an attorney even though one was waiting for him and that the lawyer was lied to.

-6'th ammendment: The ability to have a lawyer only applies after a suspect has been arraigned. A person's confessions in regards to whether or not he may go to trial doesn't violate 6th ammendment rights.

The statements in a judicial opinion that set prescedent and are essential to the outcome of the case.

Ex: In Rochen v. CA, "conduct that shocked the conscience" was the ratio decedendi

a. A jury needs to come to a unanimous decision whenever:

a. there's a 6-person jury involved

b. In a capital crime

Proces by which potential jury members are questioned. Lawyers do the questionign and choose to remove them based off of cause or peremptory challenges

Changes in Procedure of voir dire:

a. In Batson v. Kentucky, after it, peremptory challenges no longer could be used explicitly for racial purposes

b. Changes in number of jurors that have to serve: more on this

A cetain number of excuses for jury members that lawyers have where they can excuse jury members for no reason.

-No though, they cant be used for racial exclusion, gender, etc.

a. All Black jury members removed in case where 19-yr. old black boy sentenced to murder.

b. On Defense's burden to proove that the Prosecution is being discriminatory

c. SC didn;t overturn decision b/c the Defense couldn't proove there was discrimination going on.

a. All blacks removed from jury during voir dire. The defendant was convicted.

b. Def. said that 6'th ammendment right to fair trial and 14'th ammendment right for dur process were violated b/c the jury wasn't a cross-section of community

c. SC overturned Swayne v. Alabama. They made it so now the Prosecution has to proove that his peremptory challenges weren't used discriminatorily. 

Acquittal for a crime based off a jury's personal beliefs

Ex: People who refused to fight in Vietnam were tried. Juries acquitted people of these crimes because they didn't want them to go to jail for not fighting in the war, (thats their own personal beliefs.)

Criticism: Its inefficent-Juries that dont want to convict means that more work has to be done 

a. Trial where governor of NY accused JPZ of publishing bad stuff about him in his newspaper. 

b. Judge was on side of JPZ. In case, jury didn't have a large decision on the outcome. Judge made it.

c. Shows how impt juries have become these days

Shows the advantages and disadvantages of a jury.

Advantages:

-Work together

-Explain their own POV's so that everyone copmes to their own decision

-Question other juries and provoke good responses

Disadvantages:

-People have self-interests that're more impt. to them than the trial outcome

Importance of Unanimity: People all need to be convinced and to have a reason for their decisions.

A jury that is composed for trials that invove a death sentence. These jury members:

a. Wont be morally opposed to death penalty

b. They're willing to consider life in prison as a possible option for crimes too.

b. Has been a controversy in order to het death qualified juries.

a. Based off of ruling, now juries dont have to be 12 members.

b. In fed. criminal cases, there has to be 12 jury members.

c. In state criminal and civil cases, as well as fed. civil cases, 6 jury members is enough for deliberation. But if chosen, decision must be unanimous.

d. In fed. criminal cases, there must be 12 jury members. However, in all 12 jury member cases, there no longer needs to be a unanimous decision. Majority is good enough.

Defendant denied fair trial because of prejudicial pretrial publicity.

SC said even though freedom of press is a right, then if it gets in the way of a person's right to a free trial, than its not a trial.

a. US SC case determining what is/isn't considered "expert evidence."

Held enactment of fed. rules of evidence overturned Frye standard for admitting in new rules of expert evidence

a. Argument cannot be made that "if a Defendant is innocent, why not take the stand and say so?"

b. Ruling that protected 5'th amm. right against self-incrimination as evidence against a Defendant.

Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled, by a 6-2 vote, that it is a violation of a defendant's Fifth Amendment rights for the prosecutor to comment to the jury on the defendant's declining to testify, or for the judge to instruct the jury that such silence is evidence of guilt.^[1]

The ruling specified that this new extension to defendants' Fifth Amendment rights was binding on all States through the Due Process Clauseof the Fourteenth Amendment. This "no-comment rule" had already been binding on the federal government's courts because of an 1878 law.

MORE

 the manner in which indigent criminals and individuals bring cases to SC and as a result, are exempt from formal requirements and fees. They come “in the manner of a pauper.”

 a sociology prof. At UC-Berkley that has researched and concluded that dissenting people are freer thinkers.

 X: In cases where there is a conflict between fed. And state law, Supremacy clause of US Con. And Fed. Preemption rule, the Fed. Law overrules state law.

-famous professors of new Judicial Federalism:

Hans Linde, (Justice of S.C.)

a. Students wanted to get signatures for a petition at a shopping center. They were told to leave, so the students made a case

b. Under CA Con, students may peacefully exercise their right to free speech in parts of shopping centers regularly open for the public subject to reasonable regulations run by shopping center

b. Under US Con. states can provide broader for their rights for citizens so long as those rights don't infringe on any fed. Con. rights.

a. A village called Belleterre only was allowing married couples or blood related people to live in this village

b. SC said ok b/c it didnt violate equal protection, freedom of association, right to travel and privacy.

a. People only trying to get nucleur families to live in Santa Barbara.

b. SC said that this wasn't possible because state law prohibited it.

due process model v. criminal control model;

-by going with due process model, there are limits placed on law enforcement

a. A man is arrested. He's told he's guilty of a crime as proven by a line-up when he's not. He's talked with for 2 hrs. He confesses crime. He's never read his Miranda rights.

d. Issue of due process in 6th amm. and 5th amm.

e. Suspect must be in custody and they must be interrogated before the Miranda rights are given.

a. Juvenille involved in car-jacking

b. Parents told not come in

c. Kid confessed to crime. His Defense was that he wasn;t read his Miranda rights after giving the info.

d. SC: No, he's still guilty. He wasn't in custody and being interrogated. He was free to leave.

the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," may not be used in criminal prosecutions in state courts, as well as federal courts.

b. 

being a repeated offender of the same crime.

-Should recidivists be given longer sentences for 1 crime?

a. The president consults a senior US Senator of a particular state when that state is planning to hire federal officials within the state.

b. Not honored when president and Senator of a state are of different political parties

Senatorial courtesy is an unwritten political custom in the United States whereby the president consults the senior U.S. Senator of his political party of a given state before nominating any person to a federal vacancy within that Senator's state.^[1] It is strictly observed in connection with the appointments of federal district court judges, U.S. attorneys, and federal marshals. Except in rare cases, senatorial courtesy is not honored by the president or the entire Senate when the president and senators of said state are of different political parties.

a. Was grilled for his SC nomination by the president; his nomination was blocked because of his immoral views on civil rights.

b. B/c of him, SC justices are now elected that are more bland

To elect state judges, the process:

a. Se up a commision with bar, bench, lay person members in which they select candidates

b. Selection of 1 nominee by elected official, (governor)

c. Once the nominee has been chosen, the person starts to serve, but eventually they have to run for a retention election

a. African American woman runs to be Federal judge in Louisiana.

b. Justice elections are not covered under Voting Right act

c. People end up voting for white camdidate, including Black people. She sues gov. of Louisiana on grounds that this election shoudl be covered in Voting Rights Act.

d. SC held that it should and that one's race cant be permissible in deciding a vote.