Recent Submissions

  • CATV Franchising in New Jersey

    Leone, Richard (1972-01-01)
    For more than a decade, while Congress and the FCC were debating the big issues of national communications policy with broadcasters and cable television executives, thousands of municipalities quietly made decisions that may decide much of the future of broadband communications. With scant public notice, local officials bestowed lucrative, long-term franchises which set forth terms and conditions for the development of CATV for decades to come.
  • Ownership Policy and the Cable Industry

    Smith, Ralph (1972-01-01)
    Three patterns are emerging in the ownership of cable television systems in the United States. First, ownership is concentrating in fewer and fewer hands. Second, cable systems are increasingly owned by companies that own other types of communications media, or own sources of programming material, or own firms that are actual or potential manufacturers of cable hardware. Third, ownership by non-profit educational, cultural, civic, and community groups, or by minority groups, is being · excluded in the nation's major' cities and metropolitan areas by the economics of cable system construction and financing.
  • Cops in the Courts I: Police Misconduct Litigation

    Harmon, Sasha (1972-01-01)
    Police brutality and police harassment are crimes. Ironically, they are probably prompted or encouraged by a widespread public concern with "law and order," with stopping "crime in the streets." Much of police misconduct may stem from a desire by police to Jive up to their own and the public's image of them as tough crime stoppers; they may act overzealously to detect and apprehend wrongdoers.
  • \\That You See Is What To Get: Cable Television and Community Control

    Rusan, Francille (1972-01-01)
    CATV is fast moving from its original meaning of community antenna television to a new and unprecedented redefinition as corporate antenna television. Ownership patterns in CATV have changed from local entrepreneurs and their "mom and pop" systems to the growing dominance of corporate conglomerates and media giants. Over 29% of CATV systems are owned by broadcasters, 5% by telephone companies and 6.8% by publishers. As cable television has become practical and profitable, it has also become a private, privileged industry. CATV now stands poised to enter the major broadcast television markets and it offers the potential for influencing the social, political and economic futures of the minority and poor residents within these areas.
  • The Serrano Documents

    John E. Coons; Stephen D. Sugarman (1972-01-01)
    Serrano v. Priest, decided by the California Supreme Court (sitting en bane) on August 30, 1971, represents the first successful attack on public state education financing systems in a judicial campaign dating back to 1968. The first efforts aimed at redesigning the educational fiscal base failed largely because of the adoption in the complaints of a judicially unmanageable standard - that the relief granted should result in spending according to the educational needs of each child. This theory, based on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, was put forth initially in 1968 in a state court .action filed by the Board of Education of the City of Detroit against the State of Michigan. Although this suit was eventually dropped before any important judicial determinations had been made, other suits embodying the same general equal protection theory were instituted in Virginia, Illinois and other states. The Federal court in Illinois dismissed the suit brought there for lack of "discoverable and manageable standards," and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed (with one dissent) without argument or opinion. The dismissal of the Virginia case was similarly affirmed at the High Court's next term, this time with two dissents.
  • The Shreveport Plan for Providing Legal Services

    Clifton, Richard (1973-01-01)
    Since January, 1971, the members of Local 229 of the Laborers' International Union of North America have been covered by the "Shreveport Prepaid Legal Service Plan," a program popularly described as '1egal insurance." Briefly, '1egal insurance" calls for payment of premiums by individuals into a fund which is used to pay the fees of lawyers selected and hired by members when they need legal help. It may prove to facilitate the delivery of legal services to middle-class citizens, who today may be deprived of some of the legal assistance they need. The Shreveport program was instigated by the American Bar Association to test the concept; and the American Bar Foundation, a legal research institute affiliated with the A.B.A., was asked to observe and report on it.
  • A Proposal for Funding Legal Services

    Roitman, Howard (1973-01-01)
    Connecticut may have found a way of transforming the baser elements into gold. At least, that seems to be the effect of a bill that the State Treasurer has prepared for introduction in the 1973 session of the General Assembly. The bill, which is designed to ease the financial plight of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, offers the possibility of a novel funding mechanism for other activities including legal services for those who cannot otherwise afford them. This article will describe the Connecticut plan, explore possible difficulties with it in the light of the Internal Revenue Code, and propose a model statute for the plan's application to legal services.
  • Solving Social Crises by Commissions

    Reich, Robert (1973-01-01)
    ''The report of the Commissioners," said Washington in his sixth address to Congress, '·"marks their firmness and abilities and must unite all virtuous men." The first commission to deal with a social crisis in America had recommended that the President send troops into western Pennsylvania to end the Whiskey Rebellion. As a cartoon of the day put it, sending 15,000 troops into the Allegheny and Monongahela River valleys against a few farmers for the collection of such a small tax was like swatting flies with a meat axe. But social order was at stake; and that commission, like the.scores of crisis commissions which were to follow it, provided the chief executive with a strategy for restoring the commonweal while assuring the public that the problem could, in fact, be handled.
  • Involuntary Treatment of Drug Addiction

    Newman, Robert (1973-01-01)
    Controversy surrounding the complex issues involved in the compulsory treatment of addicts is by no means new. Statutes explicitly substituting compulsory "treatment" for criminal penalties in the case of addicts charged with criminal offenses, and providing for the involuntary commitment of addicts upon civil complaint, first appeared in 1961 in California, and then in New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland, as well as on the Federal level. But given society's present concern with the "drug problem," it is inevitable that, as the waiting lists of applicants for voluntary treatment programs are eliminated by the expansion of these latter programs, the debate over involuntary treatment will grow.
  • Private Litigation and the UMW

    Kalis, Peter (1973-01-01)
    On December 21, 1972, Arnold Miller, a retired coal miner from Ohley, West Virginia, was sworn in as President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). The brief ceremony conducted by Federal Judge William Bryant climaxed an insurgent effort begun within the UMW three and one-half years before by Joseph A. "Jock" Yablonski. On May 29, 1969, Yablonski had risked his position as a UMW International Executive Board member to announce as a reform-oriented candidate for the union's presidency. No one then knew better than Jock Yablonski that the incumbent president, W. A. ''Tony" Boyle, would stop at nothing to succeed in his reelection bid. And no one knew better than Yablonski the magnitude of the task he and his reform-minded followers were undertaking. Yet none of those involved in the early stages of the insurgency could possibly have foreseen the events that would follow.
  • Legal Services Funding: The British Columbia Model

    Mueller, Norman (1973-01-01)
    The funding of legal services has been a major problem since the inception of legal aid programs. The problem today remains severe: President Nixon is in the process of attempting to dismantle the Office of Economic Opportunity, while legislation to create an independent legal services corporation has thus far been frustrated. And widespread political opposition on the state and local levels remains. The need for innovative methods of funding legal services is clear.
  • Betterment Recovery: A Financial Proposal For Sounder Land Use Planning

    Wexler, Marvin (1973-01-01)
    Many commentators have focused attention on the problems and potential of the land use planning process. Others have examined the relative merits of various approaches to public finance. But very few have inquired into the complex connection between the two legal and institutional systems. Betterment recovery, a process by which the government recaptures value which its planning decisions have created, is a phenomenon which makes that connection. This article is an attempt to fill a vacuum which exists in both thought and practice. It is written with a conviction that the subject is an important one.
  • Drugs and Crime: A Bad Connection?

    Moore, James (1973-01-01)
    What to do about the "drug problem" is a question of intense general and professional concern. Most people are worried about the illicit drugs, particularly heroin, rather than the widely used legal drugs, such as alcohol. Out of the many reasons for the public furor and occasional near hysteria that mark debates about drug control policies, two explanations appear most frequently. The first is the widely held belief that drugs cause crime. The second is a moral objection to the perceived self indulgence of pleasure-seeking drug takers, an objection most strikingly voiced about marijuana use but also directed at other illicit drugs.
  • Solicitation for Prostitution: Privacy, Free Speech and Equal Protection

    1973-01-01
    In many places, laws seeking to control prostitution forbid not the act itself, but soliciting for it. The Washington, D.C. statute, thought by some to be model legislation because of its sex-neutral language, is one of them. In a decision not reported elsewhere than in L&SA, however, that statute has been found to violate prostitutes' freedom of speech and privacy, and to deny them equal protection of the laws. United States v. Moses, encompassing Criminal Nos. 17778-72, 21346-72, 18338-72, 34472-72, 36618-72, and 39272-72, was handed down November 3, 1972, in the courtroom of Judge Charles W. Halleck, Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Criminal Division.
  • Discrimination Against Women in Home Mortgage Financing

    Kendig, Dennis (1973-01-01)
    In the last few years, the women's rights movement has directed national attention to a variety of areas in which women are assigned a subordinate status. One of these areas is the extension of credit. Unlike men, women are frequently required to obtain co-signers for small loans and married women are often unable to obtain charge accounts except under their husband's names. The largest credit transaction the average person ever faces is the purchase of a home. In this area too, there have been claims of discrimination against women.
  • The Housing Industry and Union Power: An Economic Analysis

    Barton, Michael (1973-01-01)
    In October, 1972, there was every expectation that the issue of the anticompetitive influence of construction trades unions on the low- and moderate-income housing industry would be hotly debated over the next few years. Two recent actions by President Nixon have mooted the issue for the present.
  • Cases and Materials on The Outfit

    Rosen, David (1973-01-01)
    I remember one night Pam showed up at the House at three in the morning. Not that there was anything unusual in somebody showing up that late; the TV was always on with competition from at least one stereo, there were shoulders to cry on, ears anxious for the latest gossip, and always somebody was there who was ready to share good dope with all comers.
  • Unions, the Environment, and Corporate Social Responsibility

    Hultin, Jerry (1973-01-01)
    Heady with his re-election that day as President of the International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers (UAW), Walter P. Reuther addressed the delegates to the union's 1968 convention: What we are talking about is making the labor movement into a vital force, a creative force that can begin to take the lead in the mobilization of the broad force in America who need to be mobilized if we are going to be equal to dealing with the complex problems we face in the difficult years ahead.
  • Fighting Murder and Racism in Unions

    Ginger, Ann (1973-01-01)
    An interview with Francis J. McTernan
  • Community Mental Health: Why the Benign Neglect?

    Wellington, Sheila; Tischler, Gary (1973-01-01)
    The Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 was the culmination of decades of effort to achieve equity in the provision of mental health care by developing a comprehensive and coordinated network of service within the community. The statute projected the mental health profession beyond the confines of the clinical establishment into the fabric of community life. The challenge given the new mental health centers was to aid people, " ... too fearful, too angry, too alienated, too hopeless to seek any kind to help."

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