Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

On Time, (In)Equality, And Death, Fred O. Smith Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In recent years, American institutions have inadvertently encountered the bodies of former slaves with increasing frequency. Pledges of respect are common features of these discoveries, accompanied by cultural debates about what “respect” means. Often embedded in these debates is an intuition that there is something special about respecting the dead bodies, burial sites, and images of victims of mass, systemic horrors. This Article employs legal doctrine, philosophical insights, and American history to both interrogate and anchor this intuition.

Law can inform these debates because we regularly turn to legal settings to resolve disputes about the dead. Yet the passage of …

Courts - Judicial Ethics - Broadcast Of Murder Trial, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A microphone was installed in a court room with consent of the trial judge and counsel, for a direct broadcast of a murder trial. Prisoner's counsel, in his argument to the jury, made certain remarks concerning the plaintiff, state's witness, which the latter claimed were libelous per se. Joining as defendants the trial judge, counsel for the alleged felon, and the director of the radio station, plaintiff asserted that the installation of the equipment was an "extrajudicial and illegal" act. Defendant trial judge's motion for non-suit was granted at the close of plaintiff's case, The case was submitted to the …