Law Commons^™

The Overlooked French Influence On The Intellectual Property Clause, Sean M. O'Connor

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The Intellectual Property Clause (“IP Clause”) of the US Constitution has long been a puzzle for courts and commentators. It authorizes Congress to secure exclusive property rights for authors and inventors, but it does not use the terms “patent” or “copyright,” and its objects of “Science” and “useful Arts” do not cleanly map onto the subject matter of current patent and copyright systems.

As the Supreme Court has noted, under popular usage of the terms “arts” and “science,” one would expect patents to promote science and copyrights to promote arts, yet we know from the historical record that exactly the …

The Priest-Penitent Privilege – An Hibernocentric Exercise In Postcolonial Jurisprudence, Walter J. Walsh

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Although much has been written on the history of the priest-penitent privilege, this Article will show that such writing tends toward an unconscious, but strong, anglocentric tilt. It seems that no scholar has tried to locate and interpret all the Irish and American sources that inspired this initially hibernocentric, later more generally American, postcolonial deviation from the English common law. Since the Second World War, the significance of Philips and its 1828 New York codification have gained widespread recognition, but the scholarly inquiry has never advanced in any truly historical fashion. This article is thus the first history of the …

The First Free Exercise Case, Walter J. Walsh

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Part I of this Article tells the colonial history of religious freedom in New York State from a minority perspective, with specific reference to the secrecy of the confessional-the very practice that would be constitutionally tested in Philips. Part II describes the immediate social and political issues raised by the influx of Irish Catholic refugees into New York City in the wake of the failed United Irish Rebellion of 1798. Part III treats the unfriendly 1811 ruling of the federalist Chief Justice James Kent in People v. Ruggles as representative of the dominant Anglocentric constitutional legacy of imperial Protestant …

Why Lawyers Have Often Worn Strange Clothes, Claimed To Work For Free--And Been Hated, Hugh D. Spitzer

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Why have lawyers and judges always adorned themselves in ancient regalia? Obviously, they must symbolically transform themselves from private individuals into "law speakers" for the community. They become tools of a longstanding legal system, and special clothes offer clues to others (and reminders to themselves) that they have special responsibilities, both to their clients and to the community at large. The "retro" clothes that lawyers and judges wear also remind everyone that law is old that it isn't meant to change rapidly, and that it offers stability and predictability in a changing world.

Bearing Arms In Washington State, Hugh D. Spitzer

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Article I, Section 24 of the Washington State Constitution directly affects two "hot topics" today: first, the increase in the carrying of weapons by the citizenry (particularly concealed weapons, with or without permits) and, second, the increase in "citizen militias" in various parts of the state. Article I, Section 24 also presents interesting issues from a pure state-constitutional-law standpoint, because it represents one of the striking characteristics of state constitutions: these basic documents of civil society for each state represent centuries of buildup and accretion. State constitutional provisions can often be analyzed in terms of layering. In preparing a state …

Speaking Truth To Power: The Jurisprudence Of Julia Cooper Mack, Walter J. Walsh

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In 1975, upon her appointment to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Julia Cooper Mack broke the double barrier of race and gender by becoming the first woman of color ever appointed to any American court of last resort. Over the last two decades, Judge Mack has authored hundreds of opinions articulating a powerful critical jurisprudence previously unheard on the highest level of our judiciary. In the pages that follow, several scholars join the Editors of the Howard Law Journal in suggesting that Judge Mack's life and work warrant careful scrutiny. This symposium explores the roots, development, and substance …

Caesar Would Have Arbitrated, Hugh D. Spitzer

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With the recent increase in mandatory arbitration for small civil disputes and voluntary arbitration for much larger cases, it is easy to suppose that dispute resolution by someone other than a government- appointed judge is a novel, imaginative creation of the modern legal system.

But for the Romans who lived in Julius Caesar's time, indeed from several hundred years B.C. to at least 300 A.D., most civil matters never went to an official "judge." Instead, almost all such disputes were resolved by a lay arbitrator under a remarkably flexible and enduring system of civil procedure that worked as effectively as …

Redefining Radicalism: A Historical Perspective, Walter J. Walsh

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This Essay suggests that Unger's attack on formalism and objectivism is not so new. After noting the early contributions of Thomas Hobbes and Jeremy Bentham, it does so by particular reference to the critique of William Sampson (1764-1836), the banished Irish civil rights lawyer and political activist, who led an intellectual charge upon the American common law more than a century and a half ago. It also suggests that by depicting the common law as incompatible with the egalitarian ideal of a democratic republic, Sampson sowed the seeds of a distinct radical tradition of which the critical legal studies movement …

Summary Of Tokugawa Criminal Justice, Daniel H. Foote

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The summary set forth below is derived principally from the late Professor Yoshiro Hiramatsu's-comprehensive study of Tokugawa criminal justice. Hiramatsu's work focusses on the period from the promulgation of the Osadamegaki by the Shogun Yoshimune in 1742 through the end of the Tokugawa era in 1867. (As described by Professor Dan F. Henderson, Conciliation and Japanese Law, Tokugawa and Modern (1965), Vol. 1, at 7, fn. 26, the Osadamegaki, which consisted of two books, constituted "a compilation and rough codification of prior decrees and precedents", and "was the only such official attempt to systematize the law in the Tokugawa period." …

Does Rome Have A Lesson For Us?, Hugh D. Spitzer

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As the Roman Empire became more complex and centralized, so did its law and legal system. Is there a message here for us?

Code Making In Early Oregon, Arthur S. Beardsley

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This article was originally printed in the Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 27 (Jan. 1936), 3-33. For the purpose of reprinting, the author has revised and expanded it, and in doing so has had the benefit of certain valuable suggestions from Mr. J. Nielson Barry of Portland, Oregon.

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

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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 administration 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 Efforts To Locate The Capital Of Washington Territory, Arthur S. Beardsley

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Several political controversies began with the organization of the territorial government of Washington in 1854, grew in intensity with the passage of years, and did not end on the proclamation of statehood in 1889. Among such controversies was the fight for the location of the capital. In fact, contention over the location of the seat of territorial and state government did not cease until the completion of the capitol building in 1927. During the interval of seventy-three years many efforts were made to relocate the capital, and at some time in this period nearly every important city within the present …

Later Attempts To Relocate The Capital Of Washington, Arthur S. Beardsley

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The controversy over the location of the seat of government, which had flared up frequently in Washington Territory during the period 1855-1875, was comparatively dormant in the following decade. With the coming of the railroads, the discovery of gold in the Fraser River country and Idaho, the use of irrigation in central Washington, the growth of the sheep and cattle business, the increase in commerce on the Columbia and Snake rivers, the development of the lumber and fishing industries west of the Cascade Range, the population of all sections of the territory rapidly increased, and Washington Territory was soon to …

The Codes And Code Makers Of Washington, 1889-1937, Arthur S. Beardsley

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Under the provisions of the Organic Act of Washington Territory, Congress had agreed to provide for the publication of the territorial statutes; hence, so long as Congress was willing to assume the cost of the publication of these territorial laws under the guise of a codification of the statutes, but little attention toward the preparation of a compilation, in the form in which this term is generally understood, was likely. The agitation for statutory reform, which consumed no small part of the time of the various territorial legislative sessions, was not motivated by a hope for a code of the …

Compiling The Territorial Codes Of Washington, Arthur S. Beardsley

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The story of the codes of laws which have been used in the Territory of Washington is little known. Little has been said of their influence on the legal history of the territory and state, and less has been recorded concerning those whose legal skill has produced these codifications. Some phases of the historical influences which form the background of the codes Washington Territory, and the important parts played by their makers, have become either lost or shrouded in oblivion. In the not far distant future the stories of other phases of this legal history may pass from the memory …