University of Maine School of Law
University of Maine, School of Law: Digital CommonsNot a member yet
1960 research outputs found
Sort by
Compensating Victims of Crime: Individual Responsibility and Governmental Compensation Plans
Get PDFDuring the last decade, legal scholars, criminologists, and sociologists have extensively discussed proposals for the compensation of injured victims of crime. The scholarly debate will, in all likelihood, soon come to fruition in the form of comprehensive federal legislation designed to provide an orderly and uniform governmental remedy for persons suffering losses as a result of criminally inflicted personal injury. The years following the widespread adoption of compensation programs will be crucial in the development of an effective and therapeutic system of criminal justice. As criminal sanctions are directed more toward reformation than punishment, and as compensation to victims is made more available by the society, the concept of individual responsibility for restitution to those injured by criminal conduct may become unimportant in the criminal justice system. This Comment therefore suggests that procedural approaches to compensation should emphasize an individual responsibility to provide restitution, supplemented by a more comprehensive compensation plan. The French partie civile procedure is examined for the purpose of illustrating an alternative procedural approach to compensation policies which emphasizes the individual restitutionary and therapeutic aspects of the criminal process. It is argued that certain aspects of the partie civile system might provide the foundation of an experimental procedure designed to complement existing and proposed compensation programs
Toward the Wired Society: Prospects, Problems, and Proposals for a National Policy on Cable Technology
Get PDFThe city is already encroaching on the countryside in a modest cultural sense. Today many remote New England villages receive more channels of New York City television, and receive them more clearly, than do most residents of the five boroughs of the great city. This anomaly is because of a relatively new and still evolving technology, popularly called cable television. This article primarily addresses the broad problems now confronting the American people on how to devise wise national policies that will put this technology of the new communications to its best uses for the most people. In short, how is the nation to deploy the new wealth of cable technology? Within the context of analyzing these broad questions of public policy, this article also seeks to present practical points and information for local practitioners (and other newcomers) who must face the bewildering problems of fashioning local legal structures—largely in the form of local franchises—for governing cable development at the local level
Graduated Responsibility as an Alternative to Current Tests of Determining Criminal Capacity
Get PDFWhen a person breaks the law, inquiry may be made into why he acted in an illegal manner and, if he satisfies the relevant test of criminal exculpation, he will be held blameless under the law. Although a range of explanations of behavior is possible, when examining criminal responsibility, the law is concerned only with those excuses which bear on moral culpability. This comment suggests an alternative to the absolutist notion that the defendant is either completely responsible or completely irresponsible for his unlawful act. It is contended that cognitive and volitive capacities exist by degrees and that a fairer, more socially useful legal test of responsibility would make punishment more nearly proportional to the defendant\u27s capacity at the time of the unlawful behavior
The Role of the Maine Law Court in Abrogating the Common Law Doctrines of Governmental and Charitable Immunity from Tort Liability
Get PDFDuring the last decade the Maine Law Court refused to overrule two common law doctrines which effectively insulated certain tortfeasors from liability for their negligent conduct. The purpose of this comment is to determine if the public policy issues embodied in the immunity rules and the reliance interests attributed to those rules by the Law Court justified the radical departure from the court\u27s traditional role of deciding cases properly before it
A National Environmental Policy: Now You See It, Now You Don\u27t
Get PDFThe National Environmental Policy Act was born with a fanfare of rhetoric. Suddenly sensitive to the urgency of the environmental crisis, Congress passed the bill quickly, and President Nixon seized the opportunity to sign it on the first day of the new decade. During its early years, NEPA was hailed by environmental activists as nothing short of a panacea; the environmentalists were nearly unanimous in singing its praises. At the same time, industrialists warned that NEPA\u27s provisions could stop growth and progress in their tracks. But in recent months the battle lines have begun to shift. When the subject of NEPA surfaces in environmental discussions, it is becoming difficult to distinguish proponents from opponents. In the relatively brief time that this body of environmental law has been in force, the federal government and resourceful environmental advocates in the private sector have used its provisions to make significant progress in the fight against environmental abuse. But over the same period of time it has become clear that the existing body of law is not a sufficient arsenal; there are missing links in the law that must be repaired if the progress of the past few years is to continue. Several proposals have been offered to repair these missing links, and we shall critically review two of the principal ones before making some proposals of our own. One attempt to cope with the absence of substantive rights and referees is embodied in legislation now pending in the Congress which would create broad substantive environmental rights and would provide judicial review of alleged government or private interference with those rights. In our view, however, this approach is mistaken in its conception of the competence and proper role of the courts, and would lead to inconsistent and weakened environmental regulation. Some environmentalists and most industrialists have suggested that the relationship between NEPA and the standards-setting statutes should be a vertical one, with NEPA on top and the government\u27s environmental regulatory activities subject to its provisions. Our conclusion is that this approach is unnecessary and would lead to weakened regulation. Our own proposals for repairing the missing links which we have identified are based on our belief that although more explicit substantive rights to a healthy and pleasing environment must be created, the Congress ought not leave the task of creation to the courts. This means that the legislative branch must write more laws of the standards-setting variety, and at the same time strengthen the opportunities for judicial review of government activities which have an environmental impact
The Private Offering: Rule 146 and Offeree Sophistication
Get PDFThe fundamental premise of the Securities Act of 1933 is that protection of the investor is achieved by requiring the dissemination of information essential to an informed investment decision. Carved from this general requirement are exemptions from registration dealing with certain types of securities and transactions. This lack of clarity has created a situation in which the SEC continues to list the characteristics of a private offering while the judiciary seizes upon particular factors as determinative tests. In response to the need for greater certainty in the application of the Section 4(2) exemption, the SEC has recently proposed Rule 146 as an alternative definition of the private offering guidelines. While the exemption also depends on other considerations, Rule 146 assumes the fulfillment of other aspects of the statutory scheme and focuses upon the single problem of defining the nonpublic offering. The Rule is structured around four basic conditions: access to information; the nature of the offerees; the manner of the offering; and the number of purchasers. Though the Rule purports to be nonexclusive, it is essentially an accumulation of factors already employed. And, whether or not the Rule is a viable alternative to the existing confusion, it is surely predictive of the future meaning of the section 4(2) exemption. The purpose of this comment is to highlight the problems raised by proposed Rule 146 and to evaluate critically the appropriateness of a sophistication standard in a disclosure statute. A definitional clarification of the private offering is both needed and useful, but the proposed rule merits criticism for its sweeping incorporation of vague and unpredictable standards. Beyond the general deficiencies of the rule, its chief problem is the inclusion of offeree sophistication as a determinative factor in private offerings
Cumulative Index (1962-1972)
Get PDFCumulative Index of Maine Law Review, Volumes 14-24, by Subject Matte
Judicial Administration: The American Experience
Get PDFProfessor Karlen\u27s Judicial Administration: The American Experience contains, in revised and updated form, the substance of three lectures delivered in England in December, 1968, upon the occasion of the founding of the English Institute of Judicial Administration at the University of Birmingham