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In this article, the author discusses the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court case Padilla v. Kentucky on practice in the U.S. district courts. He mentions that the court's decision in this case reminds that the plea process and its implications should never be dismissed. He suggests that the courts should always consider the consequences that might result from a defendant's plea of guilty.

The article analyzes pre-service removal under the plain language of the forum defendant rule that prohibits removal based on diversity jurisdiction. It addresses the split among the district courts of the U.S. regarding different interpretations of the forum defendant rule and examines the general removal doctrine, general principles of statutory interpretation, and the history of the absurd-result principle of court regarding forum defendant rule. It discusses why plain language argument in favor of pre-service removal is the appropriate resolution of the district court split.

Prior studies hypothesize that judges time their retirements to allow a like-minded president to select their replacements. We propose a modification to this argument and theorize that during the earlier part of a district court judge’s career, it is the likelihood of elevation to an appeals court and other career-oriented concerns that affect whether the judge resigns or stays on the bench. It is during the latter stage of a judge’s career when the desire to be replaced with a like-minded judge affects the retirement decision. Our analysis reveals that judges who are not yet pension eligible are influenced by being passed over for appeals court nominations as well as financial incentives to leave for private practice. Only judges who have attained pension eligibility appear to consider their ideological compatibility with the president when deciding to call it quits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the emergence of an effective habeas jurisprudence and the obsolescence of new detention legislation in the U.S. It reviews the legislation and precedent to the process of habeas review. It analyzes the district court and D.C. Circuit opinions, particularly the uniformity among district court judges and to their approaches to balancing national security and liberty concerns.

This article looks at some practices of the U.S. relating to international law. It discusses the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the application of key provisions of the securities laws to a private suit involving a so-called foreign cubed securities case. It also explains a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissing a habeas corpus petition brought by a Guantanamo detainee. In addition, the article discusses an amendment to the state constitution of Oklahoma to bar state courts from applying international or Sharia law.

The article offers a discussion on the issue regarding the scope of the term "tribunal" in Section 1782 of Title 28 of the United States Code and its application on private international arbitral bodies. It states that these said international bodies must be considered "tribunal" under section 1782 by the district courts in response to the mandate of Congress. It adds that Congress aims to facilitate the growth of international commerce and growth in the U.S.

The article discusses how the collection due process administrative hearings and appeals operate. The U.S. Tax Court provides the taxpayer an opportunity of pre-assessment judicial review of tax liabilities. It mentions that Tax Court should fill the gap in its statutory authority for collection due process appeals by adopting traditional administrative law jurisprudence by adopting the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), suggested by the federal district court. The U.S. Congress enacted the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, which permit taxpayers' demand for hearing regarding proposed collection method of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and also suggests alternatives such as installment agreements and offers-in-compromise.

The article focuses on the function of courts in relieving the woes of naturalization applicants in the U.S. It offers analysis on the conflicting opinions among courts as to the capability of 8 U.S.C. §1447 (b) to offer exclusive jurisdiction to the district court over pending naturalization applications as well as the possibility of the district courts and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to share jurisdiction over § 1447(b) actions. It addresses court decisions to send the matter back to USCIS or settle the application.

The lawfare critique offers a provocative challenge to the use of law and legal process in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has been used to question the legitimacy of numerous lawsuits filed by individuals harmed in the conflict. The lawfare critique is misguided, however, because it fails to recognize that the purpose of any legal system is to offer a viable alternative to the use of force. In addition, the lawfare critique runs counter to the right to a remedy, a firmly established principle of international law. Legal for a should remain accessible to victims, who should have the right to seek redress for their injuries. The rule of law offers a powerful mechanism for ending violence. We should be wary of any efforts to limit its use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the important goals of the federal sentencing guidelines was to reduce inter-judge disparity in sentencing. In this paper, we test the assumption that structuring discretion produced uniformity in federal sentencing and consistency in the process by which judges arrive at the appropriate sentence. We also examine whether background characteristics of judges affect the sentences they impose on similarly situated offenders. We used hierarchical linear modeling, nesting the offenders in the judges that sentenced them in order to examine the sentencing decisions of federal judges in three U.S. District Courts. While we found that significant variation between judges in sentencing is largely accounted for by our level 1 characteristics, we also found that judges arrive at decisions regarding the appropriate sentence in different ways, by attaching differential weights to several of the legally relevant case characteristics and legally irrelevant offender characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case Mazda Motors of America Inc. v. M/V Cougar Ace. Mazda Motors and its subrogated insurer sued M/V Cougar Ace to recoup its 40 million dollar loss after the disaster. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that M/V Cougar ACE was a Himalaya clause beneficiary that protects on the vessels bills of lading, M/V Cougar Ace only relied upon the clause in the bills of lading, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal for the improper venue.

The article discusses the court case Compania Naviera Joanna SA v. Koninklijke Boskalis Westminster NV. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed that a party may dismiss its own limitation of liability proceeding on forum non conveniens grounds. The court held that MSC Shipping did not abuse the limitation of liability procedure and the district court did not err in dismissing the action under the doctrine of forum on conveniens in the limitation of liability of action context.

An essay is presented on the terms of contract between American lawyer Peter Zeidenberg and ProCD Inc. in the U.S. It discusses the lawsuit filed by ProCD against Zeidenberg for breach of contract. It states that Zeidenberg bought a product from ProCD where the box did not clearly stated the terms for the use of the product. It reveals that the district court ruled that Zeidenberg is not bound by the terms since he was not able to see them when he bought the product.

The article looks at the legality of political campaign finance in the U.S. after the Davis v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) case. It examines the legal challenges brought against the state laws which help political candidates finance campaigns and curtail campaign spending, the logic that courts have utilized to ignore these challenges, and the way in which the Davis case affects that logic. It also examines the U.S. Supreme Court's treatment of campaign finance limitations before the Davis case, discusses the various types of state campaign finance laws, and shows how federal district courts and courts of appeals employed the Supreme Court's pre-Davis decisions to state's election laws. It is concluded that the matching funds of state campaign finance laws are still constitutional.

Research examining disparities in sentencing outcomes under federal sentencing guidelines has focused almost exclusively on aggregate national data. Although these studies contribute considerably to the criminological literature on sentencing disparity, their findings may have masked contextual variation in relation to case processing across jurisdictions. With data from the U.S. District Courts for Minnesota, Nebraska, and Southern Iowa for 1998 through 2000, this article assesses whether interdistrict variations in sentence outcomes exist and whether the factors that affect these outcomes vary across jurisdictions. It also attempts to determine whether disparities in sentence outcomes can be attributed to downward departures. The findings raise questions about the validity of the assumption of uniformity in the federal sentencing process and the use of aggregate data to study federal sentence outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court held that the Federal Constitution provides a cause of action in damages for violations of the Fourth Amendment by individual federal officers. The so-called "Bivens" cause of action--initially extended to other constitutional provisions and then sharply curtailed over the past two decades--has been a subject of controversy among academics and judges since its creation. The most common criticism of Bivens--one that has been repeated in different venues for thirty years--is that the Court's individual liability model, in which the offending officer is personally liable in damages, should be abandoned in favor of a governmental liability model akin to respondeat superior liability. Commentators base their criticism of the individual liability model on two empirical assumptions: (1) Bivens suits are almost never successful; and (2) the defense of qualified immunity, available only to individuals, is a nearly insuperable barrier to plaintiffs' prevailing in Bivens claims. On this account, a move to the governmental liability model will ensure adequate compensation and deterrence while removing a substantial barrier to plaintiffs' success. These empirical claims about the general failure of Bivens suits and the explanation for that failure have never been tested. This Article corrects that oversight by offering the results of the first detailed empirical study of the determinants and outcomes of Bivens litigation. Based on data collected from cases filed in five district courts from 2001-2003, this Article concludes that the truths that scholars and judges have taken as a given are unsupported. Bivens claims succeed at a much higher rate than previously thought, especially compared to other civil rights litigation, and the defense of qualified immunity rarely plays a role in the outcome of Bivens litigation. These data call into question the given wisdom about the characteristics of Bivens litigation, and undermine the policy proposals that have occupied the field of Bivens scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a court case wherein a group of store managers filed a complaint against Family Dollar Stores Inc. because of violation of Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)for unpaid overtime wages. It states that the district court of Northern District of Alamba fined 35.5 million dollar on the store. The store argued that the collective action violated the FLSA as their job duties were different and they were not similarly situated under the FLSA.

An essay is presented on judicial appointments and nominations, and relationship between the executive and legislative branch. It discusses the use of the U.S. Senate of the blue-slip process for circuit and district court nominations. It also discusses the power granted by the Constitution on the president with regard to judicial selection and the interplay between the executive and legislative branch after the Senate's confirmation of a nominee.

The article examines several cases where the district courts denied to remove invalid trademarks although a basis for cancellation had been set in the U.S. in 2010. It presents the trademark registration system and remark the benefits of registration to the public and trademark owners. It discusses the nullification system for registered trademarks, such as the two cancellation methods.

The article discusses the authorization of domestic prosecutions for violations in oil record book on all foreign-flagged vessels by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth and Second Circuit. It reveals the rulings of the cases United States v. Jho and United States v. Ionia Management S.A. It explores the development of prosecutorial approaches in district court decisions and analyzes how the Second and Fifth Circuits expand the regulatory power of the country by examining their decisions on the said cases. It cites international and domestic laws that govern marine pollution.

The article offers information on several court cases related to district court discretion and appellate review problems. It states that the case of Gall against the U.S. reveals Gall's rejection over the rule adopted by circuit courts which require justifications for non-Guidelines sentences. It mentions that the presumptions in the case Rita v. U.S. enable the court to sacrifice its ordinary practice. Moreover, the case Kimbrough v. U.S. shows the tension between uniformity and discretion.

The article discusses the conflict of the decision made by the district court concerning the lawsuit of firefighters against the City of New Haven, Connecticut. The district court held that Title VII, the Equal Protection Clause and disparate treatment prohibition, was controlling and dismissed the equal protection claim. However, the Supreme Court reversed the decision stating that the action of the City presumptively violated the disparate treatment prohibition of Title VII.

The parsimony provision contained in 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (a) directs district courts to impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to effectuate the statutory goals contained in section 3553 (a)(2). The parsimony limitation and the substantive reasonableness review analyzed by Justice Scalia in Rita make clear that district judges do not have the unfettered discretion to sentence within the statutory range that they enjoyed prior to the passage of the Sentencing Reform Act. If a non-elemental fact is significant enough to effect an increase in the sentence that would be parsimonious as to the offense simpliciter, the Sixth Amendment applies to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis on the decision of the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals on several litigations concerning the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) and its implications to the bankruptcy attorney and client relationship in the U.S. It explains the amendments made to the legislation, with details on the issues regarding the interpretation of debt relief agency and its impact on the client-attorney relationship. It explores the unclear interpretation of BAPCA in the U.S.' lower courts including Circuit Court of Appeals, district courts, and bankruptcy courts. It notes the responsibility of the U.S. Supreme Court to settle issues on BAPCA. It also examines the decision of the Eight Circuit to the Milavetz v. United States trial.

How should courts balance conflicting national security and environmental protection interests? The Supreme Court gave a fact-specific answer in Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, finding that the interests of the military outweighed the interests of environmental plaintiffs in this case. Winter is hardly revolutionary--courts have long balanced competing interests when determining equitable relief and that is precisely what the Court did in Winter, based on the unique circumstances presented. The Supreme Court gave greater deference to military commanders than the lower courts in reviewing a preliminary injunction issued to remedy the Navy's failure to prepare an environmental impact statement pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In doing so, the Winter Court substituted its own judgment regarding the public interest among competing national priorities and unmoored itself from traditional standards of appellate review. While saying very little about the underlying merits of the case, the Court majority held that the district court abused its discretion, and on that basis it vacated two of six mitigation measures imposed under the preliminary injunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case Allen v. Greenville Hotel Partners, Inc., which focuses on franchisor's liability toward a franchisee. Three of the quests affected by a fire that broke out in a Comfort Inn and Suites in Greenville, South Carolina on January 25, 2004 brought a lawsuit against the hotel. The U.S. District Court for South Carolina placed the blame on the franchisee for gross negligence.

The article discusses the issues regarding the assertion of the District of Columbia Circuit that the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not the head of the SEC for Appointments Clause purposes in the U.S. It mentions that the Appointments Clause of the Constitution provides the president the exclusive power to appoint officers of the government with the Senate's advice and consent. Included in the discussion is the complaint of Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead & Watts LLP in the district court and their argument that the SEC could not be vested with appointed power. It is also inferred that the SEC chairman is the most significant and politically visible member of the commission.

The article discusses the case Vaden v. Discover Bank, wherein the plaintiff questions if federal courts have subject-matter jurisdiction to entertain petitions to compel arbitration under the section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in the U.S. The Supreme Court (SC) clarified that parties can request for a federal district court to enforce arbitrary agreement under section 4 petition. Thus, SC might also clarify state courts' responsibilities over arbitrary agreement if necessary.

The article discusses a court case wherein the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused businessman Thomas Talbot of violating the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by trading on material, nonpublic, information. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded the decision of the district court.

Abstract: This case note article examines the unreported decision of a U.S. court in Sierra Corporate Design Inc. v. David Ritz (2007) District Court, County of Cass, State of North Dakota (File No. op-05-C-01660) which deals with the unauthorised use of a domain name system zone transfer. The court ruled that access was unauthorized given the defendant''s intention to obtain and divulge information found in the zone transfer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Generally speaking, the Supreme Court of the United States is a tribunal with the final say on "what the law is." But the desirability of the Supreme Court's acting as "final law sayer" is questionable in patent law, where the Court primarily reviews the work of the Federal Circuit, a comparatively expert body having virtually exclusive jurisdiction over initial appeals. Nonetheless, in recent years, the Supreme Court has spoken repeatedly and forcefully on questions of substantive patent law. I argue that such Supreme Court activity is best justified and conceived not as directed toward final law saying, but instead as involving limited interventions to stimulate new or renewed judicial examination of important legal questions. Centralized appellate review in the Federal Circuit makes patent law unusually susceptible to doctrinal ossification. By engaging in periodic merits review of patent law doctrines that the Federal Circuit may have locked into place either too quickly or for too long, the Supreme Court can help initiate escapes from suboptimal legal equilibria. But the Court's competence is limited. Consequently, when intervening in substantive patent law, the Court should generally leave primary responsibility for developing precise legal formulas to the Patent and Trademark Office, district courts, and the Federal Circuit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates how the social structure of American legal institutions influenced the diffusion of wrongful-discharge laws over the period 1978–1999, and it assesses whether economic or political variables influenced the diffusion process. The results are surprising and quite striking. Precedents by other courts within the same federal circuit region were generally more influential in the diffusion process than precedents by courts in neighboring states or by courts within the same census or West legal reporting region, even though the precedents were on matters of state law rather than federal law and the decisions were usually made by state courts rather than federal courts. There is some limited evidence that political variables may also have been a factor, but economic variables were not statistically significant, even though the new employment laws may have had important economic consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a court case wherein the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One (NAMUD) in Texas filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking bail out from the reauthorized Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). The Court rejected NAMUD's request for bailout because it was not a political subdivision eligible to request bail out based on the 1982 amendments. A three-judge panel of the Court upheld the new Section 5.

The International Trade Commission (ITC) provides a special forum for adjudicating patent disputes involving imports. It offers several advantages over United States district courts to patentees, including relaxed jurisdictional requirements, speed, and unique remedies. Unlike district courts, the ITC almost automatically grants injunctive relief to prevailing patentees, and does not recognize certain defenses to infringement. These features have been justified as needed to prosecute foreign infringers who would otherwise evade U.S. district courts. They have also led to charges that the ITC is protectionist and unfair to defendants and that it fosters inconsistency in U.S. patent law. Based on an analysis of every patent investigation initiated at the ITC from 1995 to mid-2007, this Article assesses these charges. ITC cases involve domestic defendants as often as they do foreign defendants, and 72 percent of the time in combination. Thus, U.S. companies are just as likely to be named in ITC actions as defendants as are foreigners. When cases were adjudicated, plaintiffs at the ITC were more likely to win than plaintiffs in district court (58 percent vs. 35 percent). However, when cases filed in both venues were compared, most of this difference disappeared (54 percent vs. 50 percent), cutting against claims of an anti-defendant bias. The data, however, provide some support for the third contention. The ITC takes about half as much time to decide cases, is four times more likely to adjudicate its cases (44 percent vs. 11 percent), and more readily awards injunctions to prevailing patentees (100 percent vs. 79 percent) than district court. The ITC cannot award damages though, and its decisions do not bind district courts. The relief provided is thus neither complete nor final. This creates incentives for litigants to file in both venues, which is done at least 65 percent of the time and creates the possibility of duplicative litigation and inconsistent results. As the number of ITC-eligible cases expands with the growth in overseas manufacturing, the interface between the venues should be revisited. This Article suggests several ways to strengthen coordination between the ITC and district courts to take into account the increase in parallel litigation and concurrent risk of judicial inefficiency. These include (1) limiting patent jurisdiction at the ITC to cases that otherwise could not be heard in a U.S. district court; and (2) reducing the incentive for cases to be filed in both venues by harmonizing their rules and remedies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. District court case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against academic researchers with ties to China—and the government lost. The District Judge Thomas Varlan acquitted Anming Hu, a former University of Tennessee, Knoxville engineering professor, of lying to National Aeronautics and Space Administration about his funding ties to institutions in China.

The article focuses on the decision made by the U.S. District Court on the case between Jim Smith and Paul Green School of Rock Music on its ten-years franchise agreement. The court stated the franchise agreement has contained aspects suggesting procedural unconscionability. He adds that the presence of procedural unconscionability alone was insufficient to defeat the enforcement of the arbitration clause using the sliding scale test.

Does the hierarchical relationship between the district courts and the courts of appeals influence decision making at the trial level? Do these judges anticipate responses by appellate panels and condition their decisions based on these expectations? Using a sample of district court cases from 1925 to 1996 that were subsequently reviewed by the courts of appeals, and incorporating a strategic choice statistical framework, I discover that the district courts are constrained by the anticipated responses of the appeals courts. However, this conclusion is not apparent if one analyzes the data using traditional maximum likelihood methods. Only when empirical analyses specifically model underlying strategic relationships does one discover this constraint. If the federal trial judges anticipate a negative response on appeal, then they curtail their ideological influences (the magnitude of influence decreases by approximately one-half). This pattern remains consistent when one examines civil liberties and economic cases, but not for criminal cases. Thus, the hierarchical structure of the federal judiciary appears to exert a significant constraint on the district courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship on criminal punishments increasingly highlights the importance of courtroom social contexts. Combining recent data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (FY1997–2000) with aggregate data on federal districts, the current study examines interdistrict variations in the application of downward departures from the federal sentencing guidelines. Findings indicate that substantial variation exists in the probability of both prosecutor-initiated substantial assistance departures and judge-initiated downward departures. This variation is accounted for, in part, by organizational court contexts, such as caseload pressures, and by environmental considerations, such as the racial composition of the district. Additional evidence suggests that individual trial penalties and race disparities are conditioned by aggregate court contexts. Drawing on interviews with federal justice personnel, this article concludes with a discussion of future directions for research on federal guidelines departures. Part of the glory of the federal system...is that you've got this one big organization, but it can be molded to different needs... - An assistant U.S. attorney - [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The salience of judicial appointments in contemporary American politics has precipitated a surge of scholarly interest in the dynamics of advice and consent in the U.S. Senate. In this article, we compare alternative pivotal politics models of the judicial nominations process, each capturing a different set of potential veto players in the Senate. We use these spatial models to guide empirical analysis of rejection patterns in confirmation contests for the lower federal courts. Using data on the outcomes of all nominations to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. District Courts between 1975 and 2006, we show that models incorporating the preferences of the majority party median and the filibuster pivots best account for confirmation patterns we observe at the appellate and trial court levels, while advice and consent for trial courts has more recently been influenced by home-state senators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution regarding double jeopardy in criminal law including court cases that falls under the provision. In 1970, the Congress enacted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which according to critics, is an overly broad statute which subject defendants to double jeopardy. A case that shows a consequence of RICO's broad scope is the United States v. Calabrese case in the Seventh Circuit, wherein defendants claim that they are prosecuted with double jeopardy. Judge Posner affirmed to the decision of the district court in denying the petition made by the defendants. The court established that double jeopardy in the Fifth Amendment protects not only against double punishments but also duplicative trials.

The article discusses the transcript of the Hiss-Chambers court case of December 1948, wherein the plaintiff indicted a respected diplomat and foundation executive Alger Hiss for perjury by a U.S. District Court Grand Jury in New York. The court's examination of Hiss's denial of allegations of espionage for the Soviet Union in 1938 is reviewed. Details are given describing elements of how the Grand Jury addressed the issues and comments are provided on the resulting conviction and imprisonment of Hess.

The article discusses the Aventis v. Lupin Ltd. case in the U.S. The US Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that Claims 1,2,4 and 5 of US Patent No.5,061,722 were valid and infringed under the doctrine of equivalents by Lupin Ltd and Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s proposed generic version of ramipril capsules. On June 5, 2006, the court issued the ruling on the summary judgment motions and declined to find that Lupin's capsules literally infringed.

The article examines the alleged prejudice of the International Trade Commission (ITC) in its patent infringement cases in the U.S. It assumes to use the decisions of district courts as bases for review with ITC's judgments. Results from the review reveal that ITC favors patent holders more than district courts and grants injunctive help as a remedy for infringement more frequently.

The article discusses the decision of the Eleventh Circuit that a federal district court has subject matter jurisdiction over a petition to compel arbitration under Section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in the U.S. Due to this decision, the court has allowed out-of-state banks to sidestep the regulations of state usury laws. The article also presents case facts and procedural history of the case.

Over the past few years, patent law reform has been a hot topic of congressional debate. The cost arid complexity of patent litigation and the frequency with which district judges are getting reversed on questions of claim construction are often cited as cause for alarm. Heeding the calls for reform, a patent pilot program for district courts was recently unveiled in the U.S. Congress in an attempt to address both of these concerns. The pilot program sailed through the U.S. House of Representatives without opposition. The U.S. Senate has yet to consider the companion bill. This Comment introduces the pilot program and examines whether the concept of judicial specialization through an increased patent caseload is likely to result, as the bill's proponents argue. Judicial specialization for patent cases is popular in other countries; however, it has yet to catch on at the trial court level in the United States. While judicial specialization has a number of associated benefits, negative aspects, such as a likely increase in forum shopping, cannot be ignored. After exploring the costs and benefits of specialization, this Comment reviews the mechanics of getting into the pilot program. It then presents an original empirical case study that examines whether district court judges who currently hear the most patent cases are better at claim construction, as evidenced by reversal rates, than those who hear very few patent cases. The Comment then suggests ways to strengthen the pilot program so that it will be capable of bringing about true reform. Finally, it concludes by considering other options if the program is not ultimately adopted by Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents additional developments related to the privacy-related law in the U.S. In the case, Pichler v. UNITE, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled that the Union of Needletrades Industrial & Textile Employees AFL-CIO (UNITE) had violated the Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) by recording the license plate numbers of vehicles in employee parking lots and using the numbers to obtain employees' names and addresses from state motor vehicle records. In the case, IMS Health Inc. v. Ayotte, the District Court for the District of New Hampshire struck down on First Amendment grounds a New Hampshire statute, 2006 N.H. Laws Section 328, that prohibited the transfer and use of prescriber-identifiable information for certain commercial purposes.

The article discusses the set of principles that draws refined understanding to the relationship between culpability and circumstantial evidence requirements in the U.S. The issue surrounds the prevalence of spoliation in civil litigation in the district court based on the case of Vodusek v. Bayliner Marine Corp. In this regard, the culpability requirement and the circumstantial evidence requirement should be met to serve the same fundamental purpose of restoring adversarial balance.

In recent years, the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies have greatly expanded their presence abroad, investigating everything from narcotics trade and Internet fraud schemes to terrorism. Where this law enforcement activity includes custodial interrogation of non-American citizens abroad, must American law enforcement officials provide Miranda warnings to such suspects? In 2001 in United States v. Bin Laden, a federal district court held that the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination applies to non-American citizens interrogated abroad, thus requiring Miranda warnings in this context. This Article criticizes the Bin Laden court's strict application of Miranda and suggests that Miranda should be interpreted as a flexible prophylactic rule that can be modified or discarded abroad where its application is illogical. The Article then argues that the policies behind Miranda do not always support its application abroad in the same way that it is systematically applied in the domestic setting. As a result, an FBI agent abroad should be required to advise a non-American suspect only of the rights that he enjoys in the country where the interrogation takes place, to the extent such rights can be reasonably determined by the agent under the circumstances surrounding the interrogation. In addition, if the FBI agent makes a mistake in interpreting the rights available to a given suspect under foreign law, and does not advise the suspect of a right which he in fact had, the exclusionary rule should not be employed as long as the agent misinterpreted the foreign law in good faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]