Legal Commons^™

Guide To Ac028 - Records Of The Center For Access To Justice & Technology, Jona Whipple

Finding Aids

Records of the Center for Access to Justice & Technology, 1990-2005

The Center for Access to Justice and Technology (CAJT), formerly Justice Web Collaboratory, was formed at Chicago-Kent in 1999. The CAJT worked to make justice more accessible to the public by promoting the use of the Internet in the teaching, practice, and public access to the law. The CAJT conducted research, built software tools, taught classes, and supported faculty, staff, and student projects on access to justice and technology.

The first major focus of the CAJT was Meeting the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants: A Consumer Based Approach, or the “Meeting the Needs” project. The project investigated barriers to access to justice facing self-represented litigants, applied system design methodology to redesign court processes, and built an Internet-based prototype for implementation by the courts. The first phase of the project began in August 2000 with a course taught by Professor Ron Staudt, the Justice Web Collaboratory Interprofessional Research Opportunity (IPRO). In the class, 13 law students from Chicago-Kent and 5 graduate design students from the IIT Institute of Design explored existing pro se assistance programs by observing the Chicago-Kent Advice Desk at the Richard J. Daley Center, and gathering information from litigants and courts in Cook and Lake Counties, Illinois; Delaware; Boulder County, Colorado; and Ventura County, California. Using data collected during the site visits, students identified the factors restricting access to justice and created solutions based on information structure, and finally constructed a communication document for their ideas to overcoming these factors. A second course in Systems Design and Structured Planning, taught by Charles Owen at the Institute of Design, began in January 2001, and consisted of 22 graduate-level students, including four law students from Chicago-Kent College of Law and 18 design students from the Institute of Design. In this second ...

The One Exhibition The Roots Of The Lgbt Equality Movement One Magazine & The First Gay Supreme Court Case In U.S. History 1943-1958, Joshua R. Edmundson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The ONE Exhibition explores an era in American history marked by intense government sponsored anti-gay persecution and the genesis of the LGBT equality movement. The study begins during World War II, continues through the McCarthy era and the founding of the nation’s first gay magazine, and ends in 1958 with the first gay Supreme Court case in U.S. history.

Central to the story is ONE The Homosexual Magazine, and its founders, as they embarked on a quest for LGBT equality by establishing the first ongoing nationwide forum for gay people in the U.S., and challenged the government ...

The Political Illegitimacy Of "Superstition:" Obeah After The Morant Bay Rebellion, 1865-1900, Rachael Mackenzie Maclean

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Thinking Through The Monarchy In Sixth-Century Visigothic Spain, Cade Meinel

College of William & Mary Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper uses a comparison of the laws of the Visigothic Code to the events of the sixth century to investigate the continuity that the concepts surrounding the Visigothic monarchy, such as negotiated sovereignty and religious and ethnic identities, provided within the Visigothic kingdom in Spain. It first establishes the theoretical framework for the monarchy found in the law before exploring how these ideas influenced and were in turn affected by the events of the sixth century. It moves through the century starting with King Theodoric the Great and the Ostrogoth influence and ends with the kings Liuvigild and Recarred ...

Hibakusha And The Japanese Supreme Court: Judgement Long Overdue, Timothy J. Duefrane

History Undergraduate Theses

On August 6 and 9 1945 the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Survivors of the attacks, who were exposed to atomic radiation, have come to be known by the Japanese term for an atomic bomb survivor, hibakusha. The fight against the violations of hibakusha rights due to discrimination as well as misconceptions and misinterpretations of the acts and laws for survivor welfare and support have been one long and brutal legal battle after another. The appeal cases relating to the hibakusha living outside of Japan have begun to be investigated and ...

The Meanings Of The "Privileges And Immunities Of Citizens" On The Eve Of The Civil War, David R. Upham

Notre Dame Law Review

The Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution provides, in part, that “[n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” This “Privileges or Immunities Clause” has been called “the darling of the professoriate.” Indeed, in the last decade alone, law professors have published dozens of articles treating the provision. The focus of this particular study is the interpretation of the “privileges and immunities of citizens” offered by American political actors, including not only judges, but also elected officials and private citizens, before the Fourteenth Amendment, and primarily, on ...

From Rome To The Restatement: S.P. Scott, Fred Blume, Clyde Pharr, And Roman Law In Early Twentieth Century America, Timothy Kearley

Timothy G. Kearley

Law Reform In The Ancient World: Did The Emperor Augustus Succeed Or Fail In His Morals Legislation?, Charles J. Reid Jr.

William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law

This is an Article with a dual purpose. First, it is concerned with the process of law reform: how do we judge a given reform’s success or failure? Do we adopt strictly linear metrics? Or do we look at nonlinear impacts? For example, in the campaign against tobacco, do we judge it a success because it has reduced cigarette smoking? Or because it reduced the political power of the tobacco companies?

Secondly, in this Article, I apply this complex means of analyzing law reform to the Emperor Augustus’s morals legislation. Legal historians have typically regarded Augustus’s morals ...

Hist 340: American Legal History—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Katrina Jagodinsky

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This inquiry portfolio measures the success of revisions made to HIST 340: American Legal History after a previous benchmark portfolio revealed a number of problems in communicating to students the importance and meaning of the course objectives, in correlating assessments to the final grade, and in documenting student learning and quality of instruction. The findings, outlined below, indicate that identifying a clear course theme; more strongly aligning readings, assessments, and discussions to course objectives; and restructuring the verbal and written analysis of readings dramatically improved students’ performance and satisfaction. Measures used include formal and informal student evaluations of instruction, formal ...

Cotton, Clemency, And Control: United States V. Klein And The Juridical Legacy Of Executive Pardon, Heather L. Clancy

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

When the guns of war fell silent in 1865, Americans throughout the reunited states grappled with the logistics of peace. At virtually every turn lay nebulous but critical questions of race, class, allegiance, and identity. More pragmatic legal stumbling blocks could also be found strewn across the path to Reconstruction; some of them would ensnare the healing nation for decades to come. Among their number was notorious Supreme Court decision United States v. Klein (1872). Born on July 22, 1865 out of a small debate over the wartime seizure of Vicksburg cotton stores, Klein quickly evolved into a legal behemoth ...

Sanctioned Silencing, Symbolic Resistance: Race, Space, And Dispossession In A Marginalized South African Community, Killian Richard Miller

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

My field work and the written portion of my ethnography work through issues of marginality, state apparatuses, illusions of freedom, and making meaning in a context of oppression. All these power dynamics are historically-situated within the cultural context and community of Hangberg, a place forged by the race-based forced removals of Apartheid. British and Dutch colonization, Apartheid's racial regime, and the post-Apartheid oligarchical state, are all historical and contemporary authoritative forces that are impacting the everyday lives of people in Hangberg. Perspectives of power also serve as ...

Repeating History: The Ineffectiveness Of The 1973 War Powers Resolution, Kaitlyn N. Schiess

Senior Honors Theses

Reluctant students often criticize the study of history as irrelevant to the present day.

In the case of one important and controversial piece of legislation, nothing could be farther from the truth. The 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR), which places limits on presidential power to deploy troops in combat situations, has ample application to the political functioning of the United States today. Thus, investigating and studying the resolution remains relevant and important today. The WPR became law in 1973, overcoming a predictable veto by President Nixon. The legislation has consistently been a flashpoint for political controversy – eliciting criticism by both ...

The Contemporary Relevance Of Carl Schmitt: Law, Politics, Theology, Matilda Arvidsson, Leila Brännström, Panu Minkkinen

Matilda Arvidsson

What does Carl Schmitt have to offer to ongoing debates about sovereignty, globalization, spatiality, the nature of the political, and political theology? Can Schmitt’s positions and concepts offer insights that might help us understand our concrete present-day situation? Works on Schmitt usually limit themselves to historically isolating Schmitt into his Weimar or post-Weimar context, to reading him together with classics of political and legal philosophy, or to focusing exclusively on a particular aspect of Schmitt’s writings. Bringing together an international, and interdisciplinary, range of contributors, this book explores the question of Schmitt’s relevance for an understanding of ...

A Business Trust For Partnerships? Early Conceptions Of Company-Related Assets In Legal Literature, And Antwerp Forensic And Commercial Practice (Later Sixteenth-Early Seventeenth Century), Dave De Ruysscher

Dave De ruysscher

Making Marital Rape Visible: A History Of American Legal And Social Movements Criminalizing Rape In Marriage, Joann M. Ross

Dissertations, Theses, & Student Research, Department of History

This study examines the history of marital rape and related topics in the United States within the broader context of women’s legal and political rights. The project demonstrates the interplay between women’s activists, legislators, the criminal justice system, and an involved public necessary to change both societal and legal views on spousal rape, and eventually its criminalization in all fifty states.

Concentrating on approaches to criminalizing marital rape in three of the fifty states, this dissertation provides a reasonable representation of the existence of the marital rape exemption in America, arguments used to maintain the exemption, and various ...

Federal Justice And Moral Reform In The United States District Court In Indiana, 1816-1869, George Geib, Donald Kite

George W. Geib

In November 1840, William Martin, an Indiana mail stage driver found himself standing in United States District Court, convicted of stealing a letter containing bank notes from the mail.^1 District Judge Jesse Lynch Holman reviewed the evidence that convinced the jury, and then lectured the defendant upon his future prospects: The prospect before you is truly dark and dreary; yet there is a distant ray of hope that may enlighten your path You may do much by a patient submission to the law—by a reformation of life and an upright line of conduct ... to some extent, to regain ...

Magna Carta Then And Now: A Symbol Of Freedom And Equal Rights For All, Eugene Tan, Jack Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

Magna Carta became applicable to Singapore in 1826 when a court system administering English law was established in the Straits Settlements. This remained the case through Singapore’s evolution from Crown colony to independent republic. The Great Charter only ceased to apply in 1993, when Parliament enacted the Application of English Law Act to clarify which colonial laws were still part of Singapore law. Nonetheless, Magna Carta’s legacy in Singapore continues in a number of ways. Principles such as due process of law and the supremacy of law are cornerstones of the rule of law, vital to the success ...

April Miller Et Al. Vs. Kim Davis (Date Filled November 13, 2015), United States District Court For The Eastern District Of Kentucky

Media Collection

APRIL MILLER, PH.D., et al. PLAINTIFFS v. KIM DAVIS, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ROWAN COUNTY CLERK, et al. DEFENDANTS and RESPONSE OF THIRD-PARTY DEFENDANTS TO PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION TO ENFORCE SEPTEMBER 3 AND SEPTEMBER 8 ORDERS KIM DAVIS THIRD-PARTY PLAINTIFF v. STEVEN L. BESHEAR, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY, et al. THIRD-PARTY DEFENDANTS

April Miller Et Al. Vs. Kim Davis (Date Filled November 9, 2015), United States Court Of Appeals For The Sixth Circuit

Media Collection

APRIL MILLER, PH.D; KAREN ANN ROBERTS; SHANTEL BURKE; STEPHEN NAPIER; JODY FERNANDEZ; KEVIN HOLLOWAY; L. AARON SKAGGS; AND BARRY SPARTMAN, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. KIM DAVIS, INDIVIDUALLY, Defendant-Third-Party Plaintiff-Appellant, and STEVEN L. BESHEAR, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY, AND WAYNE ONKST, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS STATE LIBRARIAN AND COMMISSIONER, KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT FOR LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES, Third-Party Defendants-Appellees. ON APPEAL FROM U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY, CIVIL ACTION NO. 15-CV-00044, HON. DAVID L. BUNNING BRIEF FOR AMICUS CURIAE EAGLE FORUM EDUCATION & LEGAL DEFENSE FUND IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANT IN SUPPORT OF REVERSAL

Marriage (In)Equality And The Historical Legacies Of Feminism, Serena Mayeri

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, I measure the majority’s opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges against two legacies of second-wave feminist legal advocacy: the largely successful campaign to make civil marriage formally gender-neutral; and the lesser-known struggle against laws and practices that penalized women who lived their lives outside of marriage. Obergefell obliquely acknowledges marriage equality’s debt to the first legacy without explicitly adopting sex equality arguments against same-sex marriage bans. The legacy of feminist campaigns for nonmarital equality, by contrast, is absent from Obergefell’s reasoning and belied by rhetoric that both glorifies marriage and implicitly disparages nonmarriage. Even so ...