Cornell Law Review

Note

Queer Eyes Don’t Sympathize: An Empirical Investigation of LGB Identity and Judicial Decision Making

Jared Ham & Chan Tov McNamarah

This Note’s objectives are twofold. First, this Note presents the findings of the first ever empirical analysis of the voting patterns of LGB judges, as compared to heterosexual judges in the United States. Second, this Note considers what role a judge’s LGB identity may play in his or her decision making. Using social science research curated in the context of race and gender, this Note summarizes previous debates concerning other minority statuses and introduces them to the environment of sexual orientation. Informed by prior scholarship on race and gender in judicial decision making, this Note extends the conclusions and principles to consider whether LGB identity should affect decision making and how it may do so.

Jan 2020

Note

A Jury of Your [Redacted]: The Rise and Implications of Anonymous Juries

Leonardo Mangat

Since their relatively recent beginnings in 1977, anony- mous juries have been used across a litany of cases: organ- ized crime, terrorism, murder, sports scandals, police killings, and even political corruption. And their use is on the rise. An anonymous jury is a type of jury that a court may empanel in a criminal trial;…

Sep 2018

Article

Justiciability, Federalism, and the Administrative State

Zachary D. Clopton

Article III provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to certain justiciable cases and controversies. So if a plaintiff bringing a federal claim lacks constitutional standing or her dispute is moot under Article III, then a federal court should dismiss. But this dismissal need not end the story. This Article suggests a…

Sep 2018

What Juries Really Think: Practical Guidance for Trial Lawyers

Amy J. St. Eve, United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; Adjunct Professor, Northwestern Law School.

Gretchen Scavo, Learning & Development Lead—Disputes, Winston & Strawn LLP. Ms. Scavo previously clerked for Judge St. Eve and was formerly a Partner at Winston & Strawn LLP.

What do juries really think about lawyers? What makes jurors tick? What do lawyers do that irritates jurors? What can lawyers do better in the courtroom from the jury’s perspective? These are the questions at the heart of this article, which provides useful insight gleaned from more than 500 jurors who served in federal district…

Mar 2018