A Finer Point

And the Oscar goes to . . . courtroom dramas!

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Vol. 107 No. 3 (2024) | Justitia

Actor Jack Nicholson’s witness-stand response to Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men is one of the most quoted lines from one of the most popular genres of film — the courtroom drama. […]

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Taft - Baseball photo

Not Just Umpires — Justices Are Fans, Too.

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Vol. 107 No. 2 (2023) | Generative AI in the Courts

The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on baseball began in 1922 with a unanimous ruling in an anti-trust case, Federal Baseball Club v. National League, that holds to this day. But the Court’s relationship with baseball isn’t just through its cases. The men and women who have served on the Court include many committed baseball fans. […]

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Renaming Maryland’s Appellate Courts

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Vol. 107 No. 1 (2023) | Toward Fairer, Quicker, Cheaper Litigation

What’s in a name? According to Maryland’s voters, there’s something to it. […]

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Justice for All: Artwork by Natasha Ramras (PDF)

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Vol. 106 No. 3 (2023) | Forging New Trails

Natasha Ramras is an Oregon/Washington painter who uses acrylic and oil to capture the beauty of the Pacific Northwest in her landscapes and the salient issues of the day in her contemporary works. […]

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Legal Tradition — Or Symbol of Subjugation?

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Vol. 106 No. 2 (2022) | Losing faith?

Recently a huge controversy erupted in Zimbabwe over the alleged purchase of British horsehair wigs for Zimbabwean judges. Given the financial challenges ordinary Zimbabweans face, it was not surprising that […]

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A Poem: Substance Abuse Trial (PDF)

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Vol. 106 No. 1 (2022) | Necessarily Engaged

Substance Abuse Trial He mispronounces you, the judge, rhyming your first with your second name, making you into something ridiculous: Gillis Willis Mead. But you stand as still as they […]

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Learned Hand’s Spirit of Liberty: A Lesson for Our Times

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Vol. 105 No. 3 (2021) | Leaving Afghanistan

Chief Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reflects on the lessons of unity and tolerance embedded in Judge Learned Hand’s famous “Spirit of Liberty” speech.

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Perry Mason Landscape

The Moral Order of Perry Mason’s Universe

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Vol. 105 No. 2 (2021) | Judicial Independence

When it premiered on CBS in 1957, Perry Mason represented the birth of the television courtroom procedural. For decades, Mason, a criminal defense attorney who almost always emerged from the court victorious, […]

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An Immigrant Judge’s Ode to Naturalization Ceremonies

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Vol. 105 No. 1 (2021) | The Courts Held

Above: Judge Joseph in 2019 with her 92-year-old “adoptive” mother, Uctorieuse Destin, on the day Judge Joseph presided over Destin’s naturalization ceremony. COVID-19 has impacted all aspects of life, including […]

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Empty Chairs

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Vol. 104 No. 3 (2020-21) | Judges on the March

The sudden deaths of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia ignited political firestorms regarding the appropriate timeline for confirming a new justice […]

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