Law Commons^™

The Broken Fourth Amendment Oath, Laurent Sacharoff

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The Fourth Amendment requires that warrants be supported by “Oath or affirmation.” Under current doctrine, a police officer may swear the oath to obtain a warrant merely by repeating the account of an informant. This Article shows, however, that the Fourth Amendment, as originally understood, required that the real accuser with personal knowledge swear the oath.

That real-accuser requirement persisted for nearly two centuries. Almost all federal courts and most state courts from 1850 to 1960 held that the oath, by its very nature, required a witness with personal knowledge. Only in 1960 did the Supreme Court hold in Jones …

Ut Case Was Stop On Road To Brown V. Board Of Education, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

“Before Brown: Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall, and the Long Road to Justice” is Gary Lavergne’s treatment of Sweatt v. Painter, an important 1950 Supreme Court decision on the way to Brown. Lavergne, director of admissions research at the University of Texas, tells an interesting and important story that fills many gaps between Plessy and Brown.

Professor's Paper Targets Klan Reference On University Of Texas Dorm... And Gets Action, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Ten weeks ago, my 48-page legal history paper started a Texas-sized controversy about a University of Texas dormitory named for a Klan leader. UT first admitted African-American students in 1950 after the NAACPʼs Legal Defense Fund lawyers beat Texas before the US Supreme Court in Sweatt v. Painter. Four years later, the great NAACP lawyers won Brown v. Board of Education. Just a few weeks after the Brown decision, UT put a Klansmanʼs name on a brand-new dormitory for law and graduate students.

Joel R. Pruce On The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches And Documents From Ancient Times To The Present (Second Edition), By Micheline R. Ishay. New York, Ny: Routledge, 2007. 592pp., Joel R. Pruce

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present (Second Edition), by Micheline R. Ishay. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. 592pp.

Matthew S. Weinert On Truth Commissions And Procedural Fairness By Mark Freeman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 400pp., Matthew S. Weinert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Truth Commissions and Procedural Fairness by Mark Freeman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 400pp.

Historical Background: Evolution Of The International Criminal Law, Individual Criminal Accountability And The Idea Of A Permanent International Court, Cenap Cakmak

Human Rights & Human Welfare

© Cenap Cakmak. All rights reserved.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the paper is taken off the site. Electronic copies of this paper may not be posted on any other website without express permission of the author.

Is Humanity Enough? The Secular Theology Of Human Rights, Peter Fitzpatrick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

© Peter Fitzpatrick. All rights reserved.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the paper is taken off the site. Electronic copies of this paper may not be posted on any other website without express permission of the author.

Karen A. Mingst On The U.N. Security Council: From The Cold War To The 21st Century. Edited By David M. Malone. Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner, 2004. 745pp., Karen A. Mingst

Human Rights & Human Welfare

No abstract provided.

Ethnic Groups And International Law: A Status Report On International Legal Personality At The Beginning Of The New Century, Steven M. Schneebaum

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

International Law and Ethnic Conflict edited by David Wippman. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. 368pp.

John D. Becker On International Crimes, Peace And Human Rights: The Role Of The International Criminal Court Edited By Dinah Shelton. Ardsley, Ny: Transnational Publishers. 356pp., John D. Becker

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

International Crimes, Peace and Human Rights: The Role of the International Criminal Court edited by Dinah Shelton. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers. 356pp.

The Inconvenient Militia Clause Of The Second Amendment: Why The Supreme Court Declines To Resolve The Debate Over The Rights To Bear Arms, Robert M. Hardaway, Elizabeth Gormley, Bryan Taylor

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

There are sound public policy reasons why gun ownership by law abiding citizens in a free society should be protected. Good public policy, however, cannot be formulated as long as there remain fundamental misconceptions about the meaning and history of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the law interpreting it. In August of 1994, an exasperated American Bar Association, finding itself unable to match the Gun Lobby's publicity campaigns, pleaded for help from the legal profession to educate the American public about the meaning of the Second Amendment and the intent of the Constitutional Framers. Specifically, the ABA …

The Shape Of The Michigan River As Viewed From The Land Of Sweatt V. Painter And Hopwood: Comments On Lempert, Chambers, And Adam's Study Of The University Of Michigan Law School's Minority Graduates, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The piece considers the Lempert, Chambers, Adams study of Michigan's law graduates of color from the vantage point of the history of The University of Texas's law school's history.

Articles Sell Best Singly: The Disruption Of Slave Families At Court Sales, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This legal history article presents the empirical finding that the risk of family separation at slave auctions was higher at court-ordered and court-supervised sales as compared with private sales of capitalist auctioneers. The article also examines legal and ideological justification for the destruction of slave families. Law served to disguise human agency in the breakup of slave families.

This article builds upon the author’s earlier finding that a majority of slave auctions in South Carolina were conducted by the courts. The data for this article and the previous study were drawn from antebellum primary sources including trial-court records, the salesbooks …

A New Image Of The Slave Auction: An Empirical Look At The Role Of Law In Slave Sales And A Conceptual Reevaluation Of Slave Property, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This legal history article presents a new understanding of the nature of slave property. Slave property was divided and fragmented into many different interests including those with application to real property such life estates, remainders, shifting and spring interests, and leasehold interests. With regard to these interests, the article overlays the first-year, law-school property course onto slaves as property. Property interests in slaves were also divided by credit mechanisms including mortgages and secured credit transactions. Warranties are another example of divided property interests in slaves.

The fragmented, Hohfeldian nature of slave property distributed the stake that southerners had in the …

South Carolina's Largest Slave Auctioneering Firm, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article presents the original finding that South Carolina's legal system conducted a majority of the state's slave auctions during the antebellum years.Courts conducted slave auctions in several circumstances. Sheriffs sold the property of debtors; and courts also conducted or supervised sales in order to divide estates. Drawing upon extensive empirical analysis of primary sources in various South Carolina archives, this article compares the total number of slaves sold at court-ordered or court-supervised sales with the best empirical estimates for private slave sales - whether at auction or not. The conclusion is that the courts acted as the state's greatest …

Book Review: Allen Steinberg, The Transformation Of Criminal Justice: Philadelphia, 1800-1880, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Historical Study Of Personal Injury Litigation: A Comment On Method, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In this piece, Russell argues in favor of archival work in the trial-court records rather than appellate court reports in order to gain a more accurate historical view.