Courts Commons^™

The Meaning Of Nationality In The Recent Immigration Acts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson's commentary on the quotas involved in the Immigration Act of 1921 and of 1924. "Until the more recent enactment the meaning of nationality was obscured in a curious ambiguity ... the Act of 1921 made nationality the basis of the quote plan....

"Whether nationality was used in the scientific sense, however, meaning the character created by allegiance to a recognized nation or state, or whether its significance was arbitrary, referring only to such groupings as might be arranged by census makers or other such administrative officials, remained to be determined by judicial construction."

Professor Dickinson then narrates how …

Constitutional Law-Jury Trial For Contempt-Constitutionality Of Clayton Act

Michigan Law Review

The defendants, striking employees of a railway company, were proceeded against in a federal district court for contempt in violating a preliminary injunction, and demanded a jury trial under the Clayton Act (c. 323, 38 STAT. 738, sec. 21, 22), which provides that in cases of wilful disobedience of "any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of any District court of the United States or any court of the District of Columbia by doing any act or thing" forbidden, if such act or thing also constitutes a criminal offense under any statute of the United States or law …

Legislation And Judicial Decision, Rudolf Stammler

Michigan Law Review

The discussions of the theme indicated by the title usually start from Montesquieu's theory of the three powers. This famous doctrine is developed in his work "De 1' esprit des lois" (1748) Bk. II, Ch. 6. This chapter is entitled "Of the English Constitution". It discusses however all states in general. In every state there are three sorts of powers, the legislative authority, the executive authority in matters dependent upon the law of nations, and the executive authority in everything dependent upon civil law. The last Montesquieu calls the judicial power, while the one mentioned in the second place is …

Permanent Court Of International Justice, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"The author of this volume of collected papers and addresses is well known as the Bemis Professor of International Law in Harvard Law School, sometime member of the Legal Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, and the most efficient advocate of the new Permanent Court of International Justice in America. His enterprise as an advocate is sufficiently attested by the fourteen brilliant papers reproduced in this volume and the nine other titles of similar nature listed in the bibliography, all of them produced during the last three years....

"The exceptional timeliness of the book and the quality …

International Political Questions In The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"Much has been made of the principle, in England and America, that international law is part of the national law to be applied by national courts in appropriate circumstances. As Mr. Justice Gray has expressed it, in the Paquete Habana: 'International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as question of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination...'

This principle is useful, where it is applicable, but it is subject to limitations which are sometimes inadequately appreciated ..."

Trial Practice--Duty Of The Court To Instruct The Jury In The Absence Of A Request For Instructions

Michigan Law Review

A series of cases recently decided in Georgia brings to mind the interesting question as to whether the court is bound to give instructions upon the law of the case in the absence of a specific request therefor. See Slocumb v. State, 157 Ga. 131; Fort v. State, 121 S. E. 128; Hatfield v. State, 121 S. E. 129; Walker v. State, 121 S. E. 130; Bul­lard v. State, 121 S. E. 130; Coney v. State, 121 S. E. 132, and Riggs v. State (1924) 121 S. E. 142. In none of these cases …

The New Soviet Codes And Soviet Justice, Pitirim Sorokin

Michigan Law Review

Up to 1922 it is scarcely possible to speak of any justice, law, court and trial in Soviet Russia if we want to use these terms in their usual meanings. The years 1918-21 were the years of terror. And what this term means is clear from the following statement of Latzis, one of the heads of "The Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counter-Revolution and Speculation" or the "Che-ka." "We do not carry on the war against the individuals: we are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in the inquest for any material and for any evidences …

Injunction Against Execution Of Criminal Judgment

Michigan Law Review

Sometime in 1921 or 1922 one Ullah Mohammed, an Afghan, unable to speak or understand English, was convicted of murder in the first degree in the Sonoma county court, of California. The evidence showed that he entered deceased's bed-room, fired a shot-gun at him, clubbed him over the head, and then cut his throat with a razor. An appeal was taken on the instructions as to self-defense and was summarily overruled. People v. Mohammed, 189 Cal. 429. Later a bill was filed in the superior court of San Francisco for an injunction to prevent Mohammed's execution. It was alleged …

Contracts With The United States, Grover C. Grismore

Michigan Law Review

It has been settled since a comparatively early day in the history of our government that "the United States being a body politic, may, within the sphere of the constitutional powers confided to it, and through the instrumentality of the proper department to which those powers are confided, enter into contracts not prohibited by law, and appropriate to the just exercise of those powers." While this proposition became established without much of a struggle, it has not been so freely admitted that such contracts are to be given the same construction and effect as the contracts of individuals. In Smoot's …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Constructive Contempt Of Court

Michigan Law Review

The recent case of Craig v. Hecht (1923) 44 Sup. Ct. Rep. 103, aroused an extraordinary amount of interest among laymen, and involved some legal questions of importance to lawyers; but perhaps its most significant result was the opportunity it afforded the legal profession to observe the popular attitude of hostility toward certain phases of judicial administration which lawyers are habitually inclined to overlook.

The Trial Brief, Edson R. Sunderland, Clifford W. Crandall

Book Chapters

From the chapter Introduction: "The object of the preceding chapters is to show the brief maker where to find the material for his brief, how to find it, and how to select out of the mass of material found that which will be suitable for his use.... The present purpose is to outline a course of investigation suitable to the preparation of a case for trial and to suggest methods of making the material collected during the search for authorities readily available." [p.417-418]

Coke-Parliamentary Sovereignty Or The Supremacy Of The Law?, R. A. Mackay

Michigan Law Review

Few legal authorities have received such conflicting interpretations as Sir Edward Coke. American jurists have turned to him as the legal father of judicial review, English jurists have found in him the authority for Parliamentary Supremacy, The cause of these conflicting interpretations is partly Coke's obscure style. Coke was an encyclopedist rather than a philosopher of the law: his ideas must be dug out and fused together from an heterogeneous mass of apparently unrelated statements. Even his Reports are legal and literary puzzles, a mixture of advocates' pleas, judicial decisions, and probably Sir Edward Coke's personal opinions as well. Hence …

The Permanent International Court Of Justice

Michigan Law Review

The writer has already commented, in an earlier number of this Review, upon the plan for a Permanent Court of International Justice which was formulated by a committee of jurists at The Hague in the summer of 1920 and amended and approved by the Council and Assembly of the League of Nations in December of the same year. 19 MICH. L. REV. 413. The plan became operative upon ratification by a majority of the members of the League in September, 1921, and judges were elected immediately thereafter. The Court's first session opened at The Hague in January, 1922. The present …

Cases On Procedure Annotated. Trial And Appellate Practice, Edson R. Sunderland

Books

“A dozen years ago the present editor published a case-book for law school use on Trial Practice. It was then a subject unknown in the law school curriculum. But in the years that have passed the teaching of trial practice has become a common feature in American legal education….

The editor’s earlier volume on Trial Practice has not been incorporated in the present book, but that subject has been entirely reorganized and rewritten. Legal Ethics in connection with trial work has been treated more adequately, new sections on the Verdict and Judgment have been added, certain topics, such as Instructing …

Constitutional Law--Due Process--Kansas Industrial Court

Michigan Law Review

Has the State power to regulate wages and to secure continuity of functioning in essential industries? The U. S. Supreme Court, in Wolff Packing Co. v. Court of Industrial Relations of Kansas, -- U. S. -- Adv. Op. June 11, 1923, says no, at least as to individuals or corporations, engaged in the production of food, but not strong enough to dominate or control the industry. The case involves the validity, under the Federal Constitution, of the Kansas Act establishing the Court of Industrial Relations, referred to hereinafter as the "Industrial Court." Special Session Laws of Kansas, 1920, Chap. …

International Recognition And The National Courts

Michigan Law Review

The extending of international recognition to a new government or a new state is a political function which belongs exclusively to the political departments of government. It follows that whenever the question of recognition or not is really involved in litigation the court should inform itself as to the course pursued by the appropriate political department and decide accordingly. This much, if it ever needed to be settled, may now be regarded as settled beyond peradventure. See 18 MICH. L. REV. 531.

Constitutional Law--Executive Pardons In The Courts

Michigan Law Review

An interesting conflict between American political theories and early English precedents arose in a recent case involving the jurisdiction of a court of equity to set aside a pardon procured through fraud and deception upon the pardoning power. At the common law any suppression of the truth or suggestion of falsehood in procuring a pardon was held to vitiate it. HAWKINS, B. 2, ch. 37, § 8; 4 BLACK. COMM. 398, 400. The statute of 27 EDW. III, c. 2, provided that where a pardon was granted at any man's suggestion, the fact of such suggestion and the name of …

Legislation In Vague Or General Terms, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

FOR some reason, probably in part the increasing complexity of our life and relationships, but more largely, perhaps, the growing tendency to regulate everybody and everything by positive law, the courts have been called upon with increasing frequency to pass upon the effectiveness of statutes and ordinances phrased in indefinite terms. In a very interesting and valuable paper, Professor Freund has pointed out the weakness and strength, on the one hand, of legislation in general terms, and on the other hand, legislation in which the rule of conduct is attempted to be laid down with precision. His interest apparently lay …

Perpetuity Statutes, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

THE common law of perpetuities is one of the most interesting examples of almost pure judicial legislation. De Donis, The Statutes of Uses and of Wills, but gave wider scope to the development by the courts of rules of law to thwart the attempt of the great landowners to tie up their landed estates in their families in perpetuity. One body of rules to this end limited restraints upon alienation, another the creation of future interests vesting at too remote a period. Restriction of restraints upon alienation, and the rule against perpetuities, these two were developed for the same end, …

Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law (Part 2), Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

PROBABLY no one in the British Empire or the United States would question the doctrine that it belongs exclusively to the political departments to recognize new governments or states. The difficulties involved are those which arise in the application of a doctrine so broadly stated. Not every situation involving an unrecognized government or state requires the decision of a question of recognition. If the decision of a political question is not involved, then it is entirely proper for the courts to take cognizance of a mere de facto government or state. In what situations may the courts appropriately take account …

Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law (Part 1), Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

From the decision of this novel case, reported as Pelzer v. United Dredging Co., we may infer that the New York courts regard unrecognized Mexico as a sort of legal vacuum. In granting the corporation's motion for judgment on the pleadings, the Supreme Court said: "The administratrix plaintiff is an officer of a foreign court. It is syllogistically true that if the foreign court has no recognized power here she may not assert a right derived through her appointment therefrom. The Mexican government is not de facto here, since recognition alone can make it so. It may have all the …

Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

It has been so often remarked that the "valuation" of public utilities is determined by no rule of thumb, that there are no fixed rules or formulas to guide courts or commissions, that determination of value as a rate base is matter of judgment and discretion in each case, Minnesota Rate Cares, 230 U. S. 352, 434, that the statement has come to be believed by reason in part of its much repetition. It is usually accepted as axiomatic. The glorious uncertainty resulting from such an admission will continue so long as judgments of one man or set of men …

International Recognition And The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

The extending of international recognition to a new government or a new state is a political function which belongs exclusively to the political departments of government. It follows that whenever the question of recognition or not is really involved in litigation the court should inform itself, as to the course pursued by the appropriate political department and decide accordingly. This much, if it ever needed to be settled, may now be regarded as settled beyond peradventure.

Challenges To The Array, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

Trial by jury demands impartial jurors as the indispensable basis for public confidence. And the first requisite for obtaining impartiality is indifference on the part of those who select the jury. This was fully recognized at the common law, and ever since the days when jurors ceased to be witnesses and became triers of facts, it was a good objection to the entire panel that the sheriff was not indifferent between the parties in the selection and summoning of the jury. Prejudice on the part of individual jurors could be met by challenges to the polls, but when favor lurked …

Divorce Problems In The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

Articles

Divorce may be considered as the termination of the legal relationship between husband and wife by an act of the law. With the purely local aspect of legal questions regarding divorce, Conflict of Laws is not concerned. If a husband and wife are married and have their home in one state, legal questions concerning their divorce are local matters only. These will include the grounds for divorce, the particular court in which the action is brought, the procedure to be followed from commencement to termination of the action. In such a case it is only when some question concerning the …

Supreme Court Reports

Michigan Law Review

The Review has been asked by the Court Reporter to publish the following statement:

Social And Economic Interpretation Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Robert Eugene Cushman

Michigan Law Review

For those who love precision and definiteness the question of the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to social and economic problems remains an irritating enigma. The judicial construction of due process of law and the equal protection of the law has from the first discouraged systematic analysis and defied synthesis. More than one writer has emerged from the study of the problem with a neat and compact set of fundamental principles, only to have the Supreme Court discourteously ignore them in its next case. But paradoxical as it may seem, those who long for a wise and forward-looking solution of …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Admiralty - Workmen's Compensation - Is a Hydroplane a Vessel? - Claimant was employed in the care and management of a hydroplane which was moored in navigable waters. The hydroplane began to drag anchor and drift toward the beach, where it was in danger of being wrecked. Claimant waded into the water and was struck by the propeller. Held, claimant is not entitled to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Law, since a hydroplane while on navigable waters is a vessel, and therefore the jurisdiction of the admiralty excludes that of the State Industrial Commission. Reinhardt v. Newport Flying Service Corp. …

Indemnity Act Of 1863 A Study In The War-Time Immunity Of Governmental Officers, James G. Randall

Michigan Law Review

One of the familiar measures of the Union administration during the Civil War was the suspension of the habeas corpus privilege and the consequent subjection of civilians to military authority. The essential irregularity of such a situation in American law is especially conspicuous when one considers its inevitable sequel-namely, the protection of military and civil officers from such prosecution as would normally follow invasion of private rights and actual injury of persons and property. Such protection was supplied by a bill of indemnity passed in 1863, and this law, with its amendment of i866, forms a significant chapter in the …