Law Commons^™

Shaping Today's Forfeiture Law: A Conversation With Senator Mcclellan, G. Robert Blakey

Journal Articles

In any society, the government's ability to interfere with life, liberty or property is always open for full discussion. In this conversation, Professor Blakey discusses property in the context of organized and white-collar crime, in addition to criminal forfeiture, and frames his discussion around his work with Senator John McClellan on drafting the Organized Crime Control Act.

Intestate Succession In A Polygamous Society, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

The pursuit of polygamous unions by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in nineteenth-century Utah posed challenges for the law of the family unique in the annals of American legal history. The exotic familial relationships generated by plural marriages created novel and peculiar problems for the traditional law of intestacy. Mormon leaders, in an effort to avoid these problems, urged their polygamous brethren to make wills. Many polygamists, however, either neglected to plan their estates or were actively opposed to doing so. Mormon legislators accordingly sought to craft statutory schemes that would accommodate the peculiar inheritance …

Criminal Redistribution Of Stolen Property: The Need For Law Reform, G. Robert Blakey, Michael Goldsmith

Journal Articles

The development of sophisticated fencing systems for the sale of stolen property to consumers has paralleled the industrialization of society. Although crimes against property and attempts to control them have ancient origins, most theft before the Industrial Revolution was committed for immediate consumption by the thieves and their accomplices rather than for redistribution in the market-place. Society's small population, inadequate transportation and communication systems, and technological inability to mass produce identical goods constrained large-scale fencing because there were few buyers and because stolen property could be readily identified. The unprecedented economic and demographic growth in eighteenth-century Europe, however, removed these …

The Federal Income Tax Effects Of The Missouri Version Of The Uniform Divorce Act, Alan Gunn

Journal Articles

The marital property provisions of the new Missouri divorce law render the tax treatment of property transfers and alimony payments unclear. As to property transfers, the problem is that the new law appears to give the wife an interest in property that previously would have been regarded as belonging to the husband. Since this is so, it is possible to argue that a “transfer” of appreciated property to the wife is part of a “division” of property between “co-owners,” and therefore not taxable. Although transfers of appreciated property in connection with a divorce are usually taxable, divisions of community property …

Men And Things: The Liberal Bias Against Property, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

When a property teacher sets out to learn about the human facts in his subject—if, for instance, he wants to learn about the behavioral aspects of the law of the dead (wills, trusts, future interests and death taxation)—he will be discouraged by the fact that psychological literature has a great deal to say about sex, and even quite a bit about death, but almost nothing about property.

There are a couple of metaphysical essays by Jean-Paul Sartre, and, from the founders of psychoanalysis, the theory that our concern about property begins at the potty chair. But for the most part …

The Rule Of Announcement And Unlawful Entry: Miller V. United States And Ker V. California, G. Robert Blakey Professor

Journal Articles

Mr. Justice Frankfurter, in his classic dissent in United States v. Rabinowitz, pointed out that "the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people." Few cases decided by the Supreme Court since Rabinowitz have better illustrated that observation than Miller v. United States and Ker v. California. This Article will consider the problems posed in the administration of federal criminal justice by the "liberty forged" in these two decisions.

Until the Miller decision in 1958, the Supreme Court had never squarely considered and decided a question of announcement and unlawful entry. It is therefore …

Partition Of Oil And Gas Interests And The Effect On Mineral Rights Of Surface Partition, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Interests in oil and gas in place are of three kinds: ownership of minerals independent of surface ownership, royalty interests, and "working" or leasehold interests. All three are forms of property, susceptible of ownership by cotenants, and cotenancies of the first and third categories are at least theoretically open to actions for partition.

Partition of interests in oil and gas raises practical legal difficulties in three areas: (1) How does mineral ownership fit into the statutory partition scheme? (Each of the nation's fifty states has a statute concerning partition of either realty or personalty or both.) (2) How is a …

Affidavits And Notice Under Ohio Mechanics' Lien Statute, Joseph O'Meara

Journal Articles

Recent cases under the Ohio Mechanics' Lien Statute have tended to emphasize the existing confusion in the perfecting of mechanics' liens and the need for statutory revision. The scintilla rule should be abandoned. Nor should the doctrine of stare decisis call up misgivings.

Alienability Of Contingent Remainders, Joseph O'Meara, William K. Divers

Journal Articles

There is no longer any such thing as a determinable interest in land in Ohio. The ordinary words appropriate to create a determinable interest in land are words indicating duration of time, e. g., "Until Gloversville shall be incorporated as a village". Although not made an issue by the parties, the supreme court's decision turned upon the legal effect of the following clause: "To have and to hold the premises aforesaid unto the said grantees and their successors so that neither the said grantor or his heirs nor any other person claiming title through or under him shall or will …