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Compensation For Victims Of Violent Crimes: An Analysis, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Spurred by the implementation of plans in Great Britain, New Zealand, and California; and by various other federal and state proposals, the concept of state compensation to victims of violent crimes has recently become the subject of wide public interest and intensive legal debate. In essence, the concept envisages some scheme by which the victims of crimes of violence can be compensated for any losses resulting from their criminally inflicted injuries.

Before any proposals based on this conception are adopted they should be shown to have a valid theoretical framework, supported by sound legal principles, with an effective and efficient …

Constitutional Law, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

In the last thirty years, the equal protection clause has been largely transformed. Once a point of reference for courts striking down schemes of economic regulation which they regarded as unreasonable or unwise, it is now primarily a source of constitutional standards in the areas of civil rights, reapportionment, and rights of indigents accused of crime. These standards are of immense legal and social consequence. Since the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Educ. their development-characterized by Professor Philip B. Kurland as "the rise of egalitarianism" – has been paralleled by an increasing attention to the claims of equality …

Obscenity, 1966: The Marriage Of Obscenity Per Se And Obscenity Per Quod, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

In a widely admired article, Harry Kalven argued that the New York Times case embodies the "central meaning" of the First Amendment. On his view, in a free, open society, maximum protection must be accorded to "political" speech. He concluded that the right freely to criticize the government must lie at the center of any adequate theory of the First Amendment.

It is not so easy to make a comparable claim about the relationship between obscenity and the First Amendment. The Supreme Court's conception of obscenity is partially responsible. While the Court in Roth v. United States (1957) explicitly barred …

Criminal Law And Procedure, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

§12.1 Introduction. The recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the area of criminal procedure have begun to have a considerable impact upon litigation in the Massachusetts courts; indeed, for at least the second successive year the major emphasis of the Supreme Judicial Court's criminal law opinions centered upon considerations of "criminal due process." On the whole, the Court demonstrated an admirable concern for protecting the requirements of a fair trial. However, in at least two significant areas its decisions are open to considerable question: (1) in a series of opinions the Court confined the admittedly unclear …

Gideon's Army: Student Soldiers, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Ours is a nation that takes great pride in the manner in which it administers justice to its citizens. To us, "equal justice under law" is not simply hollow rhetoric; it gives expression to some of our most fundamental values, and it proclaims that every man should be treated fairly and equally in the administration of the laws. It is, of course, of no small moment that we hold such an ideal, for a nation invites judgment on how well its performance comports with its professions of faith.

In the administration of our laws there is much to which we …

Law And The Negro Revolution; Ten Years Later, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Scarcely ten years ago the Supreme Court of the United States sounded the death knell for segregation in the public schools. In so doing, the high court in fact did much more, for its decision drew together and united the diverse elements in American society which were arrayed against segregation in all its forms. Thus began the great social upheaval which we loosely term "the Negro revolution."

The broad goal is readily discernible. The Negro demands admittance to American public life, to the schools, theatres, restaurants, hotels, job opportunities and the like which comprise the "public" sector of our society; …

Section 301 And The Primary Jurisdiction Of The Nlrb, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Several labor cases recently decided by the Supreme Court have brought into issue a conflict between the NLRB's primary jurisdiction over matters subject to sections 7 and 8 of the NLRA and the doctrine that courts have jurisdiction to enforce collective agreements. Professor Sovern discusses these cases and argues that the Court properly decided that the principle of exclusive NLRB jurisdiction should yield in suits on collective agreements, but he criticizes the Court for not having articulated a satisfactory rationale in support of this result. After an analysis of the doctrine of preemption, he considers five types of labor-contract suits …

The National Labor Relations Act And Racial Discrimination, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

When the United States Commission on Civil Rights completed its recent study of discrimination in employment, its findings began on the same depressing note sounded by virtually every student of the problem since the end of slavery:

[N]egro workers are still disproportionately concentrated in the ranks of the unskilled and semiskilled in both private and public employment. They are also disproportionately represented among the unemployed because of their concentration in unskilled and semi-skilled jobs-those most severely affected by both cyclical and structural unemployment-and because Negro workers often have relatively low seniority. These difficulties are due in some degree to present …

The Constitution And Occupational Licensing In Massachusetts, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Judges have long recognized that the right to earn a living in any of the common occupations is among those fundamental interests which a democratic society should protect. Justice Bradley characterized it as an "inalienable right," and Justice Douglas asserted that it is "the most precious liberty that man possesses." Indeed, Mr. Justice Field viewed protection of this right as one of the distinguishing features of our republican institutions. That the right to earn a living is generally within the protective mantle of the Fourteenth Amendment is now long settled constitutional doctrine. Writing for a unanimous court in 1915, Mr. …

Constructive Trust And Equitable Lien: Status Of The Conscious And The Innocent Wrongdoer In Equity, Henry P. Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

The field of restitution, broadly considered, involves all those situations in which a person who holds property (or has consumed it) must deliver it (or its value) to the claimant in order to prevent the unjust enrichment of the holder. In this sense the ancient common law writs for the recovery of chattels or their value (detinue, replevin, and trover) and land (ejectment) are perceived to be restitutionary in character. A more modem development in the law courts, the allowance of quasi-contractual relief upon the common counts in general assumpsit, rests upon the same basis. In a leading English case, …

Delay And The Dynamics Of Personal Injury Litigation, Maurice Rosenberg, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Delayed justice is one of man's stubborn maladies. Just as stubborn is' man himself, and this has led him to persist in prescribing for the delay affliction instead of trying to understand it. Today there are still those who believe that solution can precede understanding and that what this country needs is a good five-cent "cure" for delay. Happily, others have recognized the need to put first things first. All through the country more and more groups are at work methodically getting the facts that are essential to understanding what is wrong and what is needed. The Columbia University Project …

International Trade And Economic Expansion, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

The recent literature on the effects of economic expansion on international trade has been concerned with two principal problems: the impact of the expansion on the terms of trade; and the resultant change in the welfare of the trading nations. The solutions offered, however, are not fully satisfactory. Thus H. G. Johnson [5) and W. M. Corden [3], who attempt to tackle the first problem, succeed only in establishing the direction, as distinct from the extent, of the consequential shift in the terms of trade. In so far as the full impact of the expansion on the terms of trade …

Section 4 Of The Bankruptcy Act: The Excluded Corporations, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Section 4 of the Bankruptcy Act excludes from both voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy municipal, railroad, insurance and banking corporations and building and loan associations, and excludes from involuntary bankruptcy corporations that are not "moneyed, business or commercial." The exclusion of railroad and municipal corporations lost much of its significance when special reorganization provisions were enacted for those corporations. Insurance and banking corporations and building and loan associations, on the other hand, are excluded from the Bankruptcy Act's corporate reorganization chapters as well as from straight bankruptcy; and creditors can no more compel a corporation that is not moneyed, business or …

"Public Policy" In The Conflict Of Laws, Monrad G. Paulsen, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

In deciding a conflict of laws question, a judge will sometimes say, "The foreign law ordinarily applicable will not be applied in this case because to do so would violate our public policy." The textwriters, language in the cases, and the Restatement agree: the "normal" operation of choice of law rules is subject to a "public policy" limitation. This paper is an attempt to explore the meanings and significance of "public policy," used in this general way, in the conflict of laws.