Law Commons^™

Difference Made Legal: The Court And Dr. King, David Luban

Michigan Law Review

My aim in this essay is to contrast two legal retellings of the same event: a set of demonstrations sponsored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 that led to the arrest and incarceration of Martin Luther King, Jr. One is the Supreme Court majority opinion in Walker v. City of Birmingham, sustaining King's conviction; the other, King's own defense of his actions in his Letter from Birmingham Jail I wish to show how the self-same event entails radically different legal consequences when it appears in different narratives, one the Supreme Court's official voice, the …

Stories Of Origin And Constitutional Possibilities, Milner S. Ball

Michigan Law Review

Robert Cover once observed how "[n]o set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning. For every constitution there is an epic, for each decalogue a scripture." Stories of origin locate law, invest it with legitimacy, and so lend it stability. As Cover went on to note, however, the narratives that legitimate a legal order also retain revolutionary force, for a return to the originating acts recounted in the narratives is always possible. A polity begun in revolution remains subject to revolution.

There is an American story of origins. It is …

The Law Of Pretrial Interrogation, Department Of Justice Office Of Legal Policy

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The existing rules in the United States governing the questioning of suspects in custody are based on the Supreme Court's five to four decision in Miranda v. Arizona. The Court in Miranda promulgated a new, code-like set of rules for custodial questioning, including the creation of a right to counsel in connection with custodial questioning, a requirement of warnings, a prohibition of questioning unless the suspect affirmatively waives the rights set out in the warnings, and a prohibition of questioning if the suspect asks for a lawyer or indicates in any manner that he is unwilling to talk. These …

Privacy In A Public Society: Human Rights In Conflict, David Clark Esseks

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Privacy in a Public Society: Human Rights in Conflict by Richard F. Hixson

Transfers Of Property In Eleventh-Century Norman Law, William John Gallagher

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law by Emily Zack Tabuteau

Reimagining The Marshall Court, H. Jefferson Powell

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1815-1835 by G. Edward White

Jewish Law: Finally, A Useable And Readable Text For The Noninitiate, Sherman L. Cohn

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A Living Tree: The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law by Elliot N. Dorff and Arthur Rosett

Law And Disputing In Commercializing Early America, Cornelia Dayton

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Neighbors and Strangers: Law and Community in Early Connecticut by Bruce H. Mann

Trial By Ordeal, Robert C. Palmer

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal by Robert Bartlett

On Human Rights: The Use Of Human Right Precepts In U.S. History And The Right To An Effective Remedy In Domestic Courts, Jordan J. Paust

Michigan Journal of International Law

Early in the history of the United States, human rights, then often termed the "rights of man," were understood to be those natural, unalienable rights of all persons that no government on earth could deny - rights that are a part of law, whether written or unwritten, and that free and democratic governments are formed to further and to protect. As Alexander Hamilton recognized in 1775, "the sacred rights of mankind... are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature… and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." Yet, as Hamilton must have known, …

Reflections On State Responsibility For Violations Of Explicit Protectorate, Mandate, And Trusteeship Obligations, W. Michael Reisman

Michigan Journal of International Law

There is a rich body of law dealing with breach of treaty, its consequences and the procedural options it gives to the complying party. But violations of treaty obligations by a protecting state are procedurally different from violations between states in legal and political parity and negotiating at arm's length. The protected state or state under protectorate has, by definition, a restricted if not completely suspended competence to operate at the international level and hence is unable to protect its interests against violations by the erstwhile protector. Thus, it should be no surprise that international decision has suspended the operation …