The connection between Dr. Seuss’ rhyming stories and the new initiatives by Canadian regulators and lawmakers to implement changes to Canada’s securities law (S-Ox North) reproducing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s changes in the United States’ legal regime is not immediately obvious. However there may be one. It often seemed that Dr. Seuss put one word after the other because of its rhyming qualities rather than its contribution to the creation of a coherent story. In the case of S-Ox North, Canadian regulators seem to be more concerned with harmonizing Canada’s securities markets rather than with addressing actual dangers facing market participants. One unanswered question is whether the S-Ox North changes address Canada’s capital structure where, in contrast to the United States, the issuers are predominantly
corporations in which a single shareholder or shareholder group has legal or factual control of the voting shares. Would it have made more sense to look at the recent corporate governance initiatives in the European Union, where the corporations’ capital structure more closely resembles that of Canada? Thus, it remains to be seen whether putting the Canadian corporate fox in S-Ox North is an exercise in rhyming or a coherent change for the better.
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The role of financial regulation in influencing the development of corporate governance principles in the United Kingdom (UK) and throughout Europe has become an important policy issue that has received little attention in the literature. To date, most research on corporate governance has addressed issues affecting companies and firms in the nonfinancial sector. Corporate governance regulation in the financial sector traditionally has been regarded as a specialty area with standards and rules fashioned to achieve the overriding objectives of financial regulation—safety and soundness of the financial system, and consumer and investor protection. In the case of banking regulation, the traditional principal–agent model used to analyze the relationship between shareholders, directors, and managers has given way to
broader policy concerns to maintain financial stability and to ensure that banks operate in a way that promotes broader economic growth and enhances shareholder value.
Commercial speech is a relatively new member of the family of First Amendment protected speech. The United States Supreme Court first adopted the commercial speech doctrine in 1976 and ever since has had difficulty defining it. In its purest and most simple form, commercial speech is speech proposing a commercial transaction. Unlike content-based regulations, the majority of which must pass strict First Amendment scrutiny, regulations of commercial speech must pass only intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment. The reason for this inferior level of protection is that commercial speech is low-value speech, meaning the importance of regulating it outweighs any benefit the speech may have to society.
Three years ago, Thomas Branco and his mother were driving home when a faulty transmission caused their car to stall. As Mr. Branco pushed the stalled car off the road, an out-of-control drunk driver collided into the car, crushing Mr. Branco into the trunk. He sustained severe injuries, but amazingly was still alert while en route to the hospital in an ambulance. Upon arrival, he informed the doctor that he would not agree to a blood transfusion because of his religious beliefs. A short time later, after surgery to amputate both of his legs, Mr. Branco died. A Florida trial court convicted the drunk driver of driving under the influence (DUI) manslaughter. On appeal, the defendant argued that Mr. Branco’s refusal of a blood transfusion was an intervening cause of death. The appellate court rejected this argument, reasoning that the defendant “caused life-threatening injuries” and the refusal of a blood transfusion did not “absolve [the defendant] from criminal liability.”
This issue of the Stetson Law Review is co-sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Advocacy at Stetson University College of Law.’ Stetson takes great pride in training students not only to think like lawyers, but also to advocate like lawyers. Additionally, Stetson takes seriously its responsibility to help promote the high standards of the legal profession through continuing legal education. With this symposium issue, Stetson continues its commitment to train and assist students and lawyers to professionally and effectively litigate for their clients.
When John Spinkelink was executed on May 25, 1979, death-penalty advocates were satisfied that Florida’s statutory death-penalty scheme was constitutionally bulletproof. After all, the proponents of the new scheme had read the tea leaves provided in the Furman v. Georgia decision, and the protections against arbitrary application of the death penalty contained in the scheme addressed all of the conflicting concerns that the majority Justices expressed in their individual opinions. The new scheme was lauded by the Florida Legislature and the bench. With obvious self-satisfaction, the Florida Supreme Court approved the scheme and stated, “Thus the inflamed emotions of jurors can no longer sentence a man to die; the sentence is viewed in the light of judicial experience.”
We live in an amazing time. Advances in medicine and technology have given doctors the power to save lives that would almost certainly have been lost in the past. But such advances in life-saving techniques have their downsides as well. As numerous courts have recognized, doctors now have the power to preserve life—or at least the physiological attributes of life—past the point at which many of us would care to live. As medical professionals’ ability to preserve life increases, so do conflicts concerning whether such treatment should be rendered. The litigants in such contests include family members, medical institutions, the person whose possible death is at issue, the state, and occasionally, even total strangers. The task of making decisions in these contests often falls to judges. These contests at the twilight of life and death, and the roles that various actors in the legal system take in resolving them, are the subject of this Article.
Over the course of nearly three decades, the Florida Evidence Code has stood as a success story in the sometimes uneasy relationship
between the courts and the legislature. The Florida Legislature enacted the code in 1976, and since then has passed changes that, until recently, were adopted by the Florida Supreme Court without controversy as rules of procedure. Thus, there was never any need for a court to consider the question of whether a given change was substantive or procedural: so long as the Florida Supreme Court adopted the change, it simply did not matter.
I’m sorry I’m not going to talk exactly on the topic. It’s not litigation ethics that I want to address tonight, but it is ethics, and it is ethics that applies to litigators. It’s also ethics that applies to all lawyers, and I submit it applies to all clients. So, if there are any nonlawyers in this room, I hope you’ll pay attention because there’s a lot more at stake for you in what I’m about to discuss than there is even for the lawyers.
DNA evidence has exonerated over 140 wrongly convicted capital defendants in the United States. Just as DNA is often effective in providing a remedy to the wrongly accused, it is also an extremely powerful resource for law enforcement. At first blush, this may appear to be a “win-win” scenario for all concerned (except, of course, for defendants who are actually guilty), but the expanding use of DNA evidence, particularly in cases involving DNA databanking, has met substantial resistance on the civil-liberties front. When examining the privacy implications involved with DNA sampling, it is enlightening to compare constitutional analyses of two DNA databanks—one from convicted criminals and a similar sampling required of members of the United States Armed Forces.