This Year's Symposia

Children as Witnesses: Competence, Hearsay, and Confrontation

Symposium to be Presented at the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting
January 4th, 2007 at 4:00 p.m., Washington, D.C.

The Indiana Law Journal will publish papers from the Evidence Section of the Association of American Law Schools on the issue of Children as Witnesses: Competence, Hearsay, and Confrontation. The symposium will address the issues of competence, hearsay, and confrontation as they relate to children, who raise special issues of reliability and vulnerability. The articles will consider how problems posed by children's testimony reflect larger issues in evidence and in turn explore how evidence law's special treatment of children illuminates our view of them. Professor David Tanenhaus of University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a legal historian specializing in children's rights, will write about historical attitudes towards children's testimony and provide a case study of children on the witness stand. Professor Tom Lyon, a law professor and research psychologist, will present his work on children's reactions to threats and abuse, and consider how forfeiture by wrongdoing doctrine might be invigorated in light of Crawford's new approach to Sixth Amendment confrontation. Professor Robert Mosteller will address the special challenges of and need for children's out-of-court statements, and consider the extent to which these statements are "testimonial," thereby triggering confrontation-clause concerns. Professors Myrna Raeder of Southwestern Law School and Tom Lininger of University of Oregon School of Law will write responses to the three main articles. Professor Aviva Orenstein of Indiana University School of Law--Bloomington will introduce the symposium.

Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage: Conflicts Law and Public Policy in a Globalizing Society

Symposium to be Presented at the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting
January 5th, 2007 at 3:30 p.m., Washington, D.C.

The Indiana Law Journal will publish papers from the Conflict of Laws Section of the Association of American Law Schools on the issue of Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage: Conflicts Law and Public Policy in a Globalizing Society. The panel will examine the conflict of laws relevant to same-sex marriage. The speakers will address some questions of U.S. law triggered by recent developments: for instance, have Lawrence and Romer redrawn the constitutional limits on a state's right to deny recognition of a same-sex marriage celebrated elsewhere? Can traditional conflicts techniques adequately address the various substantive issues, such as succession rights and custody rights, that are folded into the conflict over recognition of marriage? More generally, the panelists will use the issue of same-sex marriage as a window onto some broader questions regarding the role of conflicts law in resolving policy differences within a globalizing society. They will address topics such as the following: what limits does existence within a union-for instance, the U.S. federal system or the European Union-place on the right of an individual governmental unit to assert local public policy in denying recognition to the acts of another unit? Is a distinction between interstate and international public policy still viable? Are state and national choice of law regimes successful in reconciling the imperatives of globalization-including the increased mobility of persons and the recognition of certain rights to freedom of movement-with the often countervailing pressure to protect local cultural priorities? Will those divergent regimes eventually give way to multilateral choice of law treaties? To harmonized substantive law? The panel will be moderated by Professor Hannah Buxbaum (Indiana University School of Law), and the speakers will be Dean Larry Kramer (Stanford Law School), Professor Peter Hay (Emory Law School), Professor Tobias Wolff (UC Davis School of Law), and Professor Katharina Boele-Woelki (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands).