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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
United States V. Hodges: Treason, Jury Trials, And The War Of 1812, Jennifer Elisa Smith
United States V. Hodges: Treason, Jury Trials, And The War Of 1812, Jennifer Elisa Smith
Legal History Publications
In August 1814 a number of British soldiers were arrested as stragglers or deserters in the town of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Upon learning of the soldiers’ absences the British military took local physician, Dr. William Beanes, and two other residents into custody and threatened to burn Upper Marlboro if the British soldiers were not returned. John Hodges, a local attorney, arranged the soldiers’ return to the British military. For this, Hodges was charged with high treason for “adhering to [the] enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” The resulting jury trial was presided over by Justice Gabriel Duvall, a Supreme Court …
Still Drowning In Segregation: Limits Of Law In Post-Civil Rights America, Taunya L. Banks
Still Drowning In Segregation: Limits Of Law In Post-Civil Rights America, Taunya L. Banks
Faculty Scholarship
Approximately 40% of the deaths attributed to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were caused by drowning. Blacks in the New Orleans area accounted for slightly more than one half of all deaths. Some of the drowning deaths were preventable. Too many black Americans do not know how to swim. Up to seventy percent of all black children in the United States have no or low ability to swim. Thus it is unsurprising that black youth between 5 and 19 are more likely to drown than white youths of the same age. The Centers for Disease Control concludes that a major factor …
Adoption Of English Law In Maryland, Garrett Power
Adoption Of English Law In Maryland, Garrett Power
Legal History Publications
It served as an axiom of Maryland’s constitutional history that settlers carried with them the “rights of Englishmen” when they crossed the Atlantic. In 1642 the Assembly of Maryland Freemen declared Maryland’s provincial judges were to follows the law of England. Maryland’s 1776 Declaration of Independence left a legal lacuna--- what were to be the laws and public institutions of this newly created sovereign entity? This paper considers the manner in which the sovereign state of Maryland filled the void.
"Displaced By A Force To Which They Yielded And Could Not Resist": A Historical And Legal Analysis Of Mayor And City Counsel Of Baltimore V. Charles Howard Et. Al, Matthew Kent
Legal History Publications
The experience of the Baltimore Police Commissioners is instructive in understanding the state of affairs in Baltimore during the Civil War era. The removal of the commissioners by the Union Army and the subsequent civil trial, The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Charles Howard, provides a window through which one may examine the historical, legal and political circumstances of the time. The legal status of the commissioners also sheds light on modern legal doctrine related to the detention of American citizens as “enemy combatants” without the benefit of certain constitutional guarantees. By analyzing the Howard case with a …
Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit - Subjecthood And Racialized Identity In Seventheenth Century Colonial Virginia, Taunya Lovell Banks
Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit - Subjecthood And Racialized Identity In Seventheenth Century Colonial Virginia, Taunya Lovell Banks
Faculty Scholarship
Elizabeth Key, an African-Anglo woman living in seventeenth century colonial Virginia sued for her freedom after being classified as a negro by the overseers of her late master’s estate. Her lawsuit is one of the earliest freedom suits in the English colonies filed by a person with some African ancestry. Elizabeth’s case also highlights those factors that distinguished indenture from life servitude—slavery in the mid-seventeenth century. She succeeds in securing her freedom by crafting three interlinking legal arguments to demonstrate that she was a member of the colonial society in which she lived. Her evidence was her asserted ancestry—English; her …
Mestizaje And The Mexican Mestizo Self: No Hay Sangre Negra, So There Is No Blackness, Taunya Lovell Banks
Mestizaje And The Mexican Mestizo Self: No Hay Sangre Negra, So There Is No Blackness, Taunya Lovell Banks
Faculty Scholarship
Many legal scholars who write about Mexican mestizaje omit references to Afromexicans, Mexico’s African roots, and contemporary anti-black sentiments in the Mexican and Mexican American communities. The reasons for the erasure or invisibility of Mexico’s African roots are complex. It argues that post-colonial officials and theorists in shaping Mexico’s national image were influenced two factors: the Spanish colonial legacy and the complex set of rules creating a race-like caste system with a distinct anti-black bias reinforced through art; and the negative images of Mexico and Mexicans articulated in the United States during the early nineteenth century. The post-colonial Mexican becomes …
Law And Letters: A Detailed Examination Of David Hoffman's Life And Career, Bill Sleeman
Law And Letters: A Detailed Examination Of David Hoffman's Life And Career, Bill Sleeman
Faculty Scholarship
David Hoffman (1784-1854) has been cast as America's first legal ethicist and as the founder of one of the nation’s first original methods of legal instruction. While these interpretations of his life are certainly true, Hoffman’s life and career encompassed so much more than that. With few exceptions researchers have focused on Hoffman’s legal career and have left historians to wonder about his other pursuits. This article will review, in individual sections, the many facets of Hoffman's life and career in an effort to provide a more complete picture than has previously existed.
Security For A Commercial Loan: Historical & International Perspectives, Edward A. Tomlinson
Security For A Commercial Loan: Historical & International Perspectives, Edward A. Tomlinson
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Baltimore Bound: Article Xiii, Section 1, "New Counties," Of The Maryland Constitution And The Baltimore City Annexation Acts Of 1888 And 1918, Michele Lefaivre
Baltimore Bound: Article Xiii, Section 1, "New Counties," Of The Maryland Constitution And The Baltimore City Annexation Acts Of 1888 And 1918, Michele Lefaivre
Legal History Publications
This paper examines the extension of Baltimore's boundaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century within the legal process which authorized it.
A Half Century Of The Maryland Law Review, William L. Reynolds
A Half Century Of The Maryland Law Review, William L. Reynolds
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.