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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Rehnquist's Missing Letter: A Former Law Clerk's 1955 Thoughts On Justice Jackson And Brown, John Q. Barrett, Brad Snyder
Rehnquist's Missing Letter: A Former Law Clerk's 1955 Thoughts On Justice Jackson And Brown, John Q. Barrett, Brad Snyder
Faculty Publications
"I think that Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." That's what Supreme Court law clerk William H. Rehnquist wrote privately in December 1952 to his boss, Justice Robert H. Jackson. When the memorandum was made public in 1971 and Rehnquist's Supreme Court confirmation hung in the balance, he claimed that the memorandum reflected Jackson's views, not Rehnquist's. Rehnquist was confirmed, but his explanation triggered charges that he had lied and smeared the memory of one of the Court's most revered justices. This Essay analyzes a newly discovered document—a letter Rehnquist wrote to Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1955, …
Pause At The Rubicon, John Marshall And Emancipation: Reparations In The Early National Period?, Frances Howell Rudko
Pause At The Rubicon, John Marshall And Emancipation: Reparations In The Early National Period?, Frances Howell Rudko
Faculty Publications
Marshall thought that the solution to emancipation and the end to slavery were to be nationally funded. He considered slavery a national problem, not a state problem, as most of his fellow Virginians insisted. In this he differed from most southerners who argued that slave matters were state matters and that the nation could involve itself in the institution of slavery only by strictly adhering to the role assigned to it by the Constitution under the three fifths clause and the fugitive slave clause.
Quality Of Mercy Must Be Restrained, And Other Lessons In Learning To Love The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Frank O. Bowman Iii
Quality Of Mercy Must Be Restrained, And Other Lessons In Learning To Love The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Frank O. Bowman Iii
Faculty Publications
In the remarks that follow, I do four things. First, for those unfamiliar with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, I begin by explaining briefly how the Guidelines work. Second, I endeavor to show why Judge Cabranes is wrong, absolutely wrong in declaring the Guidelines a failure, and mostly wrong in the specific criticisms he and others level against the Guidelines. Third, after jousting with Judge Cabranes a bit, I discuss some problems with the current federal sentencing system, most notably the sheer length of narcotics sentences. Finally, I comment briefly on some of the implications of the Guidelines, and the principles …