Law Commons^™

Social Research And The Use Of Medieval Criminal Records, Edward Powell

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England by James Buchanan Given, and Crime and Conflict in English Communities, 1300-1348 by Barbara A. Hanawalt

Law And Politics: The House Of Lords As A Judicial Body, 1800-1976, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Law and Politics: The House of Lords as a Judicial Body, 1800-1976 by Robert Stevens

Britain, Blacks, And Busing, Derrick Bell

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Doing Good By Doing Little: Race and Schooling in Britain by David L. Kirp

Thoughts About Judging, Henry J. Friendly

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Judge by Patrick Devlin

Judgment Non Obstantibus Datis, Reid Hastie

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Jury Trials by John Baldwin and Michael McConville

Political Crime In Europe: A Comparative Study Of France, Germany, And England, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Political Crime in Europe: A Comparative Study of France, Germany, and England by Barton Ingraham

Review Of Wiltshire Gaol Delivery And Trailbaston Trials, 1275-1306, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

Ralph B. Pugh's handsome edition of Wiltshire gaol delivery and trailbaston trial rolls for the reign of Edward I provides a valuable resource for scholars of medieval crime and criminal law. The period covered bridges the era of the infrequent general eyres and that of the frequent circuits to try those being held on criminal charges. This transition period saw the development of various institutions and procedures designed to deal with a decline in social stability and an increase in criminal activity. To date, most scholarship has focused either on the workings of the mid-thirteenth- century eyre or on the …

What Causes Fundamental Legal Ideas? Marital Property In England And France In The Thirteenth Century, Charles Donahue Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Categorizing broadly, the marital property systems of the Western nations today are divided into two types: those in which husband and wife own all property separately except those items that they have expressly agreed to hold jointly (in a nontechnical sense) and those in which husband and wife own a substantial portion or even all of their property jointly unless they have expressly agreed to hold it separately. The system of separate property is the "common law" system, in force in most jurisdictions where the Anglo-American common law is in force. The system of joint property is the community property …

The Cardinal's Court: The Impact Of Thomas Wolsey In Star Chamber, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Cardinal's Court: The Impact of Thomas Wolsey in Star Chamber by John A. Guy

Review Of Society And Homicide In Thirteenth-Century England, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

JAMES GIVEN has produced the first systematic book-length treatment of the sociology of medieval English crime. His work does not pretend to be comprehensive: it deals only with homicide. Nor does it cover more than a century, the thirteenth; the author has wisely left the earlier system of criminal law, based on private compensation, to other scholars, and he says just enough about late thirteenth- and early fourteenth- century social and legal change to suggest he believes that that period, too, must await its own interpretation. Still, the social history of homicide in the thirteenth century proves itself fascinating terrain, …

Professional Discipline Of Solicitors In England, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note begins with an examination of the disciplinary role of the Law Society, the solicitors' most important organization, and of the Society's attempt to prevent professional misconduct through regular financial audits and by providing advice to solicitors on questions of professional conduct and etiquette. It then describes the composition, function, and operation of the Disciplinary Tribunal, the statutorily created organization occupying the second level of the disciplinary system. Particular attention is directed toward recent statutory changes that provide for lay representation on the Tribunal. The Note concludes with a brief discussion of the appeals process and the procedures for …

Some Non-Religious Views Against Proposed 'Mercy-Killing' Legislation Part I, Yale Kamisar

Articles

In essence, Williams' specific proposal is that death be authorized for a person in the above situation "by giving the medical practitioner a wide discretion and trusting to his good sense." This, I submit, raises too great a risk of abuse and mistake to warrant a change in the existing law. That a proposal entails risk of mistake is hardly a conclusive reason against it. But neither is it irrelevant. Under any euthanasia program the consequences of mistake, of course, are always fatal. As I shall endeavor to show, the incidence of mistake of one kind or another is likely …

Some Non-Religious Views Against Proposed 'Mercy-Killing' Legislation Part Ii, Yale Kamisar

Articles

There have been and there will continue to be compelling circumstances when a doctor or relative or friend will violate The Law On The Books and, more often than not, receive protection from The Law In Action. But this is not to deny that there are other occasions when The Law On The Books operates to stay the hand of all concerned, among them situations where the patient is in fact ( 1 ) presently incurable, ( 2) beyond the aid of any respite which may come along in his life expectancy, suffering ( 3 ) intolerable and ( 4) …

The Railroad Passenger Problem: American And British Experiences As Bases For A New Model, Vincent J. Tolve

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article examines the character of the rail passenger problem, identifies the American and British governments' responses and proposes a hybrid model of a rail passenger service organization based on several intrinsic characteristics of these existing systems. The article implies that the profit standard inadequately measures the success of a public utility, and suggests the adoption of an eclectic standard that measures enterprise success in terms of economic viability, response to public need, and quality of service rendered. The proposed model involves the rediscovery, application, and combination of two organizational concepts: the public corporation and the interstate compact.

Review Of The King's Pardon For Homicide To A.D. 1307, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

NAOMI D. Hurnard's The King's Pardon for Homicide before AD 1307 is significant and instructive for both legal and social historians. The author has painstakingly pieced together the available evidence from a variety of classes of mediaeval English public records to achieve a clear statement of the law of excusable homicide, i.e., non-felonious but requiring a royal pardon. She has lucidly presented the procedure which marks out the legal life story of persons deserving pardon, from the pardonable slaying to the formal proclamation of the king's peace. But she has also accomplished much more. Through careful and generally sound use …

Societal Concepts Of Criminal Liability For Homicide In Medieval England, Thomas A. Green

Articles

THE early history of English criminal law lies hidden behind the laconic formulas of the rolls and law books. The rules of the law, as expounded by the judges, have been the subject of many studies; but their practical application in the courts, where the jury of the community was the final and unbridled arbiter, remains a mystery: in short, we know little of the social mores regarding crime and crimi- nals. This study represents an attempt to delineate one major aspect of these societal attitudes. Its thesis is that from late Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the middle …

An American Lawyer In The Queen's Courts: Impressions Of English Civil Procedure, Benjamin Kaplan

Michigan Law Review

While the words "English Civil Procedure" in the title of this lecture might suggest that there is a single English system, there are in fact a number of them. In the High Court itself, the court of general jurisdiction, a suit in Chancery Division proceeds differently from an action in Queen's Bench Division: the English have made less of a fetish of the "one form of action" than we have. Procedure in the County Courts, the courts for small-debt collection and miscellaneous claims, contrasts with those of the High Court. But Queen's Bench procedure for the staple cases of some …

Recent Patterns Of Testate Succession In The United States And England, Olin L. Browder Jr.

Michigan Law Review

This study purports to be in part a comparison of American and English testamentary practices. The virtual absence in England of estate records as we know them imposed limitations on the attainment of this objective. For present purposes, data concerning English practices were derived almost entirely from one hundred English wills selected at random from those filed during the year 1963 in the Principal Probate Registry in London. To the extent that these wills came from all over England and Wales, they can be regarded as representative of English practices generally. But the much smaller size of the sample in …

Statute Of Frauds--The Doctrine Of Equitable Estoppel And The Statute Of Frauds, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In 1677 the English Parliament enacted the first Statute of Frauds to prevent "many fraudulent practices, which are commonly endeavored to be upheld by perjury and subornation of perjury." The trial system then existing in England was forced to depend upon unreliable juries, and relied upon few rules of evidence besides the rule treating parties to an action as incompetent witnesses. Thus, in passing the Statute, Parliament sought to minimize the abuses possible under the trial system by providing that virtually no important contract would be enforceable unless reduced to writing.

Dawson: A History Of Lay Judges, Spencer L. Kimball

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A History of Lay Judges . By John P. Dawson

A Decade Of Administrative Law: 1942-1951, Bernard Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

The past ten years have been particularly momentous ones in the development of American administrative law. It is, indeed, not too much to say that there are few, if any, aspects of that field which have not witnessed important changes during that time. It is for this reason that an analysis of administrative law developments during the past decade should prove useful. However valuable an annual survey of the law may be, it suffers from the shortness of the period which it covers. An analysis of developments during a decade enables a broader perspective to be obtained.

It will be …

Hastings: The Court Of Common Pleas In Fifteenth Century England, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND. By Margaret Hastings.

Legal Techniques And Political Ideologies: A Comparative Study, Alexander H. Pekelis

Michigan Law Review

The problem with which we are going to deal is one of comparative law, a discipline probably even more illusory than legal science itself. A body of laws represents in itself neither a social reality nor a social ideal. One of the difficulties that every historian faces in trying to reconstruct a period of the past with the help of legal monuments is due to the great variety of relations existing between legal rules and social reality. So, e.g., legal monuments generally contain in an inextricable confusion at least two contradictory types of rules: rules which are a simple restatement …

Constitutional Law - Force And Effect Of Clauses Providing For Payment Of Private Indebtedness In Gold

Michigan Law Review

Certain Belgium company bonds were issued providing for payment of interest "in sterling in gold coin of the United Kingdom of or equal to the weight and fineness existing on September 1, 1928." After England had left the gold: standard the issuing company sought to make interest payments in depreciated pounds. Plaintiff bondholder sought to enforce payment of sufficient depreciated currency to enable him to purchase on the day of payment gold in the same quantity as he would have received had payment been due September 1, 1928. The English House of Lords held for plaintiff, reversing the decision of …

Conflict Of Laws-Renvoi Doctrine

Michigan Law Review

H, an Englishman, married W in England. On separation H acquired a domicil in Germany. A child was thereafter born to Y, a woman with whom H was living in Germany. H subsequently divorced W in Germany and married Y. Whether the child was legitimate determined whether H had validly exercised a power of appointment in an English settlement. Held, legitimacy is to be determined by the law of the domicil, including its rules of private international law. Germany, referring the matter to English law, found a remittance which Germany accepted and applied German municipal law. The child, by …

Review: Annual Survey Of English Law 1929. London School Of Economics And Political Science (University Of London) Department Of Law., Everett S. Brown

Michigan Law Review

A Review of ANNUAL SURVEY OF ENGLISH LAW 1929. London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) Department of Law.

Marriage-Validity Of Marriage Terminable At Will Of The Parties Under Soviet Law

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner married the respondent in Moscow, in 1924, the parties being the domiciled in the Soviet Union. By Soviet law a divorce could be secured upon the registration of both parties of their desire to terminate the marriage, or upon the application of one of them to a court which had no discretion but to dissolve the union. The petitioner filed a bill for separation in England, and an issue was directed in the lower court to determine whether the parties had ever been husband and wife. The court held the marriage invalid, but on appeal it was held the …

International Recognition And The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

The extending of international recognition to a new government or a new state is a political function which belongs exclusively to the political departments of government. It follows that whenever the question of recognition or not is really involved in litigation the court should inform itself, as to the course pursued by the appropriate political department and decide accordingly. This much, if it ever needed to be settled, may now be regarded as settled beyond peradventure.

Requisitioned And The Government-Owned Ship, J. Whitla Stinson

Michigan Law Review

Jurisdiction over requisitioned and government-owned merchantmen and their liabilities under maritime laws are questions which present no real novelty. They were regarded by the ancient sea-law and were as familiar to it as they have recently become,-on account of the exigencies of the late war, to the admiralty systems of to-day. The maritime law of Rome supplies modem cases with the most cogent parallels and is reflected today in the jurisprudence of France and other continental and Latin countries. The jurisdictional question which figures most prominently in these cases relates to the authority to arrest or libel the property of …

Judges In The British Cabinet And The Struggle Which Led To Their Exclusion After 1806, Arthur Lyon Cross

Michigan Law Review

Among the anomalies in the queer and devious course of Eng- £ lish constitutional progress few have been more striking than the number of reforms which have been due to the Conservatives.. One of no little significance was brought about during that period of political stagnation-the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This was the exclusion of judges from the Cabinet, as the result of a political struggle in which the forces of opposition, though temporarily defeated, formulated a policy which was destined henceforth to prevail.