Legal History Commons^™

Constitutional Law-Right To Bail, Robert L. Sandblom S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution provides that "Excessive bail shall not be required . . . ." This clause, as with all of the Bill of Rights, serves as a limitation on the federal government. From a very early date this provision has likewise established a boundary on the discretion of the federal courts in their exercise of criminal jurisdiction. Although this Eighth Amendment provision is a protection against federal encroachment, it does not limit the powers of states, arguments of individual Justices to the contrary notwithstanding.

In the recent Supreme Court decision of Stack v. Boyle, this …

Military Habeas Corpus: I, Seymour W. Wurfel

Michigan Law Review

The mobilization of over twelve million persons into the armed forces in World War II made necessary a vastly expanded resort to court martial proceedings to enforce the criminal law. The trial by military tribunals of civilian employees of the military establishment in overseas areas and of prisoners of war and war crimes defendants added substantially to the number confined by military authority. On January 31, 1950, there remained in federal penal institutions 2508 prisoners serving civilian type felony sentences imposed by military tribunals. Before World War II, legal problems arising from attempts to invoke the remedy of habeas corpus …

Joughin And Morgan: The Legacy Of Sacco And Vanzetti, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of THE LEGACY OF SACCO AND VANZETTI. By G. Louis Joughin and Edmund M. Morgan.

The Place Of Trial Of Criminal Cases: Constitutional Vicinage And Venue, William Wirt Blume

Michigan Law Review

In 1909 one Henry G. Connor, presumably Mr. Justice Connor of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, published in the Pennsylvania Law Review an article entitled "The Constitutional Right to a Trial by a Jury of the Vicinage." The question discussed was: May a state constitutionally provide by statute that a crime be tried in a county other than that in which it was committed? Or, putting the question in terms of vicinage as distinguished from venue, may a state constitutionally provide by statute that a crime be tried by jurors summoned from a county other than the county …

Witnesses-Privilege Against Self-Incrimination-Effect Of Incorrect Decision By Trial Judge In Compelling Answer When Privilege Asserted

Michigan Law Review

ln a judicial proceeding, a question is asked of a witness, which question he declines to answer, claiming that the answer will tend to incriminate him. The judge orders him to answer. He does so and the answer does incriminate him. What happens?

Comment Upon Failure Of Accused To Testify, Robert P. Reeder

Michigan Law Review

Last year the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association adopted resolutions declaring that when the defendant in a criminal trial does not testify the prosecution should be permitted to comment upon that fact. They urged the overthrow of a rule of law which have prevailed in the federal courts ever since accused persons were first permitted to give testimony, over fifty years ago, and which has governed the courts of forty-two out of the forty-eight states. The discussions which preceded the adoption of the resolutions have been published. In them the advocates of the change do not show …

Proposed Legislation For Enforcement Of Prohibition, Thomas Frank Konop

Journal Articles

Under date of November 21st, 1929, the Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement made a preliminary report to the President on observance and enforcement of prohibition. Under subdivision (D) of that report, the Commission offered three methods to relieve the congestion in the Federal Courts. Although the bills are constitutional, they will not relieve congestion. Instead, the will promote fraud and lower citizens' respect for the Federal Judiciary and the Constitution.

Liberty And The Police Power, Clarence Emmett Manion

Journal Articles

The American citizen now has practically no rights of person or property that neither Congress nor the State legislature may not impair by legislation. The adoption of the Articles of Confederation and the Federal Constitution served merely to transfer to the Federal government certain powers formerly exercised by the individual States. When all individuals were protected in the exercise of their respective rights it was never supposed that the rights of the individual were to be protected or approached through the avenues of legislation dictated by majority opinions as to what is now and again for the "general good". The …

Book Reviews, Edwin W. Patterson, Edson R. Sunderland, C E. Griffin

Michigan Law Review

The title of this brilliant little volume might, more accurately, have been, "The Spirits of the Common Law," for it depicts the common law as the battleground of many conflicting spirits, from which a few relatively permanent ideas and ideals have emerged triumphant. As a whole, the book is a pluralistic-idealistic interpretation of legal history. Idealistic, because Dean Pound finds that the fundamentals of the 'common law have been shaped by ideas and ideals rather than by economic determinism or class struggle; he definitely rejects a purely economic interpretation of legal history, although he demands a sociological one (pp. io-ii). …