Legal History Commons^™

Women’S Votes, Women’S Voices, And The Limits Of Criminal Justice Reform, 1911–1950, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

Deriving its vigor from the work of grassroots organizations at the state and local levels, the League of Women Voters (LWV) sought, in the first half of the twentieth century, to provide newly enfranchised women with a political education to strengthen their voice in public affairs. Local branches like the San Francisco Center learned from experience—through practical involvement in a variety of social welfare and criminal justice initiatives. This Article, written for a symposium commemorating the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, assesses the role of LWV leaders in California and especially San Francisco in reforming three aspects of the criminal …

The Failure Of The Criminal Procedure Revolution, William T. Pizzi

Publications

No abstract provided.

Data Underlying "Living Death: Ambivalence, Delay, And Capital Punishment", Marianne Wesson, Amy Kingston, Jocelyn Jenks, Laura Mcnabb, Lauren Seger, Genet Tekeste, Edwin Hurwitz

Research Data

The documents here archived contain data compilations researched and recorded by me and my research assistants in connection with the article by Marianne "Mimi" Wesson, Living Death: Ambivalence, Delay, and Capital Punishment (Feb. 20, 2013), https://ssrn.com/abstract=2221597.

Our research investigated four study jurisdictions: Arizona, Louisiana, Nevada, and Ohio. The data falls into two categories: analyses of reported appellate cases during designated periods in those jurisdictions; and investigations of the subsequent careers of every individual who resided on death row in one of our jurisdictions in April of 1995. The article further explains the impetus for these investigations, and the conclusions …

The Exit Myth: Family Law, Gender Roles, And Changing Attitudes Toward Female Victims Of Domestic Violence, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

This Article presents a hypothesis suggesting how and why the criminal justice response to domestic violence changed, over the course of the twentieth century, from sympathy for abused women and a surprising degree of state intervention in intimate relationships to the apathy and discrimination that the battered women' movement exposed. The riddle of declining public sympathy for female victims of intimate-partner violence can only be solved by looking beyond the criminal law to the social and legal changes that created the Exit Myth.

While the situation that gave rise to the battered women's movement in the 1970s is often presumed …

A Diva Defends Herself: Gender And Domestic Violence In An Early Twentieth-Century Headline Trial, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

This short article was presented as part of a symposium on headline criminal trials, organized by St. Louis University School of Law in honor of Lawrence Friedman. It describes and analyzes the self-defense acquittal of opera singer Mae Talbot in Nevada in 1910 on charges of murdering her abusive husband. Based on extensive research into archival trial records and newspaper reports, the article discusses how the press, the court, and trial lawyers on both sides depicted the killing and Mae’s possible defenses. Without discounting the sensationalism and entertainment value, to a scandal-hungry public, of stories about violent marriages, I contend …

Commentary: Was The Bill Of Rights Irrelevant To Nineteenth-Century State Criminal Procedure?, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

No abstract provided.

In The Sweat Box: A Historical Perspective On The Detention Of Material Witnesses, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Justice Department detained scores of allegedly suspicious persons under a federal material witness statute--a tactic that provoked a great deal of controversy. Most critics assume that the abuse of material witness laws is a new development. Yet, rather than being transformed by the War on Terror, the detention of material witnesses is a coercive strategy that police officers across the nation have used since the nineteenth century to build cases against suspects. Fears of extraordinary violence or social breakdown played at most an indirect role in its advent and growth. Rather, it has …

Colorado V. Connelly: What Really Happened, William T. Pizzi

Publications

In 1986, the Supreme Court decided Colorado v. Connelly, a landmark case in due process and fifth amendment law. The case began when Francis Barry Connelly approached a police officer on the street in downtown Denver to confess to having killed a young woman several months earlier in southwest Denver. Because Connelly was suffering from acute schizophrenia and was hearing auditory hallucinations commanding him to confess, state courts suppressed his statements to the police on the grounds (1) that his statements before arrest were involuntary and inadmissible under the due process clause and (2) those statements post-arrest could not …

Intimate Homicide: Gender And Crime Control, 1880-1920, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

The received wisdom, among feminists and others, is that historically the criminal justice system tolerated male violence against women. This article dramatically revises feminist understanding of the legal history of public responses to intimate homicide by showing that, in both the eastern and the western United States, men accused of killing their intimates often received stern punishment, including the death penalty, whereas women charged with similar crimes were treated leniently. Although no formal "battered woman's defense" existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, courts and juries implicitly recognized one--and even extended it to abandoned women who killed their unfaithful …

The Discretionary Power Of "Public" Prosecutors In Historical Perspective, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

Norms urging prosecutors to seek justice by playing a quasi-judicial role and striving for fairness to defendants are often assumed to have deep historical roots. Yet, in fact, such a conception of the prosecutor's role is relatively new. Based on archival research on the papers of the New York County District Attorney's Office, "The Discretionary Power of 'Public' Prosecutors in Historical Perspective" explores the meaning of the word "public" as it applied to prosecutors in the nineteenth century. This article shows that, in the early days of public prosecution, district attorneys were expected to maximize convictions and leave defendants' rights …

Rule Of Law And The Limits Of Sovereignty: The Private Prison In Jurisprudential Perspective, Ahmed A. White

Publications

No abstract provided.

Publicity In High Profile Criminal Cases, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Federal Coconspirator Exception: Action, Assertion, And Hearsay, Christopher B. Mueller

Publications

No abstract provided.