Favorite Law Movies: A Civil Action

There are many great law-related movies, but the one that has special resonance for me is A Civil Action (1997).  In fact, back when I taught Civil Procedure, I required students to watch the film, and we had some really terrific class discussions about it.  The plot centers on a lawsuit brought by a group of residents of Woburn, Massachusetts, against several industrial polluters.  At the heart of the film is the confrontation between an up-and-coming plaintiffs’ lawyer played by John Travolta and a grizzled, big-firm defense lawyer played by Robert Duvall.  The Duvall character seems an avatar of the amoral corporate lawyer, whereas the moral status of the Travolta character seems more uncertain and may evolve over the course of the movie.

Both actors deliver deeply engaging performances, as do several other top-flight character actors in supporting roles.  (James Gandolfini is especially good as a blue-collar employee of one of the defendants who must decide whether or not to cooperate with the plaintiffs’ lawyer; he doesn’t have many lines, but he exudes this barely subdued rage, looking as if he would like nothing more than to punch somebody out, if only he could decide at whom he should really be angry.) 

But, in addition to great acting and a compelling story, there are lots of other reasons this movie really works for me. 

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Seventh Circuit Week in Review, Part I: Sentencing Issues

The Seventh Circuit had a busy week, with seven new opinions in criminal cases.  In this post, I will discuss just the three cases that focused on sentencing issues; a later post will cover the other cases.

In United States v. Alldredge (No. 08-2076), the court considered the reach of §2B5.1(b)(5) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, which increases sentence length in counterfeiting cases if “any part of the offense was committed outside the United States.”  In return for forging forty checks for a Nigerian, Alldredge received $3,000 in fake currency from Canada.  She had not expected to receive fake currency, but decided to spend it anyway, resulting in her conviction for distributing counterfeit currency.  The district court increased her sentence based on the international dimension of the case.  However, as the Seventh Circuit (per Chief Judge Easterbrook) pointed out, none of Alldredge’s conduct occurred outside the United States, and the Guidelines generally make a defendant responsible only for the foreseeable conduct of others.  She did not anticipate that her international connections would provide her with counterfeit currency; indeed, she was in a sense a victim of their crime.  Bearing in mind that Alldredge was only convicted of distributing counterfeit currency (and not check forgery), no part of her offense was committed outside the United States, entitling her to a remand and resentencing.

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Links to New Law Review Articles

Articles from the latest issue of the Marquette Law Review are now available here.  Here is what you will find:

Nantiya Ruan, Accommodating Respectful Religious Expression in the Workplace.

Scott A. Schumacher, MacNiven v. Westmoreland and Tax Advice: Using Purposive Textualism to Deal with Tax Shelters and Promote Legitimate Tax Advice.

Michael W. Loudenslager, Giving Up the Ghost: A Proposal for Dealing With Attorney “Ghostwriting” of Pro Se Litigants’ Court Documents Through Explicit Rules Requiring Disclosure and Allowing Limited Appearances for Such Attorneys.

Barbara O’Brien & Daphna Oyserman, It’s Not Just What You Think, But How You Think About It: The Effect of Situationally Primed Mindsets on Legal Judgments and Decision Making.

Joan Shepard, Comment, The Family Medical Leave Act: Calculating the Hours of Service for the Reinstated Employee.

Charles Stone, Comment, What Plagiarism Was Not: Some Preliminary Observations on Classical Chinese Attitudes Towards What the West Calls Intellectual Property.

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