Law Commons^™

Off-Reservation Treaty Hunting Rights, The Restatement, And The Stevens Treaties, Ann E. Tweedy

Washington Law Review

The underdevelopment of the law of off-reservation treaty hunting and gathering poses challenges for treatises like the groundbreaking Restatement of the Law of American Indians (“Restatement”). With particular attention to sections 83 and 6 of the Restatement, this Article explores those challenges and offers some solutions for dealing with them in subsequent editions of the Restatement. Specifically, this Article explores the potential usefulness of historical law in interpreting treaties, the need to tie treaty interpretation to the language of the treaty when an explicit right is at issue, the proper application of the reserved rights doctrine and the Indian canons, …

"Send Freedom House!": A Study In Police Abolition, Tiffany Yang

Washington Law Review

Sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the 2020 uprisings accelerated a momentum of abolitionist organizing that demands the defunding and dismantling of policing infrastructures. Although a growing body of legal scholarship recognizes abolitionist frameworks when examining conventional proposals for reform, critics mistakenly continue to disregard police abolition as an unrealistic solution. This Essay helps dispel this myth of “impracticality” and illustrates the pragmatism of abolition by identifying a community-driven effort that achieved a meaningful reduction in policing we now take for granted. I detail the history of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, a Black civilian …

The Meaning, History, And Importance Of The Elections Clause, Eliza Sweren-Becker, Michael Waldman

Washington Law Review

Historically, the Supreme Court has offered scant attention to or analysis of the Elections Clause, resulting in similarly limited scholarship on the Clause’s original meaning and public understanding over time. The Clause directs states to make regulations for the time, place, and manner of congressional elections, and grants Congress superseding authority to make or alter those rules.

But the 2020 elections forced the Elections Clause into the spotlight, with Republican litigants relying on the Clause to ask the Supreme Court to limit which state actors can regulate federal elections. This new focus comes on the heels of the Clause serving …

Formalism And Fairness: Matthew Deady And Federal Public Land Law In The Early West, Ralph James Mooney

Washington Law Review

By 1880 Congress had passed nearly 3000 statutes granting or regulating parts of the public domain. Administrative and judicial case loads increased correspondingly, as many thousands of claims had to be verified and recorded and growing numbers of disputes adjudicated. This article recalls an early far-west chapter of the story, a remarkable series of decisions by Oregon federal district Judge Matthew P. Deady interpreting the cornerstone of Pacific Northwest public land law, the 1850 Oregon Donation Act. Although Deady decided other public land law questions as well, it is his Donation Act decisions helping to determine ownership of the Portland …

Formalism And Fairness: Matthew Deady And Federal Public Land Law In The Early West, Ralph James Mooney

Washington Law Review

By 1880 Congress had passed nearly 3000 statutes granting or regulating parts of the public domain. Administrative and judicial case loads increased correspondingly, as many thousands of claims had to be verified and recorded and growing numbers of disputes adjudicated. This article recalls an early far-west chapter of the story, a remarkable series of decisions by Oregon federal district Judge Matthew P. Deady interpreting the cornerstone of Pacific Northwest public land law, the 1850 Oregon Donation Act. Although Deady decided other public land law questions as well, it is his Donation Act decisions helping to determine ownership of the Portland …

Dr. Bonham's Case And The Modern Significance Of Lord Coke's Influence, George P. Smith, Ii

Washington Law Review

Cognizant of the significant, yet comparatively short-lived, contribution which Lord Edward Coke made to the English society of his day and to the inadvertent, as well as permanent, effect that his theory of fundamental law and judicial review had upon the American revolutionaries and the framers of the Constitution, the scope of this article has been limited primarily to a critical examination of the raison d'etre of the noted Dr. Bonham's Case—or, that case which structured Coke's entire argument for the supremacy of the fundamental law as ensured by judicial review. It is hoped that some idea may be gleaned …

The Courts And Early Bar Of The Washington Territory, Arthur S. Beardsley, Donald A. Mcdonald

Washington Law Review

Territorial justice in Washington had its roots in the judicial system of Oregon Territory, where the need for the administration of law and order was the motivating force which initiated the formation of civil authority The adnmnstration of justice, like the civil authority, must expand as the population grows and as the territorial area becomes larger and better organized. Strong men are always needed in the administration of justice; but in the frontier settlement where law and order are often flouted with impunity, even stronger men are needed if the courts are to command the respect which is their due. …

Early Washington Marital Property Statutes, Cyril Hill

Washington Law Review

Twenty years prior to statehood, the legislature of the Territory of Washington adopted the Community Property System. For nearly seventy years the courts have struggled with its provisions. Although the original act was copied largely from a statute adopted in California in 1850, such changes have been made, that the system in Washington may be regarded as unique. The adoption of the system in its present form was not accomplished by one stroke of the pen. Rather, it has had a checkered career. The original statute passed in 1869 was followed by a marital partnership property act approved November 29, …

Statute And Judge In Roman Criminal Law, Ernst Levy

Washington Law Review

This article is essentially an abbreviated version of a detailed investigation published in 4 Bulletino del Instituto di Diritto Romano "Vittorio Scialoja", 57-166 (1938, Milan) under the title: Gesetz und Richter im kaiserlichen Strafrecht. That paper may be consulted for source material and references. I wish to express my sincerest thanks to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation which by the grant of a fellowship has enabled me to undertake this research.

Outline Of Legal History, By Franklin Russell, Rudolph H. Nottlemann

Washington Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Penn Cases, Samuel P. Weaver

Washington Law Review

The Penn cases came at the climax of one of the most vital periods of English history The Stuart kings had denied the people many of the liberties defined by the Magna Carta and the Common Law, and additional privileges won through the centuries. James II had used every effort to repress the independence of the bar and had in fact prostituted the independence of the bench to the arbitrary prerogative of the lng. Charles II was attempting to evade the provisions of the Petition of Right, wrung from his father through the efforts of Lord Coke and other eminent …

The Inns Of Court, Frank E. Holman

Washington Law Review

The tendency of modern lawyers is to permit the profession to become a mere business and to give little or no attention to the tradition and romance of the law. During more than five centuries the Inns of Court have occupied an important place in the history and development of our jurisprudence. The constant growth and continuity which characterizes the great body of English law is not found in the native or national law of continental countries like France and Germany. Toward this characteristic entirety of English law the Inns of Court have contributed largely, for through the centuries of …