Journal of Appellate Practice and Process articles from September 2002

Journal of Appellate Practice and Process archives from September 2002

Document destruction after Arthur Andersen: is it still housekeeping or is it a crime?
September 22, 2002... The indictment and subsequent conviction of Arthur Andersen & Co. (1) has recently focused much attention on the previously little-known subject of document retention. The government charged that Andersen's auditors willfully obstructed justice...

A few thoughts on the importance of an independent judiciary.
September 22, 2002... Nothing is more important to our nation than an independent judiciary, for judicial independence goes to the very core of our democracy. In fact, if you want to measure the level of freedom in any country, the first thing to be determined is...

Unpleasant duties: imposing sanctions for frivolous appeals.
September 22, 2002... Faced with ever growing caseloads, federal and state appellate judges often decry the number of truly frivolous appeals that lawyers file each year. Frivolous appeals clog dockets, divert increasingly scarce judicial resources from meritorious...

From pens to pixels: text-media issues in promulgating, archiving, and using judicial opinions.
September 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION The American judicial system, like the British system on which it is based, relies on precedent and therefore requires the availability of prior judicial opinions in order to function. (1) Whether judicial opinions are the...

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a judge: appellate courts' use of Internet materials.(federal judges)
September 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION Computer-literate researchers in the last few years have found it increasingly easy to use an Internet search engine to surf the Web, turning up dozens (or thousands) of hits--web sites with content that matches key words...

Neglecting the national memory: how copyright term extensions compromise the development of digital archives.(Copyright Term Extension Act)
September 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION On October 9, 2002, the United States Supreme Court heard argument in what may be the most important copyright case of the past two decades, Eldred v. Ashcroft. (1) The plaintiff, Eric Eldred, (2) brought his suit to...

Out of the frying pan and into the fire: the emergence of depublication in the wake of vacatur.
September 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT A little more than ten years ago, members of our firm, which specializes in representing policyholders against insurance companies, discovered that a significant number of the pro-policyholder judicial...

Expanded rights through state law: the United States Supreme Court shows state courts the way.
September 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION Three important cases decided during 2002 show the Arkansas Supreme Court embracing the new judicial federalism with a commitment and panache not previously seen in Arkansas jurisprudence. In one four-month stretch, the...

An argument for reviving the actual futility exception to the Supreme Court's procedural default doctrine.(criminal law)
September 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION A fundamental tenet of the Supreme Court's error preservation jurisprudence is that a criminal (1) defendant's failure to raise a legal claim, including a constitutional claim, during court proceedings (whether in the trial...

Seeing the appellate horizon: civil trial strategy and standards of review in the Eighth Circuit.
September 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION Some practitioners view the standard of review on appeal as an issue that need not be addressed until after an appellate argument has been drafted. For them, the standard of review is a mere afterthought that results in a...

Appellate malpractice.
September 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION Legal malpractice is defined in terms of negligence, although a suit for breach of contract is recognized as an alternative action in some states. (1) Lawsuits against trial attorneys for negligence are "governed by the...