Legal History Commons^™

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

Free Exercise For Whom? -- Could The Religious Liberty Principle That Catholics Established In Perez V. Sharp Also Protect Same-Sex Couples' Right To Marry?, Eric Alan Isaacson

Eric Alan Isaacson

Recent discussions about the threat that same-sex couples hypothetically pose to the religious freedom of Americans whose religions traditions frown upon same-sex unions have largely overlooked the possibility that same-sex couples might have their own religious-liberty interest in being able to marry. The General Synod of the United Church of Christ brought the issue to the fore with an April 2014 lawsuit challenging North Carolina laws barring same-sex marriages. Authored by a lawyer who represented the California Council of Churches and other religions organizations as amici curiae in recent marriage-equality litigation, this article argues that although marriage is a secular …

Balancing The Scales: Adhuc Sub Judice Li Est Or Trial By Media, Casey J. Cooper

Casey J Cooper

The right to freedom of expression and free press is recognized under almost all major human rights instruments and domestic legal systems—common and civil—in the world. However, what do you do when a fundamental right conflicts with another equally fundamental right, like the right to a fair trial? In the United States, the freedom of speech, encompassing the freedom of the press, goes nearly unfettered: the case is not the same for other common law countries. In light of cultural and historic facts, institutional factors, modern realities, and case-law, this Article contends that current American jurisprudence does not take into …

Does “The Freedom Of The Press” Include A Right To Anonymity? The Original Meaning, Robert G. Natelson

Robert G. Natelson

This Article examines relevant evidence to determine whether, as some have argued, the original legal force of the First Amendment’s “freedom of the press” included a per se right to anonymous authorship. The Article concludes that, except in cases in which freedom of the press had been abused, it did. Thus, from an originalist point of view, Supreme Court cases such as Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which upheld statutes requiring disclosure of donors to political advertising, were erroneously decided.

Does “The Freedom Of The Press” Include A Right To Anonymity? The Original Meaning, Robert G. Natelson

Robert G. Natelson

This Article examines relevant evidence to determine whether, as some have argued, the original legal force of the First Amendment’s “freedom of the press” included a per se right to anonymous authorship. The Article concludes that, except in cases in which freedom of the press had been abused, it did. Thus, from an originalist point of view, Supreme Court cases such as Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which upheld statutes requiring disclosure of donors to political advertising, were erroneously decided.

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

Overcoming Obstacles To Religious Exercise In K-12 Education, Lewis M. Wasserman

Lewis M. Wasserman

Overcoming Obstacles to Religious Exercise in K-12 Education Lewis M. Wasserman Abstract Judicial decisions rendered during the last half-century have overwhelmingly favored educational agencies over claims by parents for religious accommodations to public education requirements, no matter what constitutional or statutory rights were pressed at the tribunal, or when the conflict arose. These claim failures are especially striking in the wake of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (“RFRAs”) passed by Congress in 1993 and, to date, by eighteen state legislatures thereafter, since the RFRAs were intended to (1) insulate religious adherents from injuries inflicted by the United States Supreme Court’s …

The Shield Of Rights, The Sword Of Disorder: Robert H. Jackson And Civil Liberties, George B. Crawford

George B. Crawford

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering Cumulative Creativity From The Oral Formulaic Tradition To Digital Remix: Can I Get A Witness?, Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

For most of human history the essential nature of creativity was understood to be cumulative and collective. This notion has been largely forgotten by modern policies regulating creativity and speech. As hard as it may be to believe, the most valuable components of our immortal culture were created under a fully open regime with regard to access to pre-existing expressions and reuse. From the Platonic mimēsis to the Roman imitatio, from Macrobius’ Saturnalia to the imitatio Vergili, from medieval auctoritas and Chaucer the compilator to Anon the singer and social textuality, from Chrétien’s art of rewriting to Shakespeare’s “borrowed feathers,” …

Crushing Animals And Crashing Funerals: The Semiotics Of Free Expression, Harold Anthony Lloyd

Harold Anthony Lloyd

This article addresses judicial choices and semantic errors involved in United States v. Stevens, 130 S.Ct. 1577 (2010) (refusing to read “killing” and “wounding” to include cruelty and thus striking down a federal statute outlawing videos of animal cruelty), and Snyder v. Phelps, 131 S.Ct. 1207 (2011) (finding a First Amendment right to picket military funerals and to verbally attack parents of dead soldiers as part of purportedly-public expression). This article maintains that a better understanding of semiotics (the theory of signs) exposes the flaws in both decisions and bolsters the arguments of the lone dissenter in both cases, Justice …

University Of Baltimore Symposium Report: Debut Of “The Matthew Fogg Symposia On The Vitality Of Stare Decisis In America”, Zena D. Crenshaw-Logal

Zena Denise Crenshaw-Logal

On the first of each two day symposium of the Fogg symposia, lawyers representing NGOs in the civil rights, judicial reform, and whistleblower advocacy fields are to share relevant work of featured legal scholars in lay terms; relate the underlying principles to real life cases; and propose appropriate reform efforts. Four (4) of the scholars spend the next day relating their featured articles to views on the vitality of stare decisis. Specifically, the combined panels of public interest attorneys and law professors consider whether compliance with the doctrine is reasonably assured in America given the: 1. considerable discretion vested in …

A Fractured Establishment's Responses To Social Movement Agitation: The U.S. Supreme Court And The Negotiation Of An Outsider Point Of Entry In Walker V. City Of Birmingham, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Carlo A. Pedrioli

In classical social movement theory, scholars have identified the advocates of change as elements of agitation and the establishment as the entity that responds in an attempt to control the agitators. This classical approach has assumed that the establishment is a generally monolithic entity that responds in a unified manner to the efforts of the advocates of change.

While this approach may accurately characterize some rhetorical situations, it does not necessarily have to characterize all such situations. For example, one could describe the judiciary as a part of the establishment because judges are well-connected and powerful individuals who, in many …

A Key Influence On The Doctrine Of Actual Malice: Justice William Brennan’S Judicial Philosophy At Work In Changing The Law Of Seditious Libel, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Carlo A. Pedrioli

In light of the historical change in the law of seditious libel that New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) prompted and the need for further exploration of the human factors behind the case, this article gives attention to William Brennan’s judicial philosophy at work in the case. The article defines judicial philosophy as a system of guiding principles upon which a judge calls in the process of legal decision-making. Specifically, the article explains how, through Times v. Sullivan, Brennan’s instrumentalist judicial philosophy had an important influence on changing the course of legal protection for criticism of the government in the …