Law Commons^™

Fcc V. Schreiber: In Camera And The Administrative Agency, Harvey L. Zuckman

Scholarly Articles

Obtaining protection for business secrets in an agency proceeding is at best an imperfect art. The lack of any uniform rule and the confusion and delay which result from an ad hoc approach are highlighted by FCC v. Schreiber. The authors examine the current state of the law in light of the Schreiber decision and point up the present inequities. Their conclusion is that the situation can only be remedied by enactment of regulatory in camera procedures for all federal agencies. A model for such a regulation is appended to the article.

Law Vs. Politics: The Self-Image Of The American Bar, Maxwell Bloomfield

Scholarly Articles

The advent of Jacksonian democracy in American politics coincided with a vigorous leveling movement in American law. In one sense the latter crusade was nothing new: hostility toward the elitism of the legal fraternity had been rife since the days of the Revolution. But whereas earlier critics had worked to simplify the content of the law, reformers in the 1830's and 1840's attacked the problem from a different angle. Eschewing substantive changes, they sought instead to bring the administrators of the law under more direct popular control. Their program embraced a wide range of legislative measures in which worried conservatives …

Posting Of Checks: Final Payment And The Four Legals, Ralph J. Rohner

Scholarly Articles

A drew a check to B who deposited it in his account in X Bank. The check was presented to the drawee-payor, Y Bank, on Friday morning through the local clearing house, was sorted, encoded, run through the electronic computer, and stamped "Paid." On Monday morning exception reports were reviewed, the check was photographed, cancelled, and filed away in A's account. On Monday afternoon A stopped payment on ,the check. Y Bank removed the check from A's file and notified X Bank the check was being returned in accordance with the local clearing house rule. In an action by X …

May Plaintiffs Include The United States Claim Under The Federal Medical Care Recovery Act Without Government Intervention?, Michael F. Noone Jr.

Scholarly Articles

Soon after the inception of the Hospital Recovery Claims Program, Government agencies concluded that the most effective means of asserting and collecting claims under the provisions of 42 U.S.C. 2651-3 would be through the injured party's attorney. Since approximately 95% of all person injury claims are settled prior to trial, the question of who could sue if the claim could not be settled amicably remained unresolved. At the end of the first year all agencies were advised to request the plaintiff's lawyers to include the Government's claim as an item of special damages if suit were filed. Within a few …

Effective Instructions To The Federal Jury In Civil Cases: A Consideration In Microcosm, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

One of the most intriguing topics of current conversation among today's experienced, as well as inexperienced, trial lawyers is the preparation and use of jury instructions. This interest is initiated within the law school setting, where professors teaching courses in evidence and procedure will invariably seek to impart in one lecture-or implicitly consider throughout the entire course-what they consider to be the rationale for effective and successful jury instructions. Yet it has only been recently that the federal bench has expressed itself with convincing clarity on this timely matter. Previously, unrecorded comments and ideas concerning the preparation of jury instructions …

The Development Of The Right Of Assembly: A Current Socio-Legal Investigation, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

It will be the purpose of this article to assay the historical evolution of the freedom of assembly, noting first its development in England and later in America and finally its current position in the twentieth century. Even though the rights of free speech, association, and religion are inescapably drawn into case discussions of freedom of assembly, effort will be made to confine the consideration to the pertinent assembly problems. In addition to considering the fundamental legal propositions embodied in this right, as well as its raison d'etre, thought and discussion will be given to the sociological interpretations of the …

William Sampson And The Codifiers: The Roots Of American Legal Reform, Maxwell Bloomfield

Scholarly Articles

The transition from colony to nation involved difficult readjustments in the thinking and behavioral patterns of the American people, and nowhere were the inherent tensions more evident than in the field of law. Prior to the revolution, Americans had willingly accepted the legal principles and practices of the mother country, although modifying them somewhat to suit the more fluid social and economic environment of the New World. But the achievement of political independence from England soon led to demands that all other ties with the former metropolis be severed as well.

Radical agitators in various states thus urged the complete …

Private Etsel’S Million Dollar Accident, Michael F. Noone Jr.

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Legal Status Of The Educational Accrediting Agency, William A. Kaplin, J. Philip Hunter

Scholarly Articles

The educational accrediting agency is a powerful instrumentality in the United States-able, with minimal governmental interference, to set policies and standards in an area of vital concern to the public. As education becomes more complex, and as our society increasingly relies upon educational training and upon the standards by which that training is evaluated, the impact which the accrediting agency will have upon educational institutions and students enrolled in them will correspondingly increase. For all its influence, however, the accrediting agency occupies an ambiguous legal position. Therefore, in order to lay the framework for a more thorough understanding of the …

The Conscientious Objector Exemption As An Establishment And An Accommodation Of Religion, Raymond B. Marcin

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Much Ado About Nothing: The J.D. Movement, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

In a recent article appearing in The Student Lawyer Journal, Dean John G. Hervey of the Oklahoma City University School of Law presented what, on first reading, appeared to be a very well documented argument in support of the uniform awarding of the Juris Doctor (J.D.) as the first degree in law. There can be little quarrel with Dean Hervey's statistical abstracts which he uses to build the central thesis of his article. The importance of this information to support his sweeping generalities is to be severely questioned. The position of the American Bar Association is also eminently clear. However, …

Dr. Bonham’S Case And The Modern Significance Of Lord Coke’S Influence, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

Dr. Bonham’s Case, decided by Edward Coke as Chief Justice of the British Court of Common Pleas in 1610, remains, to this day, the case acknowledging the supremacy of the fundamental (or natural) law interpreted and enforced as such by the judiciary and not a legislative body - here, Parliament. Coke’s idea of a law of nature superior to man-made law was not new. What was original, and even radical for the times, was the notion that the courts of law should be given the power and the right to interpret and enforce that law. This theory of judicial review …

The Right To Bear Arms: A Phenomenon Of Constitutional History, Ralph J. Rohner

Scholarly Articles

Most discussions of the right to bear arms-however superficial-begin by noting the specific language of the second amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

And in various similar provisions, the constitutions of thirty-five states guarantee expressly the right to bear arms. Though it is submitted below that there may be significant distinctions between the protection afforded by the federal and state constitutions, for our purposes here we are concerned primarily with the …

Title 28, Section 2255 Of The United States Code: Motion To Vacate, Set Aside Or Correct Sentence: Effective Or Ineffective Aid To A Federal Prisoner?, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

This article places in historical perspective the enactment and administration by the federal courts of Section 2255 of the Judicial Code and concludes a prisoner’s basic right to attack, collaterally, a conviction is largely unimpaired by this legislation. Section 2255 was enacted not with the idea of enlarging the class of remedies already available to attack a conviction, but rather to provide that a proper attack upon an original conviction be made in the sentencing court and not in some other court through use of the writ of habeas corpus. Resort to habeas corpus is thus allowed only when the …

Friendly V. Hostile Fires, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

What is fire? This is the central question in the discussion of the friendly-hostile fire doctrine. Since fire is defined differently by the historian, the scientist, the layman, the economist, the lawyer and the insurance agent, it becomes necessary to consider these viewpoints separately and hopefully seek to clarify the existing differences. After completing this undertaking, it then becomes necessary to discuss the historical evolution of the doctrine with particular emphasis being placed upon a careful dissection of the early English case of Austin v. Drew which first introduced the principles embodied in the doctrine and the American case of …

Dixon’S The Leopard’S Spots: A Study In Popular Racism, Maxwell Bloomfield

Scholarly Articles

The first fourteen years of the twentieth century constituted a major reform period in American history. In politics, economics and the arts new ideas and practices emerged to shatter nineteenth-century pre- conceptions. Crusading journalists led the way in calling for a revitalized democracy to bridge the dangerous gulf separating the very rich from the very poor. Increasingly public opinion was directed toward the elimination of class barriers by absorbing laborer and capitalist, immigrant and old-stock native, into an expanded form of democratic state which should minister to the welfare of all.

Yet during these same years, when mass audiences responded …

Can Congress Denationalize? The Supreme Court's View In Kennedy V. Mendoza-Martinez, Ralph J. Rohner, Jean J. Provost Jr.

Scholarly Articles

In an age when perhaps the foremost concern of the legal profession is the status and protection of the rights of individuals, the few decided cases on the right to citizenship-the most basic of all rights, the "right to have rights"- are of special significance. Since 1950, but prior to this Term, only two Supreme Court cases directly confronted the constitutional questions inherent in an assertion by Congress of the right to separate a person from his nationality. These cases, decided on the same day in 1957, were scarcely reconcilable with each other; now, in 1963, the Supreme Court has …

The Law Of Obscenity And Military Practice, Harvey L. Zuckman

Scholarly Articles

In recent years, problems surrounding the law of obscenity have become increasingly important and this development has resulted in a corresponding awareness of these problems by the courts, both state and federal. This awareness is now being extended into the military legal field. Two recent decisions, one by the United States Court of Military Appeals and the other by an Army board of review, have focused attention on the military's handling of obscenity problems under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. These recent decisions encompass issues occurring in civilian practice as well as issues peculiar to the military. Before any …

Casenote: Bell V. United States, Ralph J. Rohner

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Obscenity In The Mails, Harvey L. Zuckman

Scholarly Articles

For nearly one hundred years the federal government has had as one of its functions the suppression of mail trade in obscene and pornographic matter. The first federal enactment in this field provided that the mailing of an obscene book, pamphlet, picture, print, or other publication with knowledge of its nature was a misdemeanor. The present postal obscenity law' dates back to 1873 and is sometimes referred to as the Comstock Law because of the support given its passage by the notorious Anthony Comstock, agent for the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. While its original wording would …

Censorship Of Defamatory Political Broadcasts: The Port Huron Doctrine, Harvey L. Zuckman

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.