scholarly journals Trusting the Courts: Redressing the State Court Funding Crisis

Daedalus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
pp. 96-104
Author(s):  
Michael J. Graetz
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Stable State ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Court ◽  
State Revenue ◽  
Revenue Sources ◽  
Timely Fashion

In recent years, state courts have suffered serious funding reductions that have threatened their ability to resolve criminal and civil cases in a timely fashion. Proposals for addressing this state court funding crisis have emphasized public education and the creation of coalitions to influence state legislatures. These strategies are unlikely to succeed, however, and new institutional arrangements are necessary. Dedicated state trust funds using specific state revenue sources to fund courts offer the most promise for adequate and stable state court funding.

Public Law in the State Courts in 1926–1927

1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-597
Author(s):  
Robert E. Cushman
Keyword(s):  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Fixed Number ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
The City ◽  
Equal Population

Legislative Apportionment. The problem of the representation of large cities or metropolitan districts in state legislatures is becoming increasingly difficult and acute. The number of states in which a single center of population is with each census approaching a size which entitles it, on the basis of its inhabitants, to a controlling proportion of the representatives in the state legislature grows steadily as the current of population toward the city continues to flow. Certain states have dealt with this situation by frankly and openly discriminating against these metropolitan areas by specifying that they shall never be entitled to more than a fixed percentage of the representatives. The constitutions of certain other states do not permit this, however, but require that after each decennial census a total fixed number of members in the legislative body shall be allotted equally to districts of equal population. If this is done the metropolis is guaranteed under each apportionment the increase in representation to which its proportionate increase in population entitles it. And the answer volunteered to this problem by several state legislatures has been steadily to refuse to reapportion the state.

A Self-Executing Amendment

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-88
Author(s):  
Paula A. Monopoli
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Court ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation ◽  
State Law ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Nineteenth Amendment ◽  
Actual Impact ◽  
Constitutional Construction

Chapter 4 examines the state cases that were brought, after ratification, around the validity of voter petitions and elections in which women voted and around preconditions to voting, like poll taxes. Those cases gave state courts a forum to discuss the self-executing nature of the Nineteenth Amendment, in terms of its impact on existing state law. The general conclusion was that the Nineteenth Amendment was self-executing as to voting itself. But state differences in statutory and constitutional construction yielded mixed results, in terms of its actual impact on state laws around voter eligibility, including the requirement that women pay poll taxes. These cases demonstrate the broad discretion in state court judges regarding what was encompassed within “voting” as a matter of constitutional interpretation and statutory construction.

Between the State and the Shalish

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Berger
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Court ◽  
Social Harmony ◽  
Rural Bangladesh ◽  
Attempted Murder ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Do So

This chapter reconstructs the background knowledge that underpins all processes of conflict resolution in rural Bangladesh. It starts with the in-depth analysis of an attempted murder case and shows how state and non-state courts are intricately intertwined in what is conceptualized as the logic of non-enforcement. According to this logic, people frequently file cases with the state court, but not to get binding and enforceable verdicts. Instead, they do so to alter the dynamics of non-state courts. Although non-state justice institutions respond to representations of the state (for example in the form of official documents), they nonetheless do not conform to state law. Instead, their decisions are informed by specific normative convictions about the importance of social harmony and religious prescripts. Importantly, this logic of non-enforcement also applies to the state’s Muslim family laws, which are frequently not enforced if they threaten the patriarchal order of things in rural Bangladesh.

State Courts: Enabling Access

Daedalus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-36
Author(s):  
Jonathan Lippman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Task Force ◽  
New York State ◽  
Unmet Need ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Court ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Legal Services

In New York, millions of civil litigants each year fight for the necessities of life without the aid of a lawyer because they are unable to afford one. While the state courts strive to provide access to justice for all constituents, this ideal becomes a promise unfulfilled due to the lack of available civil legal services for low-income populations. In this essay, I discuss access to justice in the state courts from the perspective of my role as Chief Judge of the State of New York. I examine the enormity of the unmet need in New York and around the country and discuss the measures I have taken as head of the New York State court system to address the crisis. These efforts have resulted in a substantial increase in state funding for civil legal services, the establishment of the Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services in New York, annual hearings in each of New York's four Judicial Departments, and the development of programs designed to spur the legal community (including law students) to greater involvement in pro bono work.

scholarly journals The State of Custom: Gerd Spittler’s “Dispute settlement in the shadow of Leviathan” (1980) today

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Beyer ◽  
Felix Girke
Keyword(s):  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Southern Ethiopia ◽  
State Court ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Legal Anthropology ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Anthropology Of The State ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract In our article, we engage with the anthropologist Gerd Spittler’s pathbreaking article “Dispute settlement in the shadow of Leviathan” (1980) in which he strives to integrate the existence of state courts (the eponymous Leviathan’s shadow) in (post-)colonial Africa into the analysis on non-state court legal practices. According to Spittler, it is because of undesirable characteristics inherent in state courts that the disputing parties tended to rather involve mediators than pursue a state court judgment. The less people liked state courts, the more likely they were to (re-)turn to dispute settlement procedures. Now how has this situation changed in the last four decades since its publication date? We relate his findings to contemporary debates in legal anthropology that investigate the relationship between disputing, law and the state. We also show through our own work in Africa and Asia, particularly in Southern Ethiopia and Kyrgyzstan, in what ways Spittler’s by now classical contribution to the field of legal anthropology in 1980 can be made fruitful for a contemporary anthropology of the state at a time when not only (legal) anthropology has changed, but especially the way states deal with putatively “customary” forms of dispute settlement.

Legislatures and Courts

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Berkowitz ◽  
Karen B. Clay
Keyword(s):  
Political Competition ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Legal Origin ◽  
State Budget ◽  
Complex Cases

This chapter furthers the previous chapter's discussion by examining how colonial legal origin and political competition have shaped the funding of state courts. State judicial budgets are set by the state executive and legislative branches as part of a regular state budget exercise. Judicial budgets are used to pay for staff, facilities, and other resources such as professional experts who can evaluate complex cases, as well as judicial salaries. The powers that governors and legislators have to shape judicial budgets serve as reasonable and useful checks on the judicial branch. However, governors and state legislatures may also use their power in setting judicial budgets to inappropriately influence judicial rulings.

THE LONG ARM OF TORT LAW. THE COMPETENCE OF U.S. COURTS IN DEFAMATION CLAIMS AGAINST FOREIGN DEFENDANTS

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 87-111
Author(s):  
Yu.V. TAI ◽  
S.L. BUDYLIN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
English Language ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Court ◽  
English Language Publication ◽  
The Media ◽  
Constitutional Right

Jurisdiction of American state courts over out-of-state defendants is determined by state law, but is limited by constitutional considerations. If the defendant does not have sufficient contacts with the state, it is unconstitutional for the state court to consider the dispute. With respect to defamation suits, not only does the defamatory information actually reach a sufficient number of state residents, but also the foreign defendant’s purposeful actions directed at that state are necessary for state court jurisdiction over the out-ofstate defendant to arise. In the case of the media, such a purposeful action might be, for example, selling a significant number of copies of a magazine in that state or advertising its website in that state. However, the posting of defamatory information on a website available in that state does not, by itself, create jurisdiction over the publisher in state courts. If, for example, a foreign-language website describes events outside the United States, a U.S. court would probably not have jurisdiction, even if the plaintiff’s reputation in the United States was damaged. But if an English-language publication on some website intentionally defames a state resident by describing his or her activities in that state, the publication will likely be found to be “directed at” that state, and a state court will consider the defamation claim. The plaintiff’s location in this state in a defamation action is not sufficient to give rise to state court jurisdiction over a defendant who does not have sufficient minimal contacts in the state. To hear such a dispute in that state would violate the defendant’s constitutional right to “due process” because of the burdensome nature of his participation in the process.

Voting and Jury Service

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-114
Author(s):  
Paula A. Monopoli
Keyword(s):  
State Legislatures ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Nineteenth Amendment ◽  
Jury Service

Chapter 5 delves into the state cases, which asked whether voting and jury service for women were coextensive. While most courts saw the Nineteenth Amendment as self-executing in terms of voting, many construed it narrowly in terms of whether its scope encompassed other political rights, beyond voting. The chapter connects the lack of congressional enforcement legislation, pursuant to the Nineteenth Amendment, to this thin conception of its scope. It suggests that the NWP and the NLWV, although they were working in other sites of reform, like state legislatures, were not much in the state courts. And it was in those courts, that there was a possibility judges could have been persuaded to adopt a robust interpretation of the Nineteenth Amendment—one that understood it to extend other political rights to women.

Esensi Dan Urgensi Pengeluaran Pemerintah Untuk Pembangunan Daerah

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Luciana L. Nahumuri
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Regional Development ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
Government Expenditure ◽  
The State ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
State Revenue ◽  
State Expenditure

The essence and urgency of government expenditure for regional development is very crucial in realizing sustainable development, meaning that government spending must meet current needs without compromising the fulfillment of the needs of future generations. The higher the state revenue, the higher the state expenditure for regional development. Thus, an increase in understanding of government expenditure for regional development in a sustainable manner must be carried out with the principle of prudence in this country.

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