Has the stock market grown more volatile?

The record number of fifty-point daily moves in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1996--forty-five in the first three quarters alone--has attracted considerable media attention. An analysis traces this phenomenon to two basic causes: the record level of the Dow and the return of price volatility to post-World War II norms following several years of low volatility.Stock market ; Stock - Prices

Better Sex Through Criminal Law: Proxy Crimes, Covert Negligence, and Other Difficulties of “Affirmative Consent” in the ALI’s Draft Sexual Assault Provisions

The American Law Institute’s draft amendments to the Model Penal Code’s sexual assault provisions address the problem of unwanted sex through the use of proxy crimes. The draft forbids sex undertaken in the absence of certain objective indicia of willingness, or in the presence of certain objective indicia of unwillingness, even though the serious harm of sex with an unwilling partner does not always result from those situations. Proxy crimes are sometimes justified, as is the draft’s requirement that an express “no” be respected in the absence of subsequent words or actions by a partner rescinding the “no.” But proxy crimes also carry risks, some of which—in addition to other problems—are displayed by the draft’s requirement that sex occur only in the presence of “agreement” by the partner. Like any “affirmative consent” approach, the draft’s “agreement” standard must either embrace requirements that many will find objectionable or risk devolving into punishment for simple, tort negligence—or less. Imposing liability on a tort negligence standard would conflict with the Model Penal Code’s general insistence on subjective liability as a predicate to criminal liability. It would also strike many as a regrettably low standard for labeling an actor as a sex offender, and it would risk deterrent losses over time by diluting the stigma associated with the label

Sex and the Single Mal Girl: How Voluntary Intoxication Affects Consent

With respect to voluntary intoxication and campus sexual assault, the law can better reconcile the positive and negative autonomy interests without doing violence to important norms against vague criminal prohibition

Like Snow to the Eskimos and Trump to the Republican Party: The Ali\u27s Many Words for, and Shifting Pronouncements About, Affirmative Consent

This short piece examines changes from prior drafts in the most recent draft (Preliminary Draft No. 6) of the American Law Institute\u27s project on sexual assault law

Old School Loses a Teacher: A Recollection of Fred Zacharias

Personal dedication to Prof. Fred Zacharias

Deference, Tolerance, and Numbers: A Response to Professor Wright\u27s View of the Sentencing Commission

The United States Sentencing Commission promulgates the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which greatly constrain judicial discretion in choosing the sentence for federal crimes. One commentator, Professor Ronald Wright, has argued that the willingness of the courts and Congress to defer to a guideline promulgated by the Commission should depend on whether the Commission has justified the guideline by reference to empirical evidence. This Article explores the theoretical and practical difficulties of giving such effect to empirical justifications

In Memoriam: Professor Richard E. Speidel 1933-2008

This tribute first begins with a tribute from Dean Kevin Cole, outlining the accomplishments of Professor Richard Speidel, and is succeeded by personal tributes from the various authors of the articles contained in this volume of the San Diego Law Review

Civil Rights: A Call for Qualified Legislative Immunity for City Council Members under 442 U.S.C. § 1983

If a city council member engages in legislative conduct that violates a person\u27s clearly established, federally protected rights, should the council member ever be personally liable for civil damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983? By the end of the 1980s, eight circuit courts of appeals found that absolute legislative immunity prevented local legislators from being held personally liable for their legislative acts. This majority position is misguided. Legal analysis and public policy support qualified, rather than absolute, legislative immunity for city council members in section 1983 cases. Under a rule of qualified legislative immunity, the council member would be liable for legislative conduct that a reasonable person would recognize as violative of the victim\u27s clearly established, federally protected right