Digital Commons Network^™

Constitutional Law - Federal Anti-Subversive Legislation - The Communist Control Act Of 1954, Paul R. Haerle

Michigan Law Review

This comment is intended as a preliminary step in an analysis of the legislative history of the act and a consideration of both its potential effectiveness and constitutional validity.

Criminal Law - Contradictory Statements Under Oath As Grounds For Perjury In The Federal Courts, Richard M. Adams S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Perjury has frequently been described as one of the more difficult convictions to obtain, and the truth of this saying is no better illustrated than in the case of Harvey Matusow. During the two years in which ex-Communist Matusow served as a professional government witness, he accused 180 or more persons as being members of the Communist Party or Communist sympathizers. This same witness has now described himself as a "habitual and perpetual liar" and has publicly admitted that all of his previous testimony was false. On the strength of this recantation, motions were filed for a new trial in …

Criminal Law - Scope Of Lawful Search And Seizure Without Warrant When Incident To Arrest, Richard M. Adams S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Acting on information that defendants were engaged in the "numbers racket" in violation of the Michigan gambling laws, police officers picked up three of the defendants in an automobile, took them to the police station, and proceeded to the home of their accomplice, Abbey Clay. On being admitted to the residence, the officers placed Abbey Clay under arrest and, despite her objections, promptly searched the L-shaped room in which they were standing when the arrest was made. Although the officers did not have a search warrant, they looked through defendant's pocketbook, magazine rack, and a cardboard box which was in …

Tax-Free Corporate Acquisitions - The Law And The Proposed Regulations, Robert L. Merritt

Michigan Law Review

The quest for interpretation is indeed an ancient one. Our life path is pervaded by a search for meanings.

It has been said of the law that it is sometimes better to have a bad rule than to have no rule. I suppose the rationale is that unsatisfactory certainties at least permit action, and are susceptible to a change for the better, the very badness of the rule serving to accelerate the equitable resolution. Being neither philosopher nor historian, I do not know whether that patience which awaits ultimate improvement is always a virtue.

Suits Against Unincorporated Associations Under The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, John Kaplan

Michigan Law Review

Concepts, Benjamin Cardozo has said, "are useful, indeed indispensable, if kept within their place. We will press them quite a distance. . . . A time comes, however, when the concepts carry us too far, or farther than we are ready to go with them, and behold, some other concept, with capacity to serve our needs is waiting at the gate. 'It is a peculiar virtue of our system of law that the process of inclusion and exclusion, so often employed in developing a rule, is not allowed to end with its enunciation, and that an expression in an opinion …

Criminal Law - Reexamination Of Tests For Criminal Responsibility, Mary Lee Ryan

Michigan Law Review

Criminal law in the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence is based upon the concept that persons should be held responsible for their acts. A strong corrollary to this idea is that certain types of persons, namely the "insane," should not be held responsible for criminal conduct. Although this proposition seems beautifully simple, courts in England and the United States for over a hundred years have wrestled with the problem of what constitutes insanity, or, to phrase it more accurately, what type of mental condition should preclude responsibility for a criminal act.

Constitutional Law - Civil Rights Statute - Failure To Release Prisoner Promptly Not A Violation Of Section 242, Stephen C. Bransdorfer

Michigan Law Review

A Florida state attorney was charged with violation of the Federal Civil Rights Statute for failure to apply for release of a Negro prisoner held nineteen months without charge. The prisoner had been held on request of the state attorney for further prosecution or use as a witness after a verdict had been directed in the prisoner's favor in a prior murder trial. Neither the prisoner nor defense counsel petitioned for release. The United States District Court dismissed the indictment. On appeal, held, affirmed. No duty existed on the part of the Florida state attorney to make application for …

Criminal Procedure - Standing Of The Press To Protest Judge's Exclusion Of The Public From Criminal Trial, M. Fred Mallender, Ii S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff newspapers sent reporters to the trial of Minot Jelke. Defendant judge, exercising his discretion, excluded them as well as the general public from the courtroom when testimony dealing with the sordid details of prostitution and pandering was expected. The family and friends of the accused, along with the officers of the court, witnesses and jury were not excluded. Plaintiffs applied to the Supreme Court, Special Term, of New York County for a writ of prohibition to restrain the defendant from enforcing his order. The application for the writ was based on a statute guaranteeing the accused in a criminal …

Criminal Procedure - Venue - Federal Offenses Committed Outside The Jurisdiction Of Any State Or District, Richard R. Dailey

Michigan Law Review

The defendant, an army staff sergeant, was under custody at Fort Meade, Maryland, awaiting disposition of charges of sodomy lodged against him under the Articles of War. After a delay of four months, the charges were dropped and he was shipped by the Army to Fort Jay, New York, where he was separated from the service. Immediately upon his release, he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under a commissioner's warrant charging him with treason committed in Japan during a prior enlistment in the army. At the trial in the District Court for the Southern District of New …

Sales - Conditional Sales - Punitive Damages For Forcible Repossession Of Chattel, William G. Cloon, Jr. S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff purchased a truck under a conditional sales contract which was assigned to the defendant finance company. He drove the truck to the place of business of the defendant to adjust differences between the two parties, but when he attempted to leave after no agreement had been reached, he discovered that the keys had been removed from the truck. When informed that the truck had been repossessed, the plaintiff produced another set of keys but was unable to leave with the truck. The testimony of the plaintiff that an agent of the defendant seized his hand to prevent the unlocking …

Administrative Discretion In The Award Of Federal Contracts, Arthur S. Miller

Michigan Law Review

For our present purposes, the point to be seen is that while this article is inquiring into the question of choice of contractor, the government is largely in control of the other chief attribute of traditional liberty of contract: the terms and conditions of the contract itself. We may thus summarize a first conclusion in the inquiry under consideration in this manner: the government is under no restraint as to many of the terms and conditions of its contracts and may impose those conditions it deems necessary. These are imposed as a result of a statute (an example of …

Adequacy Of Instructions To The Jury: Ii, Curtis Wright Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The six states in this group present some very special cases. They range from an original colony to Florida and Texas, which were admitted to statehood in 1845. National rank in population varies from sixth (Texas) to twenty-sixth (Mississippi) with the average almost within the top one-third. As to increase of population, the mean is close to the national figure of fifteen percent. That statement needs qualification, however, since Florida increased 46 percent and Texas 20 percent, whereas Mississippi had an actual loss of two percent. No docket delay of more than six months is found anywhere except in Texas, …

Evidence - Validity Of Statutory Presumption Of Intoxication From A Finding Of 0.15 Percent Concentration Of Alcohol In The Blood, Donald F. Oosterhouse S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was tried and convicted of the statutory crime of driving an automobile while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The state introduced into evidence the result of a blood test, voluntarily submitted to by the defendant, which showed 0,20% concentration of alcohol in the defendant's blood. Arizona statutes established a rebuttable presumption of no intoxication if such tests showed a concentration of 0.05%, or less, of alcohol in one's blood, and of intoxication if the tests showed a concentration of 0.15%, or more. Breath, urine, and direct blood tests are authorized by the statute. Defendant argued that the statute …

Responsibilities In The Transfer Of Stock, Francis T. Christy

Michigan Law Review

During the past few years there have been increasing efforts on the part of a number of organized groups to establish statutory definitions of the responsibilities of corporations and their transfer agents in the transfer of stock. Among these groups are the Commission on Uniform State Laws, which sponsored the Uniform Fiduciaries Act, the American Law Institute and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, which have jointly produced the new Uniform Commercial Code, the Committee on Simplification of Security Transfers of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association, of which Committee …

Boundaries: Description V. Survey, Olin L. Browder, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

These propositions I first encountered as a student in law school. At that time they struck me as rather startling propositions, which could not be reconciled with other things I had learned about the law of conveyancing. I do not recall exactly how they were disposed of: whether they were to be regarded as the law on the subject or merely as a couple of striking aberrations. There were too many other matters demanding attention at that time to allow much fretting over so small a question. Upon returning to the classroom some years later-but now sitting on the other …

Descent And Distribution - Intestate Succession From An Adopted Child - Who Aim His "Brothers And Sisters", Jack G. Armstrong

Michigan Law Review

Decedent had never married and was predeceased by his natural and adopted parents. The California statute provided that in such a case his property would go to his brothers and sisters. Appellant, the natural daughter of decedent's adopted parents, contended that she was his sole heir under this statute, while respondent, decedent's natural brother, argued that the term ''brothers and sisters" meant blood relatives. The superior court applied the common meaning of the words brothers and sisters and held that appellant was not such a person. On appeal, held, reversed. Since the entire pattern of the California code indicates …

Municipal Corporations - Zoning - Amortization Of Existing Noncomforming Uses, James W. Beatty S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

ln 1930 defendant Gage acquired several lots in the City of Los Angeles. He constructed a residential building in which he established a wholesale and retail plumbing business, using one room as an office for the conduct of his business. Also used in the business were a garage and racks, bins, and stalls for the storage of materials and supplies. The use to which defendant put the property was permitted under the applicable zoning ordinance of 1930. Later the ordinance was changed so as to make defendant's use of both lots nonconforming. In 1946 another rezoning ordinance provided that the …

Adequacy Of Instructions To The Jury: I, Curtis Wright, Jr

Michigan Law Review

In view of frequent judicial complaints about "instructions by the acre," it may be appropriate to begin with a short justification for an article bearing a title which might appear to suggest an antithetical problem, that is, the existence of a question as to the adequacy of instructions to the jury. To this end one might repeat the assertion that the verdict of a jury which is not instructed as to the fundamental law of the case is "crackerbarrel justice." If this is true, it certainly is also true that the mere number of instructions given is no guarantee of …

Justice Murphy And The Welfare Question, Leo Weiss

Michigan Law Review

In 1941, an Italian law professor arrived in the United States to make his home here. Born in Russia during Czarist days, he was educated in Austria, England, and Italy, finally settling there and becoming a citizen. A member of the Italian bar and teacher of law at the Universities of Florence and Rome, he found himself in 1939 unwanted in his adopted homeland. He went to France, where he practiced law until coming to this country. In New York City he joined the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, remaining in that post for five years, …

Justice Jackson And The Judicial Function, Paul A. Weidner

Michigan Law Review

Much of the pattern of division in the present Supreme Court is traceable to basic differences of opinion regarding the proper role of a judge in the process of constitutional adjudication. Some students of the Court, yielding to the current fashion of reducing even intricate problems to capsule terms, have tried to explain the controversy by classifying the justices as either "liberals" or "conservatives." A second school poses the disagreement largely in terms of judicial "activism" as opposed to judicial "restraint." It is this view that has the greater relevance for the present discussion. C.H. Pritchett, one of the leading …

Corporations - The Fudiciary Duty Of Directors In The Issuance Of Stock Subject To Preemptive Rights, Howard M. Downs

Michigan Law Review

In Gord v. Iowana Farms Milk Co. , a stockholder protested the issue to the defendant of certain shares of stock in a closely held corporation. At the time of the sale, the plaintiff was a director and secretary-treasurer of the corporation with access to the corporate books and knowledge of the corporate assets. At the meeting at which the stock was issued, the plaintiff signed a statement saying "at the present time I do not elect to purchase any stock. . . ." The stock, sold for $15 a share, had a value variously estimated at $50 to $103.22. …

Basic Antitrust Concepts, Kenneth S. Carlston

Michigan Law Review

It is the function of this paper to summarize and evaluate chapter I of the Report of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws. It will first be necessary to note briefly the circumstances attendant upon the appointment of the committee, its delegated function, its conception of its task and its working methods. No helpful critique of its accomplishments can be made unless its purpose and mode of operation are taken as the starting point. While many tasks remain to be done in the study of the antitrust laws, the committee's work should be appraised only …

Michigan Title Examinations And The 1954 Revenue Code's New General Lien Provisions, L. Hart Wright

Michigan Law Review

Title examiners, and more particularly their clients, have long suffered from a controversy-limited almost exclusively to Michigan- involving the methods by which the United States Treasury Department could perfect general federal tax liens. The December 1952 issue of the Michigan Law Review carried an article by the present writer pointing up the irreconcilable difference which has existed for a quarter of a century between the type of record notice which the Treasury was willing to provide prospective bona fide purchasers et al., and the quite different and more demanding type which the Michigan Legislature insisted upon if the local offices …

Real Property - Compensation For Abrogation Of A Restrictive Covenant By Public Authority, Howard N. Thiele, Jr. S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of this comment to examine the legal consequences produced when the tranquility of the residential district is disturbed by governmental action.

Crosskey And The Constitution: A Reply To Goebel, Sylvester Petro

Michigan Law Review

The immediate purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the inadequacies of the most embittered of the reviews of Crosskey's book which I have read, "Ex Parte Clio,'' written by Professor Goebel (hereinafter sometimes referred to as "the reviewer"). Demonstrating these things will involve repeated reference to the thesis and the methodology of the book, and comparison of the book with the contentions advanced by the reviewer. The reading will probably be as tedious as the writing has been, but that cannot be helped, for the longer aim of this paper cannot be achieved in any other manner. That aim …

Released Time And Religious Liberty: A Further Reply, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

In his "Reply" to the writer's review of his excellent book, Mr. Pfeffer has singled out the part of the review in which the writer discussed the released-time problem and the position taken by Mr. Pfeffer with respect thereto. To prolong the arguments over this matter in the pages of this Review would he unprofitable, hut the writer feels that a few comments on Mr. Pfeffer's reply would not he out of order.

Legislation - Requirement Of Definiteness In Statutory Standards, Robert B. Krueger S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

While it is universally recognized that definiteness in statutory standards is a condition prerequisite to the application of a statute, there is no agreement among either the courts or the writers as to the theory behind this requirement. However, common elements in each of the two prevalent theories indicate certain factors which may well be decisive on the question of definiteness in any given case. The purpose of this comment is to explore the practical implications of the interplay of these various factors and theories.

Constitutional Law - Federal Occupation Of Field Of Control Of Subversives, John C. Hall S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was chairman of the Communist Party for the western district of Pennsylvania. He was charged with willfully advocating the violent overthrow of the United States Government, and his conviction under state statute was sustained by the superior court. On appeal, held, reversed. The federal Smith Act pre-empted the field of control of subversive activities and the state law is therefore void. Commonwealth v. Nelson, 377 Pa. 58, 104 A. (2d) 133 (1954).

Negligence - Causation - Liability Under Statute For Injury Resulting From Fire Started By Railroad Locomotive, Howard. N. Thiele, Jr. S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Sparks from defendant's train started a fire on defendant's right of way which spread toward plaintiff's farm. Plaintiff, in an attempt to contain the fire, plowed a fire guard along the edge of his property. While driving his tractor to a safe place after completing the last furrow, he ran over a root or limb which flew up and struck him in the eye, causing blindness. In the trial court plaintiff recovered from the railroad under an Oklahoma statute which specified that "Any railroad company operating any line in this state shall be liable for all damages sustained by fire …

Revision Of The United Nations Charter: A Study Of Various Approaches, Richard F. Scott

Michigan Law Review

Although the United Nations Charter has survived rigorous tests of practice and application, all will doubtless agree that it should now undergo careful review if not thorough revision. Review in moderate terms is a matter of continuous international process, the Charter's structures and rules being regularly applied to the situations of everyday international life. As the necessary precondition to revision, however, the Charter will be subjected to a more deliberate, systematic, and searching review before concrete proposals for revision reach a competent international authority. Thus review is at once exploratory and promising. But revision is much more.