Law Commons^™

Panelist, The Legacy Of James M. Landis, Daniel Coquillette

Daniel R. Coquillette

No abstract provided.

The Persistent Problem Of Obligation In International Law, Eduardo Peñalver

Eduardo M. Peñalver

No abstract provided.

Portrait Of A Patriot: The Major Political And Legal Papers Of Josiah Quincy Junior, Volume 6, Correspondence And Published Political Writings, Daniel Coquillette, Neil Longley York

Daniel R. Coquillette

Appeals To The Privy Council From The American Colonies: An Annotated Digital Catalogue, Mary Bilder, Sharon O'Connor

Sharon Hamby O'Connor

In recognition of the three-hundred anniversary of the accession of George I, the Ames Foundation announces a new electronic resource: Appeals to the Privy Council from the American Plantations: An Annotated Digital Catalogue. For the first time in centuries, the site makes accessible the important appellate cases that helped to define constitutional law before the creation of the United States Supreme Court.

The British Privy Council heard appeals from the 13 colonies that became the United States and from the other colonies in Canada and the Caribbean. Over 800 cases were appealed from the colonial supreme courts. Nearly one-third of …

On The Virtues Of A Wild Justice, Michael Meltsner

Michael Meltsner

No abstract provided.

Lawyering In The Lion's Mouth: The Story Of S.D. Redmond And Pruitt V. State, Mary Ellen Maatman

Mary Ellen Maatman

Lawyering in the Lion’s Mouth: The Story of S.D. Redmond and Pruitt v. State unearths a forgotten case with facts worthy of a William Faulkner novel. Set in rural Mississippi, the case involved alleged interracial adultery and infanticide. Luella Williamson, a white woman who killed her baby, told authorities that an African American man named Ervin Pruitt was the child’s father, and claimed he told her to kill the child for fear he would be lynched. She pled guilty to murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Her alleged lover, who denied both the relationship and any involvement in the …

Making Claims: Indian Litigants And The Expansion Of The English Legal World In The Eighteenth Century, Arthur Fraas

Arthur Mitchell Fraas

This paper explores the British Imperial legal world of the mid-eighteenth century. Within this period, the previously confined spaces of English law and legal institutions became open to an ever widening set of legal subjects, both people as well as places. The paper focuses on what was at the time perhaps England’s most remote and murkily defined legal space, the East India Company (EIC) settlements at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. The paper shows how a series of legal actors: metropolitan judges, Indian litigants and elite lawyers, first bridged the legal worlds of England and the subcontinent. I argue that by …

Conclusion — The Migration Of Legal Ideas: Legislative Design And The Lawmaking Process, Robert Tsai

Robert L Tsai

This is the conclusion for an edited volume on legislative usage of foreign and international law, N. Lupo & L. Scaffardi, Legal Transplants and Parliaments: A Possible Dialogue Amongst Legislators? (2014). I assess the general turn in comparative law studies towards the behavior of elected officials, as well as the preference for increased formality in the use of foreign law. The essays in this book analyze the legal experiences of Brazil, Namibia, Australia, South Africa, Spain, the European Union, China, Canada, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Italy. Many of these countries (but not all, especially the U.S.) …

Anatomy Of Dissent In Islamic Societies, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

The 'Arab Spring' that began in 2011 has placed a spotlight on the transfer of political power in Islamic societies, reviving old questions about the place of political dissent and rebellion in Islamic civilization and raising new ones about the place of religion in modern Islamic societies.

In Anatomy of Dissent in Islamic Societies, Ahmed E. Souaiaia examines the complex historical evolution of Islamic civilization in an effort to trace the roots of the paradigms and principles of Islamic political and legal theories. This study is one of the first attempts at providing a fuller picture of the place of …

Due Process And Social Legislation In The Supreme Court--A Post Mortem, Robert Rodes

Robert Rodes

No abstract provided.

Secular Cases In The Church Courts: A Historical Survey, Robert Rodes

Robert Rodes

No abstract provided.

Erastian And High Church Approaches To The Law: The Jurisprudential Categories Of Robert E. Rodes, Jr., M. Kaveny

M. Cathleen Kaveny

It is a great honor for me to have been asked to contribute to this issue of the Journal of Law and Religion focusing on the work of my colleague and friend, Robert E. Rodes, Jr. In June 2006, Professor Rodes celebrated his fiftieth anniversary as a member of the faculty of Notre Dame Law School. His long career has marked him as a founding father of interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of faith, law, and morality—the very sort of scholarship which this journal is dedicated to fostering and preserving.

The topics that Professor Rodes has considered over the years …

Listening For The Future In The Voices Of The Past: John T. Noonan, Jr. On Love And Power In Human History, M. Kaveny

M. Cathleen Kaveny

No abstract provided.

Commencement Of Action, Daniel Coquillette, Robert Bloom

Robert Bloom

No abstract provided.

Baker V. State And The Promise Of The New Judicial Federalism, Charles Baron, Lawrence Friedman

Charles H. Baron

In Baker v. State, the Supreme Court of Vermont ruled that the state constitution’s Common Benefits Clause prohibits the exclusion of same-sex couples from the benefits and protections of marriage. Baker has been praised by constitutional scholars as a prototypical example of the New Judicial Federalism. The authors agree, asserting that the decision sets a standard for constitutional discourse by dint of the manner in which each of the opinions connects and responds to the others, pulls together arguments from other state and federal constitutional authorities, and provides a clear basis for subsequent development of constitutional principle. This Article explores …

Reconstituting The “Un-Person”: The Khmer Krom And The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Mahdev Mohan

Mahdev Mohan

Despite the grand promise of victim participation at the ongoing trials of Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (“ECCC”), this article notes the plight of an undeserved ethnic community, the members of which have become forgotten victims of genocide. The Article argues that if the ECCC’s trials are to have any resonance for the Khmer Krom, its affiliates and victims’ lawyers should avoid “othering” Khmer Krom victims of genocide, and instead adopt ethnographic approaches to lawyering that seek to ascertain communal desires for vindication.

A Natural Law Approach To An Issue Of The Day: A Critique Of The (Equality) Justification For Same Sex Marriage, Robert Araujo

Robert J. Araujo S.J.

No abstract provided.

The Anniversaries Of The Right To Counsel And Thecreation Of The Public Defender’S Office,, Robert Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

There has been much celebration this year of the 50th Anniversary of the Gideon decision1 rendered by the United States Supreme Court in March of 1963. Gideon guaranteed that indigent persons accused of crime would be entitled to representation. It has been said for some time now, that the full promise of Gideon has never been realized. Nevertheless, the right to counsel in criminal cases is an important constitutional right.

2013 also marks the 120th Anniversary of the first public proposal of a public defender system which was introduced in Chicago in 1893. It also marks the 99th anniversary of …

To Administer Justice On Behalf Of All The People: The United States District Court For The Eastern District Of New York 1965-1990, Jeffrey Morris

Jeffrey B. Morris

No abstract provided.

Establishing Justice In Middle America: A History Of The United States Court Of Appeals For The Eighth Circuit, Jeffrey Morris

Jeffrey B. Morris

No abstract provided.

Calmly To Poise The Scales Of Justice: A History Of The Courts Of The District Of Columbia Circuit, Jeffrey Morris, Chris Rohmann

Jeffrey B. Morris

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Nakaz Of Catherine The Great: Collected Texts

Rebecca A. Mattson

No abstract provided.

States Rights > Gay Rights, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

By now you've heard from the various news sources that, in this week’s Supreme Court arguments on California's Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act, a majority of justices expressed skepticism over both. So it's imaginable—even probable, if you believe the news—that we will find ourselves at the end of June with DOMA in the junk pile and marriage equality back on the books in California.

But don't put the pink champagne on ice just yet. In both days of argument, the justices spent an extraordinary amount of time dealing with knotty procedural issues. Both cases are complicated by …

Weird Friends Of The Court, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

If you’ve felt encouraged by recent trends in favor of gay rights—including the new Washington Post poll showing 58 percent of Americans support marriage equality—swing over to SCOTUSblog and read some of the nearly 60 “friend of the Court” briefs opposing gay marriage.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases—the first on California’s Prop 8, the second on the Defense of Marriage Act—that could determine whether the federal government can define marriage as between a man and a woman, and whether state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. The parties are …

The Glocks Are Falling! The Glocks Are Falling!, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

The gun crowd is so paranoid about the erosion of their Second Amendment rights that they make Chicken Little look like an actuary.

The president’s recent gun proposals include initiatives such as expanded background checks, a ban on certain military-type rifles, and limits on the size of magazines. But if you listen to the gun folks, even these tepid proposals are—to quote a past president of the National Rifle Association—“unconstitutional schemes to gut the Second Amendment.” Iowa Senator Charles Grassley accused Obama of thinking “the Second Amendment can be tossed aside.” Any skeptical glance in the direction of that Glock …

Revolutions And Rebellions And Syria's Paths To War And Peace, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

In less than a month, peaceful Tunisian and Egyptian protesters ousted two of the most authoritarian rulers of the Arab world. The human and economic costs: a total of about 1100 people dead (300 in Tunisia and 800 in Egypt) and some decline in economic growth. These were the dignity revolutions. In contrast, the Syrian peaceful uprising quickly turning into armed rebellion is now 22 months old with over 60,000 people (civilians, rebels, security and military officers, women and children) dead, more than 4,000,000 persons displaced from their homes, and destruction estimated at $70 billion. This is now, without doubt, …

The Innocent Defendant’S Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study Of Plea Bargaining’S Innocence Problem, Lucian Dervan, Vanessa Edkins

Lucian E Dervan

In 1989, Ada JoAnn Taylor was accused of murder and presented with stark options. If she pleaded guilty, she would be rewarded with a sentence of ten to forty years in prison. If, however, she proceeded to trial and was convicted, she would likely spend the rest of her life behind bars. Over a thousand miles away in Florida and more than twenty years later, a college student was accused of cheating and presented with her own incentives to admit wrongdoing and save the university the time and expense of proceeding before a disciplinary review board. Both women decided the …

Recognizing New Syrian National Coalition Alone Won’T End War In Syria, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

Those who doubt Lakhdar Brahimi’s assessment of the crisis in Syria ought to rethink their position. His ostensibly naïve initiative for a ceasefire over the Eid holidays might have been a brilliant maneuver that ended the existence of the Syrian National Council, the previously prominent face of the Syrian opposition. Before proposing an ambitious plan of six or one hundred points like his predecessor, Brahimi wanted to make sure that there are reliable representatives of both sides who can exert influence and control over their subordinates. After visiting Russia and China, he proposed, from Tehran, that both the opposition forces …

Who Is The Syrian Opposition?, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

Since the start of the uprising in Syria, countries supporting the opposition groups wanted to unify them. They organized a series of the so-called “Friends of Syria” conferences one after another only to adjourn without realizing their objective. In most cases, the meetings created more discord than opportunities for unity.

Why Is The U.S.-Islamic World Relation So Fragile?, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

No abstract provided.