Legal History Commons^™

Taking The Fifth: Reconsidering The Origins Of The Constitutional Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, Eben Moglen

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this essay is to cast doubt on two basic elements of the received historical wisdom concerning the privilege as it applies to British North America and the early United States. First, early American criminal procedure reflected less tenderness toward the silence of the criminal accused than the received wisdom has claimed. The system could more reasonably be said to have depended on self-incrimination than to have eschewed it, and this dependence increased rather than decreased during the provincial period for reasons intimately connected with the economic and social context of the criminal trial in colonial America.

Second, …

The Historical Origins Of The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination At Common Law, John H. Langbein

Michigan Law Review

This essay explains that the true origins of the common law privilege are to be found not in the high politics of the English revolutions, but in the rise of adversary criminal procedure at the end of the eighteenth century. The privilege against self-incrimination at common law was the work of defense counsel.

Part I of this essay discusses the several attributes of early modem criminal procedure that combined, until the end of the eighteenth century, to prevent the development of the common law privilege. Part II explains how prior scholarship went astray in locating the common law privilege against …

Judicial Forging Of A Political Weapon: The Impact Of The Cold War On The Law Of Contempt, 27 J. Marshall L. Rev. 3 (1993), Melvin B. Lewis

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Pretrial Interrogation, Department Of Justice Office Of Legal Policy

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The existing rules in the United States governing the questioning of suspects in custody are based on the Supreme Court's five to four decision in Miranda v. Arizona. The Court in Miranda promulgated a new, code-like set of rules for custodial questioning, including the creation of a right to counsel in connection with custodial questioning, a requirement of warnings, a prohibition of questioning unless the suspect affirmatively waives the rights set out in the warnings, and a prohibition of questioning if the suspect asks for a lawyer or indicates in any manner that he is unwilling to talk. These …

Habeas Corpus: Its History And Its Future, Charles Alan Wright

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A Constitutional History of Habeas Corpus by William F. Duker

The Fuller Court And State Criminal Process Threshold Of Modern Limitations On Government, William F. Duker

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Compulsory Process Clause, Peter Westen

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this article traces the history of compulsory process, from its origin in the English transition from an inquisitional to an adversary system of procedure to its eventual adoption in the American Bill of Rights. Part II examines the Supreme Court's seminal decision in Washington v. Texas, which recognized after a century and a half of silence that the compulsory process clause was designed to enable the defendant not only to produce witnesses, but to put them on the stand and have them heard. Part III studies the implications of compulsory process for the defendant's case, from the …

The Plea Bargain In Historical Perspective, Jay Wishingrad

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cohen: The Criminal Process In The People's Republic Of China 1949-1963: An Introduction., And Bodde & Morris: Law In Imperial China: Exemplified By 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases With Historical, Social, And Juridical Commentaries, Victor H. Li

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Criminal Process in the People's Republic of China 1949-1963: An Introduction by Jerome A. Cohen, and Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases with Historical, Social, and Juridical Commentaries by Derke Bodde and Clarence Morris

In Re Gault: Understanding The Attorney's New Role, Glenn C. Equi, James D. Hutchinson, Barney B. Welsh

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Film Censorship: The American And British Experience, Robert J. Klein

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Enforcement States Its Views, John Edgar Hoover

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proof By Confession, O. John Rogge

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal History In The High Court--Habeas Corpus, Dallin H. Oaks

Michigan Law Review

Ever since Chief Justice Marshall declared that courts could resort to the common law to determine what Congress meant by the term "habeas corpus" in a federal statute, the history of this venerable remedy has played an important role in the Supreme Court. Over the years, however, courts have moved away from using the writ of habeas corpus for its historic functions of eliciting the cause of commitment and compelling adherence to prescribed procedures in advance of trial until today it has become primarily a means by which one court of general jurisdiction exercises post-conviction review over the judgment of …

Grand Jury Secrecy, Richard M. Calkins

Michigan Law Review

When a leading state such as Illinois enacts "reform" legislation, an impact on the legislatures of other jurisdictions may be anticipated. Accordingly, a need exists for an examination of this legislation in the light of the common-law background of grand jury secrecy and for a further analysis of it in the face of the growing trend toward more liberalized discovery of grand jury minutes in other jurisdictions. It is the contention of the author that such an empirical study will demonstrate that this legislation adopted by Illinois is contrary to all modern judicial thinking and is, in fact, a retrogressive …

The Duty Of Military Defense Counsel To An Accused, Alfred Avins

Michigan Law Review

This article is designed to study the manner in which those Canons of Professional Ethics have been assimilated into the administration of military justice and made the standards for the duty of a military defense counsel.

Constitutional Law - Right To Jury Trial In Indirect Criminal Contempts In Federal Courts, Denis T. Rice S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Should constitutional provisions for jury trial apply to contempts committed outside the physical presence of a federal court? The United States Supreme Court, in the recent case of Green v. United States, reviewed this long disputed question. The case involved two Communist Party leaders who had been convicted of Smith Act violations and then had "jumped bail" when they disappeared in violation of surrender orders requiring their presence in court for sentencing. After four and a half years as fugitives they surrendered in 1956 and were charged with criminal contempt of court. Following a so-called "summary" hearing (without the …

Criminal Procedure On The American Frontier: A Study Of The Statutes And Court Records Of Michigan Territory 1805-1825, William Wirt Blume

Michigan Law Review

The area north and east of Lake Michigan, organized in 1805 as Michigan Territory, was first organized in 1796 as Wayne County of the Northwest Territory. In 1800 the western half of the county, and in 1803 the eastern half, became parts of Indiana Territory, and so remained until July 1805. In 1818 Michigan Territory was expanded westward so as to include all of the area north of Illinois to the Mississippi River.

Self-Incrimination--Historical Background Of The Doctrine, Wendell S. Williams

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Third Degree--Its Historical Background, The Present Law And Recommendations, Charles Richard Doyle

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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 …

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). …