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Full-Text Articles in Law
Lights Hidden Under Bushel's Case, Thomas A. Green
Lights Hidden Under Bushel's Case, Thomas A. Green
Book Chapters
Some forty years ago, Charlie Donahue created a course which he titled "Law, Morals and Society." Designed for undergraduates, and situated among the offerings of the University of Michigan's interdisciplinary Medieval and Renaissance Collegium, the course reflected the approach to doing history that, as this volume recognizes, Charlie has followed throughout his long and enormously influential career as scholar, teacher, lecturer, and inepressible master of well-timed interventions during conference-panel discussion periods. "LMS" was composed of four units. Charlie, who taught two of them, led off with the legal basis for the deposition of Richard II; I followed with the law …
The Jury And Criminal Responsibility In Anglo-American History, Thomas A. Green
The Jury And Criminal Responsibility In Anglo-American History, Thomas A. Green
Articles
Anglo-American theories of criminal responsibility require scholars to grapple with, inter alia, the relationship between the formal rule of law and the powers of the lay jury as well as two inherent ideas of freedom: freedom of the will and political liberty. Here, by way of canvassing my past work and prefiguring future work, I sketch some elements of the history of the Anglo-American jury and offer some glimpses of commentary on the interplay between the jury—particularly its application of conventional morality to criminal judgments—and the formal rule of law of the state. My central intent is to pose questions …
The Invention Of Common Law Play Right, Jessica D. Litman
The Invention Of Common Law Play Right, Jessica D. Litman
Articles
This Article explores playwrights' common law "play right." Since this conference celebrates the 300th birthday of the Statute of Anne, I begin in England in the 17th Century. I find no trace of a common law playwright's performance right in either the law or the customary practices surrounding 17th and 18th century English theatre. I argue that the nature and degree of royal supervision of theatre companies and performance during the period presented no occasion (and, indeed, left no opportunity) for such a right to arise. I discuss the impetus for Parliament's enactment of a performance right statute in 1833, …
Review Of Explaining The English Revolution: Hobbes And His Contemporaries, Donald J. Herzog
Review Of Explaining The English Revolution: Hobbes And His Contemporaries, Donald J. Herzog
Reviews
The explosion of primary texts from seven- teenth-century England continues to trigger an explosion of scholarly treatments today. For good reason, too: Lots of the primary texts are amazing, and not just those tired old warhors- es, Hobbes's Leviathan and Locke's Second Treatise. As fun and challenging as the primary texts are, you are forgiven a touch of skepticism if you wonder just what the latest author has to add to our understanding. You might redouble your skepticism if you just glance at Mark Stephen Jendrysik's table of contents, offering chapters on Winstanley, Milton, Cromwell, Filmer, and Hobbes, and zeroing …
Free-Standing Due Process And Criminal Procedure: The Supreme Court's Search For Interpretive Guidelines, Jerold H. Israel
Free-Standing Due Process And Criminal Procedure: The Supreme Court's Search For Interpretive Guidelines, Jerold H. Israel
Articles
When I was first introduced to the constitutional regulation of criminal procedure in the mid-1950s, a single issue dominated the field: To what extent did the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment impose upon states the same constitutional restraints that the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments imposed upon the federal government? While those Bill of Rights provisions, as even then construed, imposed a broad range of constitutional restraints upon the federal criminal justice system, the federal system was (and still is) minuscule as compared to the combined systems of the fifty states. With the Bill of Rights provisions …
Enlightenment, Donald J. Herzog
Enlightenment, Donald J. Herzog
Articles
It's a curious broadside, a work of austere graphics and polite prose far removed from the mischievous engravings and bawdy ballads usually appearing on such sheets. Drawn from an address that 345 printers had signed and 138 had presented to the queen, the original text was committed to parchment "and accompanied by a Copy surperbly printed on white Satin, edged with white Silk Fringe, backed with purple Satin, and mounted in an Ivory Roller with appropriate Devices." Even in the published version, the arch is full of intricately detailed work. The printers took pride in their craftmanship: "This Specimen of …
Review Of Reason And Rhetoric In The Philosophy Of Hobbes, Donald J. Herzog
Review Of Reason And Rhetoric In The Philosophy Of Hobbes, Donald J. Herzog
Reviews
In the 1960s, Quentin Skinner wrote a series of polemical if terse papers arguing that the conventional approach to the history of political theory was confused. Using Hobbes as something of a vehicle for his position, Skinner enunciated what is now well known as the "Cambridge" approach to political theory. He urged that we situate authors in their intellectual contexts so that we can isolate what is distinctive, perhaps subversive, in their use of language: only then, he argued, can we have any valid historical understanding on what they are doing in writing these weird books in the first place. …
The Trouble With Hairdressers, Donald J. Herzog
The Trouble With Hairdressers, Donald J. Herzog
Articles
Why should hairdressers, of all unlikely candidates, have come to exemplify equality, to be a cultural obsession of sort? Suffice it to say that hairdressers happened to occupy a social position that made it possible to demonize them.
Review Of Kingship, Law And Society: Criminal Justice In The Reign Of Henry V, Thomas A. Green
Review Of Kingship, Law And Society: Criminal Justice In The Reign Of Henry V, Thomas A. Green
Reviews
Edward Powell's splendid study of Henry V's strategy for keeping peace among magnate and gentry factions represents an important contribution to the history of criminal justice. After providing a panoramic view of the machinery of criminal justice, Powell analyzes the extent to which that machinery was effective as between the Crown, at the center, and the upper echelons of society in the provinces. His conclusion, not surprisingly, is that the regular processes of common-law criminal administration could not easily be deployed at those levels. But Powell does not let the matter drop there. Kingship, Law, and Society presents a lucid …
A Retrospective On The Criminal Trial Jury, 1200-1800, Thomas A. Green
A Retrospective On The Criminal Trial Jury, 1200-1800, Thomas A. Green
Book Chapters
My recent book provided an overview of the history of the institutional aspects of the English criminal trial jury upon which all of the contributors to this volume have, tacitly or otherwise, commented. That tentative institutional background was intended both to stand on its own terms and to provide a framework for the studies on the relationship between law and society and on the history of ideas regarding the jury that made up the larger part of the volume. The two aspects of my book were joined: the socio-legal analysis and the history of ideas were to a large extent …
The Jury, Seditious Libel And The Criminal Law, Thomas A. Green
The Jury, Seditious Libel And The Criminal Law, Thomas A. Green
Book Chapters
The seditious libel trials of the eighteenth century constitute an important chapter in the history of freedom of the press and the growth of democratic government. While much has been written about the trials and about the administration of the criminal law in eighteenth-century England, little has been said about the relationship between the libel prosecutions and the more pervasive and long-standing problems of the criminal law. We have perhaps gone too far in positing-or simply assuming-a separation between political high misdemeanors and common-run felony cases such as homicide and theft. For there were points of contact between the two: …
Review Of Wiltshire Gaol Delivery And Trailbaston Trials, 1275-1306, Thomas A. Green
Review Of Wiltshire Gaol Delivery And Trailbaston Trials, 1275-1306, Thomas A. Green
Reviews
Ralph B. Pugh's handsome edition of Wiltshire gaol delivery and trailbaston trial rolls for the reign of Edward I provides a valuable resource for scholars of medieval crime and criminal law. The period covered bridges the era of the infrequent general eyres and that of the frequent circuits to try those being held on criminal charges. This transition period saw the development of various institutions and procedures designed to deal with a decline in social stability and an increase in criminal activity. To date, most scholarship has focused either on the workings of the mid-thirteenth- century eyre or on the …
Review Of Crime In England, 1550-1800, Thomas A. Green
Review Of Crime In England, 1550-1800, Thomas A. Green
Reviews
Crime in England, 1550-1800, is the second collection of essays on the social history of crime and the criminal law in early modern England to appear in recent years. Together with the essays in Albion's Fatal Tree (1975),' these offerings advance our knowledge of the subject considerably. To be sure, as G. R. Elton cautions, there are methodological problems in a field so new, and Elton's "Introduction" will serve as an excellent starting point for readers concerned with such matters. We must nevertheless recognize the accomplishments of the new school of socio-legal historians. The essays in this volume deal with …
Review Of Society And Homicide In Thirteenth-Century England, Thomas A. Green
Review Of Society And Homicide In Thirteenth-Century England, Thomas A. Green
Reviews
JAMES GIVEN has produced the first systematic book-length treatment of the sociology of medieval English crime. His work does not pretend to be comprehensive: it deals only with homicide. Nor does it cover more than a century, the thirteenth; the author has wisely left the earlier system of criminal law, based on private compensation, to other scholars, and he says just enough about late thirteenth- and early fourteenth- century social and legal change to suggest he believes that that period, too, must await its own interpretation. Still, the social history of homicide in the thirteenth century proves itself fascinating terrain, …
Review Of Crime And Public Order In England In The Later Middle Ages, Thomas A. Green
Review Of Crime And Public Order In England In The Later Middle Ages, Thomas A. Green
Reviews
Slowly but surely the history of English criminal law is being rewritten. Abundant monographs, articles and introductions to texts have appeared in the past couple of decades; many more are on the way. Work has gone ahead on the substantive law of crimes, on the procedures of the criminal law and its institutions andmore tentatively-on the social history of English criminal law. While medievalists have led the way, work is now being undertaken by early modern and modern historians as well.
Review Of The King's Pardon For Homicide To A.D. 1307, Thomas A. Green
Review Of The King's Pardon For Homicide To A.D. 1307, Thomas A. Green
Reviews
NAOMI D. Hurnard's The King's Pardon for Homicide before AD 1307 is significant and instructive for both legal and social historians. The author has painstakingly pieced together the available evidence from a variety of classes of mediaeval English public records to achieve a clear statement of the law of excusable homicide, i.e., non-felonious but requiring a royal pardon. She has lucidly presented the procedure which marks out the legal life story of persons deserving pardon, from the pardonable slaying to the formal proclamation of the king's peace. But she has also accomplished much more. Through careful and generally sound use …
Societal Concepts Of Criminal Liability For Homicide In Medieval England, Thomas A. Green
Societal Concepts Of Criminal Liability For Homicide In Medieval England, Thomas A. Green
Articles
THE early history of English criminal law lies hidden behind the laconic formulas of the rolls and law books. The rules of the law, as expounded by the judges, have been the subject of many studies; but their practical application in the courts, where the jury of the community was the final and unbridled arbiter, remains a mystery: in short, we know little of the social mores regarding crime and crimi- nals. This study represents an attempt to delineate one major aspect of these societal attitudes. Its thesis is that from late Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the middle …
A Dissent From The Miranda Dissents: Some Comments On The 'New' Fifth Amendment And The Old 'Voluntariness' Test, Yale Kamisar
A Dissent From The Miranda Dissents: Some Comments On The 'New' Fifth Amendment And The Old 'Voluntariness' Test, Yale Kamisar
Articles
F the several conferences and workshops (and many lunch conversations) on police interrogation and confessions in which I have participated this past summer3 are any indication, Miranda v. Arizona' has evoked much anger and spread much sorrow among judges, lawyers and professors. In the months and years ahead, such reaction is likely to be translated into microscopic analyses and relentless, probing criticism of the majority opinion. During this period of agonizing appraisal and reappraisal, I think it important that various assumptions and assertions in the dissenting opinions do not escape attention.
Some Aspects Of Fifteenth Century Chancery, Willard T. Barbour
Some Aspects Of Fifteenth Century Chancery, Willard T. Barbour
Articles
IT is now more than thirty years since Justice Holmes in a brilliant and daring essay set on foot an inquiry which has revealed the remote beginnings of English equity. Equity and common law originated in one and the same procedure and existed for a long time, not only side by side, but quite undifferentiated from each other. Their origin is to be found in the system of royal justice which the genius of Henry II converted into the common law; but this royal justice was in the beginning as much outside of, or even antagonistic to, the ordinary judicial …
Partnership Entity And Tenancy In Partnership: The Struggle For A Definition, Joseph H. Drake
Partnership Entity And Tenancy In Partnership: The Struggle For A Definition, Joseph H. Drake
Articles
PARTNERSHIP is a legal entity formed by the association of two or more persons. This definition of a partnership as a person or entity represents what may be characterized as a generally accepted theory among American jurists at the time of its publication in 1893. But a later definition says: "A partnership is an association of two more persons." "A partner is co-owner with his partners of specific partnership property holding as a tenant in partnership." The second definition shows that the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws have rejected the entity theory and coined a new term to describe partnership …
The Inefficiency Of The American Jury, Edson R. Sunderland
The Inefficiency Of The American Jury, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
What is proposed in the present article is to show that in attempting to preserve the independence of the jury in its exclusive juris- diction over questions of fact, the people and the courts in most American jurisdictions have departed from the common law practice and have introduced a principle calculated to undermine the very institution which they wish to strengthen. That is to say, through the rules prohibiting judges from commenting on the weight of the evidence, juries tend to become irresponsible, verdicts tend to become matters of chance, and the intricacy of procedure, with its cost, delay and …
Corporations And Express Trusts As Business Organizations, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Corporations And Express Trusts As Business Organizations, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Articles
PRESIDENT BUTLER of Columbia University is reported to have said in an address before the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1911, that "the limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modem times, whether you judge it by its social, by its ethical, by its industrial, or, in the long run--after we understand it and know how to use it,--by its political, effects." 1
English Law As An Exponent Of English History, Edson R. Sunderland
English Law As An Exponent Of English History, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
It is not my purpose to unduly emphasize the light which the study of the laws of a people throws upon its character and development. The teaching of history should be broad enough to recognize the importance of all sides of national life. But I believe there has never been a sufficient appreciation of the real wealth of suggestive and illuminating material which is contained in the history of English law. For the English have been pre-eminently a legal race. In the study of Roman History Roman Law has always occupied a prominent place. The Romans made their reputation, so …
Statute Of Uses And The Modern Deed, John R. Rood
Statute Of Uses And The Modern Deed, John R. Rood
Articles
To what extent does the modem conveyance of estates in land in the United States by deed derive its validity from the English Statute of Uses, 27 Hen. 8, c. IO? No doubt the student, and especially the teacher, is inclined to magnify the importance of mere matters of history, because it is so much easier to understand or explain many of the terms and doctrines of real property law by approaching them historically, and, indeed, many of them cannot otherwise be understood at all. And yet we all have this constant, serious, and often difficult task, of separating matter …
Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence, Thomas M. Cooley
Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence, Thomas M. Cooley
Book Chapters
Professor Cooley's contribution to a "popular dictionary" describes the legal history and law codes of Anglo-Saxon England, an ambitious undertaking for a two-page entry. He admits outright: "The memorials that have come down to us afford but an imperfect view of Anglo-Saxon laws."
The Method Of Electing The President, Thomas M. Cooley, Abram S. Hewitt
The Method Of Electing The President, Thomas M. Cooley, Abram S. Hewitt
Articles
Twice in the history of the United States the nation has been brought to the verge of civil war by difficulties growing out of presidential elections. And yet no system was ever devised with more care to preclude any reasonable complaint.