Law Commons^™

Books Have The Power To Shape Public Policy, Barbara Mcquade

Michigan Law Review

In our digital information age, news and ideas come at us constantly and from every direction—newspapers, cable television, podcasts, online media, and more. It can be difficult to keep up with the fleeting and ephemeral news of the day.

Books, on the other hand, provide a source of enduring ideas. Books contain the researched hypotheses, the well-developed theories, and the fully formed arguments that outlast the news and analysis of the moment, preserved for the ages on the written page, to be discussed, admired, criticized, or supplanted by generations to come.

And books about the law, like the ones reviewed …

A Question Of Intent: Aiding And Abetting Law And The Rule Of Accomplice Liability Under § 924©, Tyler B. Robinson

Michigan Law Review

Firearms are common tools of the violent-crime and drugtrafficking trades. Their prevalence is reflected in the frequency with which federal prosecutors charge, juries apply, and courts review 18 U.S.C. §924(c). That provision imposes heavy penalties for either the use or carrying of a firearm "during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime," in addition to the punishment provided for the underlying violent or drug-related offense. A conviction under section 924(c) carries at the very least a mandatory, consecutive five-year sentence, even when the underlying crime already provides enhanced punishment for use of a dangerous weapon …

Foreword, Louis H. Pollak

Michigan Law Review

Introduction to the Symposium Reflections on United States v. Lopez

Enumerated Means And Unlimited Ends, H. Jefferson Powell

Michigan Law Review

United States v. Lopez can be read as a fairly mundane disagreement over the application of a long-settled test. The Government defended the statute under review in the case, the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, along familiar lines as a permissible regulation of activity affecting interstate and foreign commerce.

In this essay, I do not address the question whether Lopez was an important decision. My concern instead is with the problem that underlies Lopez's particular issue of the scope of the commerce power: Given our commitment to limited national government, in what way is the national legislature actually limited? …

Commerce!, Deborah Jones Merritt

Michigan Law Review

In this article, I explore the Supreme Court's new definition of "Commerce ... among the several States."9 In Part I, I examine three new principles that Lopez announces and that could significantly rework the Court's Commerce Clause jurisprudence. Part II, however, shows that these principles must be understood in the context of almost a dozen factors narrowing the Supreme Court's Lopez decision. Part II also demonstrates that the lower courts have understood the contextual uniqueness of Lopez and already have distinguished the decision in upholding more than half a dozen broad exercises of congressional authority. Part III then shows that …

"A Government Of Limited And Enumerated Powers": In Defense Of United States V. Lopez, Steven G. Calabresi

Michigan Law Review

The Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Lopez marks a revolutionary and long overdue revival of the doctrine that the federal government is one of limited and enumerated powers. After being "asleep at the constitutional switch" for more than fifty years, the Court's decision to invalidate an Act of Congress on the ground that it exceeded the commerce power must be recognized as an extraordinary event. Even if Lopez produces no progeny and is soon overruled, the opinion has shattered forever the notion that, after fifty years of Commerce Clause precedent, we can never go back to the …

It Isn't About Duck Hunting: The British Origins Of The Right To Arms, David B. Kopel

Michigan Law Review

A Review of To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right by Joyce Lee Malcolm

Two New Books On Guns, Franklin E. Zimring

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Under The Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America by James D. Wright, Peter H. Rossi and Kathleen Daly and Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy edited by Don B. Kates, Jr.

Handgun Prohibition And The Original Meaning Of The Second Amendment, Don B. Kates Jr.

Michigan Law Review

One of the purposes of this Article will be to sketch out at least some of the very substantial limitations on the right of individuals to keep and bear arms suggested by the historical evidence. First, however, the controversy between the individual right and the exclusively state's right views must be resolved. The evidence to be examined must include: the literal language of the second amendment; the history of its proposal and ratification; the philosophical and historical background that gave rise to the Founders' belief in "the necessity of an armed populace to effect popular sovereignty"; and the contemporary understanding …

Some Observations On The Disposition Of Ccw Cases In Detroit, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Note details the disposition of cases alleging violations of the Michigan CCW statute that were brought in the Detroit recorder's court during 1973. Although the statute is only part of the current scheme of gun control in Michigan, it is the principal weapon available to the police and prosecutor in the preventive battle against the illegal use of firearms. To give meaning to the dispositional statistics and to aid in perceiving the over-all judicial attitude toward CCW cases, the statistical results of the study are compared with statistics on the disposition of cases involving felonies similar …

Arrest - Stopping And Questioning As An Arrest - Reasonable Suspicion From Facts Disclosed By Questioning As Justification, Robert Meisenholder

Michigan Law Review

After arrest of the defendant on mere suspicion without probable cause, the arresting officers on searching the car in which he was driving found two guns. The defendant complained on appeal, after conviction for carrying concealed weapons in an automobile, of the denial of his motion before trial to suppress the evidence. Held, it was error to refuse to suppress the guns as evidence because, the arrest being unlawful, the subsequent search and seizure was unlawful. Had the officers stopped and questioned the defendant, and had such questioning disclosed facts to establish a reasonable suspicion that the defendant was …

Searches And Seizures - Reasonableness Of Arrest - Use Of Evidence Secured Through Unreasonable Arrest- Statutory Changes

Michigan Law Review

Police officers patrolling Detroit streets in a radio-equipped police car stopped a taxicab in which defendants Stein and Massie were riding. From the statement of the court, the officers' attention was attracted to the cab "because it was 'driving pretty fast,' about 32 miles per hour." The police car pursued it for a block or more; as it drew abreast of the cab defendant Stein was seen to reach into his pocket as if to take something out and put it behind him. "There was something about the cab, probably aside from its speed, which suggested to officer Sullivan that …

Criminal Law In Action- Carrying Concealed Weapons - Chicago Statistics, John Barker Waite

Michigan Law Review

Lawyers are beginning to recognize, though slowly, that enforcement and administration of law are affected more by the psychological conditioning and the character of its administrators than by the content of the law itself. This basis of difference is well demonstrated by some data of Chicago criminal court operations as compared with similar proceedings before Detroit judges.

Arrest For Crime -The Law's "Crazy Business"

Michigan Law Review

In the Wilbur Day case, the facts as presented by Time indicate that Day was in truth guilty of the felony for which he was arrested. Under the statute, therefore, the arrest was lawful and the case should not have been dismissed. The defendant's attorney appears, unfortunately, to have misled the trial judge.

Evidence-Ballistics As Subject Matter Of Expert Testimony

Michigan Law Review

W, among other things a professional expert witness and a ballistics expert, testified that the bullet found in the body of the deceased was fired from the gun identified as being that of the defendant. Held, the evidence was properly admitted. People v. Fisher et al. (Ill. 1930) 172 N.E. 743.