Quill Winners Explore Visa Adjudications and Limits of Public Trust Doctrine

Congratulations to 3Ls Cain Oulahan and Gabe Johnson-Karp, the winners of this year’s Gold and Silver Quill Awards, respectively.  The Quill Awards recognize the top two student comments published in the Marquette Law Review.

Cain’s comment is “The American Dream Deferred: Family Separation and Immigrant Visa Adjudications at U.S. Consulates Abroad.”  He explores the tension between the general preference in American law in favor of keeping families together and some specific requirements of immigration law that can break families apart for many years while a parent or spouse seeks to obtain a visa from an American consulate abroad.  As Cain puts its,

This problem arose with the creation by Congress in 1996 of what are known as the unlawful presence bars to admission.  After more than ten years since the passage of the unlawful presence bars, it is now appropriate to look closely at their impact and examine whether they constitute sound public policy. This Comment argues that they do not. This Comment explains how the system puts families through unnecessary and unjustifiable hardship by imposing a punishment that is disproportionate to the seriousness of the immigration violation. This Comment points to the lack of evidence that the unlawful presence bars significantly deter illegal immigration, and the fact that they tear families apart or force them to move abroad. For these reasons, this Comment recommends that Congress make sensible changes that will promote family unity while imposing penalties that are more proportionate to the seriousness of the immigration violation.

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Springtime for Daubert: Insights From the EDWBA Panel

In late January the “tort reform” package imposed the staid Daubert rules on the Wisconsin Rules of Evidence. Now it’s spring, although the weather feels a lot like January, and we must get serious about what to do with this gift that the judiciary did not want. The new rules require that expert testimony be based on demonstrably reliable methods and principles. To be determined is whether Wisconsin will be a “strict” or a “lax” Daubert jurisdiction — whatever that is. It is worth noting that the first wave of Wisconsin Daubert cases, which will likely set the mold for what follows, are also those that least interested the tort reformers, namely, criminal cases and “chapter 980” sexually violent offender cases.

Right now, however, we are in a state of nature, legally speaking. Case law under the relevancy test, the current standard, is of little avail. And while the new rules are copied from the federal rules, state courts are not bound by federal precedent (yes, that includes Daubert itself!). Last week alone I spoke at two conferences, one a large, attentive gathering of state judges in Elkhart Lake and the other an even larger, equally engaged joint convocation of state prosecutors, public defenders, and private defense counsel here at Eckstein Hall. There is a clamor for answers and a discernable unease about what to do.

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Law Gone Wrong: Wisconsin’s Spousal Maintenance Statute

This is the fourth post in an occasional series entitled “Law Gone Wrong.”  The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course).  Today’s contribution is from Professor Judith G.  McMullen.

The current Wisconsin statute governing spousal maintenance, §767.56, is an undoubtedly well-meaning legislative attempt to give broad discretion to judges who must make difficult decisions about the division of financial assets at the time of a divorce.  I believe, however, that the breathtakingly broad discretion granted under the statute is a mistake.  

Spousal maintenance, also known as alimony, is the payment by one ex-spouse for the support of the other ex-spouse.  Although media accounts of celebrities like Tiger Woods may leave the impression that maintenance payments are commonplace (not to mention large), in fact only a small percentage of divorce judgments include awards of spousal maintenance.

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