Digital Commons Network^™

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Civil Rights--Civil Rights Act of 1957 Gives Federal Court Mandatory Jurisdiction To Entertain Suit by the United States To Enjoin State Criminal Prosecution

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Conflict of Laws--Federal Tort Claims Act--Applicable Substantive Law Held To Be Whole Law of State Where Negligence Occurred

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Constitutional Law--Discrimination--Conviction for Disturbing the Peace in Lunch Counter Sit-in Held To Violate Due Process for Lack of Evidence

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Federal Courts--Erie Doctrine--Opinion Evidence Held Admissible Under Federal Rule 43(a) in Diversity Case

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Federal Courts--Federal Question Jurisdiction--Lack of Jurisdiction to Enforce Award of Airline System Board of Adjustment in Labor Dispute

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Interstate Commerce--Taxation--State Privilege Tax …

Equal Access To Justice: The Challenge And The Opportunity, Orison S. Marden

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racial Minority Housing In Washington, Arval A. Morris, Daniel B. Ritter

Washington Law Review

O'Meara v. Washington State Bd. Against Discrimination\ called upon the Washington Supreme Court to pass for the first time on the constitutionality of Washington's Anti-Discrimination Statute. The court invalidated the portion applicable to housing. This comment discusses the social and legal contexts in which the case was decided, the disposition of the case at the trial and appellate levels, and the merit of some alternative measures for preventing discrimination in housing.

Some Reflections On Baker V. Carr, Nicholas Deb. Katzenbach

Vanderbilt Law Review

This article is based on the author's address before the Vanderbilt University School of Law in connection with the school's 1962 Law Day ceremonies. In it, Mr. Katzenbach examines the positions of the various opinions in Baker v. Carr, the significance of the case both for Tennessee and the country as a whole, and the various alternatives open to the district courts for implementing the decision.

Criminal Law--Former Jeopardy--Indictment For Conspiracy To Murder, Forest Jackson Bowman

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law-Civil Rights-Threat Of Mob Violence As Justification For Restraint On Exercise Of Right To Travel In Interstate Commerce, Chester A. Skinner

Michigan Law Review

Pursuant to a plan to test for racial segregation in interstate commerce facilities, white and Negro students traveled through Alabama on an interstate bus journey. In Birmingham and Anniston, the students were assaulted by members of the Ku Klux Klan and other conspirators; at or near Anniston one of the buses was destroyed. On arrival at Montgomery, the students were again assaulted and intimidated by members of the Ku Klux Klan and various other individuals. The Montgomery police, with full knowledge of the impending violence, did nothing to protect the personal safety of the interstate travelers. The plaintiff, United States, …

The O’Meara Case And Constitutional Requirements Of State Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law-Civil Rights-Solitary Confinement Of Prisoner's Based On Religious Belief, Harvey Friedman

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff prisoner brought an action in a federal district court under the Civil Rights Act to enjoin the defendant, a New York state prison warden, from further subjecting him to solitary confinement because of his religious beliefs. The district court refused to take jurisdiction on the ground that solitary confinement involved state prison discipline which was reviewable only in state courts. On appeal, held, reversed, one judge dissenting. A complaint by a prisoner against a state prison official which charges violation of a "preferred freedom" by religious persecution states a claim under the Civil Rights Act which the district …

Constitutional Law - Due Process - Expulsion Of Student Fro M State-Operated College Without Notice Or Hearing, James A. Mcdermott

Michigan Law Review

A substantial number of students at the Alabama State College for Negroes had been participating in peaceful demonstrations protesting racial segregation. The president of the college advised the students to return to their studies which were disrupted by these demonstrations, and personally warned three of the plaintiffs to discontinue their participation in the demonstrations. Nonetheless, further demonstrations ensued in which the plaintiffs took part. The State Board of Education then voted to expel the plaintiffs who were allegedly the leaders of the organization responsible for the demonstrations. The notices of expulsion mailed to the plaintiffs stated no reason for the …

Constitutional Law - Equal Protection - Racial Segregation Of Spectator Seating In Courtroom, Thomas W. Van Dyke

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, judge of a municipal court in Virginia, assigned seating on the basis of race in that part of his courtroom reserved for spectators and for those awaiting the call of their business before the court. The same number of seats were provided for Negroes as for whites. There was no separation of the races in the area immediately before the bench nor was there any complaint of discrimination in the administration of justice. Plaintiffs are Negroes who have been required on more than one occasion to occupy seats in the spectator section on a racially-segregated basis. In a suit …

Brief History Of Northeast Florida Council On Human Relations, Northeast Florida Council Of Human Relations

Textual material from the Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Papers

A short summary of the Northeast Florida Council on Human Relations, its history, function, importance, and their positions. They are an inter racial organization committed to civil rights. Dated January 16, 1962

The Association And The Desegregation Controversy, Ralph F. Fuchs

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law--Fourteenth Amendment State Action--State Involvement In Private Discrimination, Robert G. Lawson

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The National Labor Relations Act And Racial Discrimination, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

When the United States Commission on Civil Rights completed its recent study of discrimination in employment, its findings began on the same depressing note sounded by virtually every student of the problem since the end of slavery:

[N]egro workers are still disproportionately concentrated in the ranks of the unskilled and semiskilled in both private and public employment. They are also disproportionately represented among the unemployed because of their concentration in unskilled and semi-skilled jobs-those most severely affected by both cyclical and structural unemployment-and because Negro workers often have relatively low seniority. These difficulties are due in some degree to present …

On Charting A Course Through The Mathematical Quagmire: The Future Of Baker V. Carr, Jerold H. Israel

Articles

The Tennessee reapportionment decision, Baker v. Carr,' has been popularly characterized as one of the "very few judicial decisions which have fundamentally reshaped our constitutional system."'2 Newspaper and magazine commentators generally have predicted that the decision of last March is likely to "change the course of our history" by producing a drastic alteration in the balance of power on the state political scene.3 While this end may be desirable,4 any such estimate of the future impact of the Baker decision, at least insofar as its legal consequence is concerned,5 seems not only premature but somewhat exaggerated. The future significance of …

Comment: Sit-Ins And State Action- Mr. Justice Douglas, Concurring, Kenneth L. Karst, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The O’Meara Case And Constitutional Requirements Of State Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

Against the backdrop of the highly criticized O’Meara case, this comment explores the possible rational bases a state could use to support a differentiation between publicly-assisted and unassisted home owners. This comment also addresses the question of how substantial that rational bases must be in order to survive the requirements of equal protection.

Comment: Sit-Ins And State Action- Mr. Justice Douglas, Concurring, Kenneth L. Karst, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Publications

This analysis of Mr. Justice Douglas’ concurrence in Garner v. Louisiana pays special attention to the lip service Justice Douglas pays to the state action requirement while never fully addressing such an issue.

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Civil Rights--Civil Rights Act of 1871--"Under Color of Law" Defined

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Conflict of Laws--Characterization--Amount of Damages in Wrongful Death Action Held to be Procedural and thus Controlled by Law of the Forum

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Criminal Law-Insanity--Third Circuit Adopts A New Test for Criminal Responsibility

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Criminal Law--Smith Act--Membership Clause Requiring Active Membership in Communist Party and Specific Intent To Use Violence Held Not To Violate the First or Fifth Amendments

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Criminal Procedure--Evidence-States May Not Constitutionally Use Evidence Obtained by Illegal Search and Seizure in Criminal Cases

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Evidence--Hearsay--Old Newspaper Article Admitted as Evidence of Facts Contained on Grounds of Necessity …

Civil Rights: A New Public Accommodations Law For Ohio, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Publications

Building off the examination conducted in 'A Critique of the Ohio Public Accommodations Laws', this treatment addresses the 1961 amendments to the Ohio Public Accommodations Laws and anticipates unresolved problems the Civil Rights commission must confront.

Constitutional Law--Public School Desegregation--Pupil Placement Plan, Robert Glenn Lilly Jr.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law - Equal Protection - Racial Discrimination And The Role Of The State, William C. Griffith S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Constitutional history from the 1857 Dred Scott decision to the 1954 Brown decision records "a movement from status to contract" for the American Negro. Although uncertainty clouds the definition of "state action," the civil rights of the Negro under the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment have been clearly established. The Negro citizen has arrived; the Negro minority group remains one of the gravest social problems of twentieth century America. De facto school segregation, limited economic opportunity, and inadequate housing are problems not solved by invocation of the fourteenth amendment or incantation of the Declaration of Independence. Solution, …

Book Reviews, Marian D. Irish, Ralph Slovenko

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Quest for Equality By Robert J. Harris Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960. Pp. xiv, 173. $4.00.

reviewer: Marian D. Irish

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Confidentiality and Privileged Communication in the Practice of Psychiatry, Report No. 45. New York: Publications Office, Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, 1960. Pp. 32. $.50.

reviewer: Ralph Slovenko

Civil And Criminal Commitment Of The Mentally Ill In Maryland, Howard S. Chasanow

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

De Facto Public School Segregation, Will Maslow

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Color Blindess But Not Myopia: A New Look At State Action, Equal Protection, And "Private" Racial Discrimination, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Michigan Law Review

Mr. Justice Frankfurter has remarked: "In law also the right answer usually depends on putting the right question." For nearly one hundred years now the courts have been putting certain key questions whenever confronted by the claim that a person was being deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution. From the time the "separate-but-equal" doctrine was enunciated in Plessy v. Ferguson until it was repudiated in the School Segregation Cases two principal questions were likely to be asked about any classification based on racial grounds: (I) Did the classification result, …

The Dred Scott Case And Judicial Statesmanship, Edward J. Bander

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court-October 1959 Term, Bernard Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

A country's constitutional law is but a reflection of its political, economic, and social life. Not unnaturally, the external conditions of any particular period are bound to have their effects in the legal sphere as well-especially in the field of public law. This is as true of the United States as it is of other countries. From this point of view, the constitutional jurisprudence of the American Supreme Court is only the juristic mirror of the different stages through which American history has passed. 'Our jurisprudence is distinctive,' said Justice Jackson on the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court, 'in …

Freedom Of Assembly And Racial Demonstrations, Richard W. Ervin

Cleveland State Law Review

We have chosen to discuss and undertake to determine the precise point at which an assemblage of persons engaged in a racial demonstration loses constitutional protection and becomes instead an unlawful assembly, punishable as such under the common law or under state statutes or ordinances which embody the common law. To accomplish this purpose, we shall first attempt to define the crime of "unlawful assembly"; then we shall discuss breach of the peace because it is so intimately connected with the offense of unlawful assembly. This article will conclude with examples of situations in which racial demonstrations are, or are …

State Action, William W. Van Alstyne, Kenneth L. Karst

Faculty Publications

In this extensive discussion of the Civil War amendments, this article proposes to identify the functions of the state action limitation. Specific accommodation of those functions is discussed in a variety of contexts: freedom from brutality, voting, education, employment, housing, etc.