Law Commons^™

The History, Meaning, And Use Of The Words Justice And Judge, Jason Boatright

St. Mary's Law Journal

The words justice and judge have similar meanings because they have a common ancestry. They are derived from the same Latin term, jus, which is defined in dictionaries as “right” and “law.” However, those definitions of jus are so broad that they obscure the details of what the term meant when it formed the words that eventually became justice and judge. The etymology of jus reveals the kind of right and law it signified was related to the concepts of restriction and obligation. Vestiges of this sense of jus survived in the meaning of justice and judge. …

Civil And Common Law: A Historical Analysis Of Colonial And Postcolonial Canada, Patrick S. Stroud

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Legal historians divide European law into two principal families: common law (British law) and civil law (continental European law). Common law judges favor cases; courts “discover” law on a case-by-case basis and those cases make precedents for future ruling. Civil law courts favor codes; courts compare cases to existing laws and those laws control judges’ rulings. The two rarely interact, save one prominent example: Canada. British common law supposedly superseded French legal traditions in colonial Canada. But is history so binary? Did British common law truly “conquer” French civil law? Through analysis of Canadian legal history, this article demonstrates how …

A Postcolonial Theory Of Spousal Rape: The Carribean And Beyond, Stacy-Ann Elvy

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Many postcolonial states in the Caribbean continue to struggle to comply with their international treaty obligations to protect women from sexual violence. Reports from various United Nations programs, including UNICEF, and the annual U.S. State Department Country Reports on Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia (“Commonwealth Countries”), indicate that sexual violence against women, including spousal abuse, is a significant problem in the Caribbean. Despite ratification of various international instruments intended to eliminate sexual violence against women, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Commonwealth Countries have retained the …

Past The Pillars Of Hercules: Francis Bacon And The Science Of Rulemaking, Daniel R. Coquillette

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The parallels between Bacon's career and that of Edward H. Cooper are, of course, obvious. Bacon was one of the great legal minds of his day. Unlike the common-law judges who formed the law by deciding cases, Bacon expressed his greatness in writing brilliant juristic treatises and, as Lord Chancellor, drafting one of the first modern rule systems, the Ordinances in Chancery (1617-1620). Indeed, my thesis is that Bacon invented modern, scientific rulemaking by fusing his new theories of inductive, empirical research with the traditions of equitable pleading and is, in fact, the intellectual forbearer of the likes of Charles …

The Historical Origins Of The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination At Common Law, John H. Langbein

Michigan Law Review

This essay explains that the true origins of the common law privilege are to be found not in the high politics of the English revolutions, but in the rise of adversary criminal procedure at the end of the eighteenth century. The privilege against self-incrimination at common law was the work of defense counsel.

Part I of this essay discusses the several attributes of early modem criminal procedure that combined, until the end of the eighteenth century, to prevent the development of the common law privilege. Part II explains how prior scholarship went astray in locating the common law privilege against …

"Take This Job And Shove It": The Rise Of Free Labor, Jonathan A. Bush

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Invention of Free Labor: The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture, 1350-1870 by Robert J. Steinfeld

From Blackstone To Bentham: Common Law Versus Legislation In Eighteenth-Century Britain, James Oldham

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Province of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory in Eighteenth Century Britain by David Lieberman

The Matrix Of The Common Law, George L. Haskins

Cleveland State Law Review

Great men have admonished us never to forget the continuing relevance of history in the Anglo-American legal system. We are cautioned to remember that the highly individualistic character of much of our law is explained by its Germanic rather than its Roman roots and, further, that the Anglo-American system has built upon countervailing concepts of relationships which are feudal in origin, and to which rights and duties attach without regard to the will of individuals, which is the underlying principle of classical Roman law. Thus, in our law, powers, rights, and duties stem from relationships such as principal-agent, vendor-purchaser, landlord-tenant …

Crime And The Courts In England 1660-1800, Frank C. Shaw

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800 by J.M. Beattie

Legal Theory And Common Law, Robert R. Morse Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Legal Theory and Common Law edited by William Twining

Criminal Justice In Colonial America, 1606-1660, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Criminal Justice in Colonial America, 1606-1660 by Bradley Chapin

Equity, Due Process And The Seventh Amendment: A Commentary On The Zenith Case, Patrick Devlin

Michigan Law Review

The seventh amendment to the United States Constitution requires that "[i]n Suits at common law . . . the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." What exactly is a suit at common law? When the amendment was enacted in 1791, there was no law that was common to all the states. In 1812 Supreme Court Justice Story, in a Circuit Court ruling, held that the common law alluded to was the common law of England, "the grand reservoir of all of our jurisprudence." This means that when today an American judge has to decide whether in any set …

The Pioneers And The Common Law, Roscoe Pound

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Doctrine Of Bad Faith In The Law Of Negotiable Instruments, George W. Rightmire

Michigan Law Review

This rule is now enacted in all but two of the states of the United States; the history of its development and of its application since it became undisputed is well illustrative of the process of the common law system, and this discussion is undertaken for the purpose of discovering the general principles which a trial court should have in mind when charging a jury in a case involving the application of this doctrine.

Forms Of Anglo Saxon Contracts And Their Sanctions, Robert L. Henry Jr

Michigan Law Review

Including (a) Warranty of Title, and (b) Warranty of Quality. Perhaps the most primitive commercial transaction affecting legal rights was the executed barter; in a more 'advanced state when money had been introduced, the executed sale.

Forms Of Anglo Saxon Contracts And Their Sanctions, Robert L. Henry Jr

Michigan Law Review

The several forms of contract will be taken up in the following order: I. the Surety Contract, including (a) the creditor's rights against the debtor, (b) the creditor's rights to sue the surety, and (c) the surety's right of reimbursement; 2. the Warranty Contracts, including (a) warranty of title, and (b) warranty of quality; 3. the Contract of Court Record; 4. the Coitract of Plighted Faith; 5. the Pledge Contract; 6. the' "Delivery-Promise"; 7. the Written Contract; and 8. the "Earnest" Contract.

The Attaint, John M. Zane

Michigan Law Review

The assize of novel disseisinoriginally lay against the disseisor in possession in favor of the disseisee, and was soon extended to the heir of -the disseisee, but not against the heir or grantee of the disseisor. But the disseisor might be dead or might have conveyed the land, and in such a case the disseisee would be driven to the writ of right with iis delays and chance of battle. But the cases where the defendant had come into possession under a lawful title which was limited in time and had ceased to exist, i.. e., cases where there was …

The Attaint, John M. Zane

Michigan Law Review

The practice of attainting a jury was the method by which for centuries the English law corrected an erroneous finding of fact by the body of men who, in course of time, came to be called a jury. Today this necessary corrective of judicial administration is very inadequately performed by the judge or judges presiding over the trial. The proceeding is now called a motion for a new trial. The new trial is inadequate for the reason that it does not, as did the attaint, substitute a correct verdict for the one given. It merely reverses or sets aside the …