Volume 82, Number 4

This Article argues that diversity jurisdiction was intended to funnel politically significant litigation into the federal courts principally because federal officials would have the power to dictate the composition of federal juries. All existing accounts for the origins of diversity jurisdiction ultimately rely upon putative differences between the state and federal benches for their explanations of the jurisdiction’s origin. This emphasis on the bench is anachronistic, however, because the jury possessed far more power than the bench to decide cases in eighteenth-century American courts. American juries during this period customarily had the right to decide issues of law as well as fact and were largely beyond the control of the bench. The Framers saw state court juries—independent bodies of citizens with almost unfettered power to resolve legal disputes—as one of the greatest dangers in allowing ordinary citizens too much control over the governance of the nation. By wresting adjudicative power out of the hands of state court juries and bestowing it upon federal juries whose compositions could be tightly controlled by federal officials, diversity jurisdiction accomplished the Constitution’s overarching purpose of checking the operation of “unrestrained” democracy in the states.

Once the federal courts were established, federal officials controlled the composition of federal juries in several ways. In most districts, federal marshals dictated the composition of federal juries by hand-selecting jurors of their choice. In addition, Congress ensured that the political, economic, and social characteristics of federal juries would differ dramatically from their state counterparts by providing that the federal courts would draw their juries overwhelmingly from the urban, commercial centers of the nation. The state courts, by contrast, drew their juries predominantly from the agrarian populations living outside those centers. It is highly unlikely that this pervasive control over the composition of federal juries was an unintended consequence of the Constitution. Instead, as this Article argues, the evidence strongly suggests that the federal officials’ control over the composition of federal juries constituted the single most important impetus behind the creation of diversity jurisdiction and a significant rationale for the establishment of the lower federal courts.

Madison Lecture

Henry J. Friendly was one of the nation’s preeminent appellate judges. Judge Michael Boudin, once a law clerk to Judge Friendly, describes Judge Friendly’s career and judicial outlook in the New York University School of Law’s annual James Madison Lecture. Drawing upon Judge Friendly’s constitutional writings and decisions, the lecture touches upon Friendly’s gifts of mind, energy, and writing ability, and certain of his judicial characteristics: his attitude toward precedent and other constraints, his practical judgment, his intellectual rigor, and his essential moderation.

The valuation of a pharmaceutical company often depends on its ability to bring a drug to market, making information about the likelihood of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval critical to investors and a highly sensitive issue for the company. Since the FDA drug approval process is not public, investors must rely on company disclosures to evaluate the likelihood of FDA approval. Currently, the FDA will not disclose the content of action letters sent to sponsor companies, giving company executives dangerous discretion over whether to disclose the information and how to present it. This discretion, coupled with a lack of oversight over the content of the disclosures, has resulted in several recent cases of fraud among pharmaceutical companies. As a way to curb such company discretion and prevent future fraud, this Note proposes mandatory public disclosure of action letters sent by the FDA to sponsor companies.

Since the presidential election of 2000, a host of new claims has arisen alleging unlawful denial of the right to vote. Litigants have challenged the use of error-prone voting machines, misleading registration forms, and the highly controversial photo identification requirements for in-person voting. The law protecting the right to vote, however, is in disarray, leaving courts confused and unsure of how to proceed with these challenges. In particular, courts have disagreed sharply over the content of the relevant constitutional standard and how to apply it. Some courts have adopted the standard articulated by the Supreme Court in its 1992 decision, Burdick v. Takushi, while others have applied strict scrutiny. This Note criticizes the Burdick standard for being incapable of producing consistent results and advocates for a modified version of strict scrutiny motivated by structural concerns inherent in the democratic process.

Under the Supreme Court’s current protective sweep doctrine, it is constitutional for law enforcement officers to conduct a cursory sweep of a home incident to arrest where they have reasonable suspicion to believe the home may harbor a dangerous third party. The Supreme Court, however, has not clarified whether the protective sweep doctrine applies where there is no arrest. While at least one federal circuit court currently holds the view that protective sweeps are invalid absent an arrest, most circuits have indicated that protective sweeps may be valid even when they are not incident to an arrest. This Note argues that neither side of this circuit split has struck the right balance. By focusing too much attention on the “incident to arrest” language in Maryland v. Buie and not enough attention on the Court’s express concern for officer safety, the decisions refusing to extend the protective sweep doctrine to any non-arrest situations prohibit protective sweeps in cases where they would be reasonable and, thus, constitutional. In contrast, by failing to respect the Court’s repeated affirmations that exceptions to the warrant and probable cause requirements should be limited, and by brushing aside the importance of the arrest in Buie, the decisions extending the protective sweep doctrine to non-arrest situations either sanction unconstitutional searches or provide insufficient guidance to lower courts and the police, leaving Fourth Amendment privacy rights vulnerable. This Note argues that, to strike the right balance between protecting government interests and Fourth Amendment privacy rights, courts must incorporate a proper inquiry into the “need to search” into their reasonableness analysis. Specifically, they should require a compelling need for officers’ initial lawful entry into a home for protective sweeps to be valid. In applying this standard, courts should draw a bright line according to the type of entry involved, extending the protective sweep doctrine to situations where officers have entered a home pursuant to exigent circumstances or a court order, but not where officers have entered a home pursuant to consent. Such an approach will maintain the limited nature of this exception to the warrant and probable cause requirements while allowing officers to protect themselves when the public interest so requires. It will also provide lower courts and officers with clear guidelines on how to apply the law. As an ancillary benefit, this approach will also minimize the risk of pretextual searches.

Sarbanes-Oxley and the accompanying era of heightened corporate governance dramatically changed the composition, role, and responsibilities of corporate boards. As a result of these changes, many of the justifications for traditional director compensation plans no longer apply. As directors struggle with their new responsibilities as independent corporate monitors, the manner in which they are compensated must reflect these changes. A director compensation plan in which directors receive compensation primarily in the form of cash, coupled with finely tailored equityholding requirements, strikes the right balance of director independence and director accountability. It also facilitates the creation of corporate boards drawn from a more diverse pool of talent.