Law and Society Commons^™

Book Review, John B. Marshall

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Neither author devotes major attention to the vast array of practical problems that beset the developing world and impair all efforts for progress. This was not their purpose. Neither book attempts to catalog the problems or discuss proposed solutions, other than economic regionalism. Taking a broader view than these books and their treatment of economic regionalism, one finds that the problems of material circumstances and human condition appear to be more extensive and more powerful than regionalism can solve. The variety and seriousness of the problems faced by the developing countries explain the lack of success of regionalism and discourage …

Book Review, Igor I. Kavass

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Documentation Office for East European Law at the University of Leyden in the Netherlands is one of the most prominent and active research institutions in the West dedicated to the study of the laws and legal systems of socialist countries. Established in 1953 for the purpose of gathering and interpreting information about legal developments in the socialist countries, the Documentation Office is reputed to have now one of the most comprehensive collections of rare and generally inaccessible documents in its area of specialization. This collection attracts researchers from around the world. The staff of the Documentation Office is widely …

The Political Economy Of Co-Financing America's Urban Renaissance, Robin P. Malloy

Vanderbilt Law Review

America's urban centers are experiencing a renaissance of sorts that reflects the vitality of a renewed interest in the city.Dynamic growth and revitalization of the central city have emerged since the 1970s as key focal points for investment and development, replacing years of investing primarily in suburbanization. The emerging activity in America's urban down towns has been more than an isolated or segmented investment in office buildings. With strong political support and the emergence of an affluent group of new urbanites, some central cities are said to be transforming into entirely new urban environments where people not only work, but …

Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

West's Law & Commercial Dictionary in Five Languages

West Publishing Company, 1985. Pp. xvi, 885, 899.

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Flags of Convenience

By B.N. Metaxes

Aldershot, England and Brookfield, Vermont

Gower Publishing Company, 1985. Pp.x, 107.

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External Debt Management

Edited by Hassanali Mehran

Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1985. Pp. v, 322.

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Adjustment, Conditionality, and International Financing

Edited by Joaquin Muns

Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1984. Pp. xi, 214.

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Non-Appearance Before the International Court of Justice

By H.W.A. Thirlway

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Pp. v, 184.

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William Sheppard, Cromwell's Law Reformer

By Nancy L. Matthews

London: …

Defending Miranda: A Reply To Professor Caplan, Welsh S. White

Vanderbilt Law Review

Professor Caplan yearns for the good old days "when the police enjoyed greater public confidence" and, in accordance with the tactics recommended in the police manuals, it was acceptable "for an investigator to talk sharply to the suspect or glare at him or sit too closely or withhold cigarettes, or, from the opposite vantage, to pretend to be a sympathetic friend or a concerned coreligionist."'Thus, Professor Caplan attacks the Miranda decision on the ground that "by introducing novel conceptions of the proper relationship between the suspect and authority," Miranda operates to subvert the principal function of the criminal process, the …

United States Research Of The Law Of The Communist-Ruled States Of Europe, Ivan Sipkov

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The legal system of the Soviet Union, developed after the 1917 October Revolution, was introduced, with some variations, in several European, Asian, and Latin American states during the last years of World War II. These states have been characterized, both officially and unofficially, as "Soviet-type republics," "People's republics," "Socialist republics," and "Communist states." Their legal systems, although patterned after the Soviet Union legal system, developed in different directions. Today, the various legal systems of these republics are clearly distinguishable; however, one common feature is present: the states are ruled by one Communist party to the exclusion of other parties.

How Serious Is Serious Crime?, Albert J. Reiss, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article examines the information systems that are available to the American public. Part H of the Article discusses crime information sources and limitations arising from their excessive dependence upon the same sources of information. Parts III and IV of the Article focus on the information and methods that American society depends upon to determine the amount and seriousness of"serious" crime. These parts of the Article criticize society's present modes of crime assessment by evaluating public perceptions of crime under several standards for determining the amount of harm that results from different criminal acts. In part V, the Article examines …

Deterrence, Death, And The Victims Of Crime: A Common Sense Approach, Frank G. Carrington

Vanderbilt Law Review

The concept of deterrence is one of the most important in the formulations of the victim advocate, primarily because of two essential premises that underlie the entire field of victim advocacy.The first, but not necessarily the most important, of these premises concerns the policy that favors assuaging the plight of persons after they have been victimized. This relief can be provided in a number of different ways: compensation to innocent victims from the states; restitution to victims as a condition of granting probation to the criminal; victim counselling; and victim/witness assistance programs.' The second premise of victim advocacy, namely,preventing victimization …

The Decline Of The Rehabilitative Ideal: Penal Policy And Social Idea, Louis A. Jacobs

Vanderbilt Law Review

In his most recent contribution Professor Francis Allen suggests that the rehabilitative ideal can flourish only in a particular kind of society. He observes that today's American society lacks the nourishing characteristics that once fed that ideal; consequently, the ideal has withered. This argument is concisely and precisely constructed in The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal, a book derived from the 1979 Starrs Lectures on Jurisprudence at Yale Law School. Rather than describe the extent of the decline, Professor Allen focuses on the nexus raised in the book's subtitle--penal policy and social purpose. As social purpose evolved (perhaps "devolved"is more …

Youth Crime And Urban Policy: A View From The Inner City, Diana R. Gordon

Vanderbilt Law Review

One does not expect to be mesmerized by a book entitled Youth Crime and Urban Policy: A View from the Inner City. Yet this volume, compiled from the proceedings of a May 1980 conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) proves to be a powerful testament to the plight of the dweller in America's crime-plagued inner-city neighborhoods. Because Robert Woodson has edited the comments of the conference's participants with a light hand, the book gives the reader the power of voices from the street-voices of people who are trying daily to stem the tide of …

Witness For The Defense: A Right To Immunity, Robin D. Mass

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note has outlined various constitutional arguments that the criminal defendant can invoke in support of an application for witness immunity.First, the Note relies on the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Nixon for its argument that courts should use a flexible separation of powers approach in the context of witness immunity grants. While the Nixon Court accepted the notion that separation of powers protects the decision making authority of the individual branches of government from infringement by the other branches, it observed that the doctrine does not enforce an absolute executive privilege. Thus, the separation of powers doctrine …

Point, Counterpoint: The Evolution Of American Political Philosophy, William H. Rehnquist

Vanderbilt Law Review

I would suggest to you that during the more than two centuries that have elapsed since the American Revolution, American political philosophy has been notable principally for the contrapuntal themes that rise and fall as the nation matures. Numerous commentators have pointed out that certain ideals have long been widely shared by Americans: individual autonomy, liberty, equality, and a belief in limited, decentralized government.1 But no one would be so bold as to describe the present government of the United States as embodying those ideals. We have a strong national government that, with occasional lapses, impinges more and more on …

Categories And The First Amendment: A Play In Three Acts, Frederick Schauer

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the foregoing pages I have attempted to flesh out three different aspects of what has been broadly called "categorization."Implicit in this project is the premise that it is often quite revealing to search for important differences in the face of superficial similarity. Very often, however, when we search for differences we may discover additional points of similarity that are not at first apparent. This seems to be the case here, in that one recurrent feature is what one might inelegantly call "learnability." The concept of learnability is comprehensible only in the con-text of a separation of roles.' Thus, if …

The Interface Of Myth And Practice In Law, Frederick Schauer

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article has analyzed and critiqued the myth of law as rules and contrasted it with a view of law as a process of responsible decision making. The operational code of this process requires that the lawyer recognize his role as decision maker and the necessary ramifications of personal choice and responsibility inherent in that role. Yet the individual who resists embracing the code, and who seeks instead the holy grail, may only be clamoring for fulfillment of the myth system. If his commitment to the significance of the myth does not impede his education as decision maker or his …

Book Reviews, W. Paul Gormley, John E. Semonche

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Book Reviews

CHEMICAL WEAPONS: DESTRUCTION AND CONVERSION

Published for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

London: Taylor and Francis, 1980. Pp. 201.

Reviewed by W. Paul Gormley

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THE DEFINITION OF LAW

Hermann Kantorowicz

Edited by A.H.Campbell, with an introduction by A.L. Goodhart

New York: Octagon Books, 1980. Notes and bibliography. Pp. 113.

Reviewed by John E. Semonche

Recent Publications, Paul Heng-Chao Chen, Paul Hoffman, Gilbert Sharpe, Glenn Sawyer, Leon Friedman, Catharine A. Mackinnon, Edward Dumbauld

Vanderbilt Law Review

Chinese Legal Tradition Under the Mongols: The Code of 1291 as Reconstructed. By Paul Heng-chao Ch'en

The author's analysis of the "New Code" leads him to two conclusions: that the Yuan penal system was more lenient than its predecessors in imposing lesser punishments for minor offenses, and that the Mongol-Chinese partnership of the Yuan dynasty developed one of the most impressive and mature judicial systems that imperial China ever had for the administration of justice. He therefore argues that Chinese law in the time of Marco Polo was much less barbaric than has traditionally been thought.

Courthouse. By Paul Hoffman. …

Regulation Of Programming Content To Protect Children After Pacifica, Dabney E. Bragg

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note examines the "protect the children" rationale as justification for the regulation of program content to determine if it is likely to withstand future challenges. Initially, the Note reviews the Pacifica decisions to illustrate how the rationale recently has been employed. The Note then considers this rationale in light of traditional first amendment analysis and the interface of that analysis with the rights of children, concluding that the rationale does not justify abridgment of the first amendment. The Note then considers the effect of broadcasting's "unique characteristics" upon this analysis, concluding that this added element does not tip the …

Justice On The Tennessee Frontier: The Williamson County Circuit Court 1810-1820, Cornelia A. Clark

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note examines the history of one early nineteenth-century circuit court and the caliber of its bench and bar. To analyze the workings of that court, this Note applies the analytical framework adopted by Friedman, Blume, and other historians to the raw data provided by a study of the Williamson County Circuit Court records. In each of several substantive areas for which the court's records provide information, the Note first considers Friedman's generalizations about nineteenth-century law and then interprets the Williamson County data in the light of those generalizations and the results of other case studies. This Note proceeds on …

Race, Property Rights, And The Economic Consequences Of Reconstruction: A Case Study, Robert J. Haws, Michael V. Namorato

Vanderbilt Law Review

In assessing the problems of race and debtor relief in Mississippi during Reconstruction, it is clear that, on the local level, the Lafayette County court system, as represented by the Lafayette county court, effectively carried out an institutional framework established by the Mississippi legislature and the Mississippi Supreme Court in which the freedman was denied any meaningful role and/or opportunity in the economic environment of the community.In doing so, the county court system, by allegedly protecting the rights of private property, helped stifle the economic recovery of Lafayette County and, inferentially, the State as a whole. Moreover, by quickly acting …

Comment: Law And Disorder In Nineteenth-Century Kentucky, Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau

Vanderbilt Law Review

Robert M. Ireland's Article, "Law and Disorder in Nineteenth-Century Kentucky," centers on the state constitutional conventions of 1849 and 1890-1891, spiced with newspaper accounts, statutes,court cases, and legislative records. He has said that his Article presents a preliminary overview of some of the principal problems of the criminal justice system of nineteenth-century Kentucky. I hope this means he intends to continue his study so that soon we can expect a full examination of the criminal justice system in that state. I also hope that other scholars then will be inspired by his example to examine other contemporary state criminal justice …

Book Reviews, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Book Reviews

MERCHANTS OF GRAIN Dan Morgan New York: The Viking Press,1979. Pp. xiv, 387. $14.95.

Reviewed by Leo V. Mayer

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THE DISCIPLINE OF LAW Lord Denning London: Butterworths, 1979. Pp. xxii, 331.

Reviewed by P. F. Ashman

Essays On Problems And Prospects In Southern Legal History, Kermit L. Hall

Vanderbilt Law Review

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., once urged historians to study the law because it offered a magic mirror whose reflections divulged fundamental social values.' Holmes' plea on behalf of the utility of legal history has relevance for southerners intrigued by the possibility of their historical distinctiveness. Without a basis of comparison, however, the search for southern exceptionality becomes a quest after the arcane. As C. Vann Woodward observed,southern history ought to tell all Americans, not southerners alone,something about their common pasts. Woodward argued that attaining this goal was entirely feasible, since certain aspects of the southern past, such as slavery …

Comment: Southern Violence-Regional Problem Or National Nemesis?: Legal Attitudes Toward Southern Homicide In Historical Perspective, Dennis R. Nolan

Vanderbilt Law Review

The preceding pages should indicate that Southern Violence is a disappointment to those of us whose expectations had been raised by Professor Brown's earlier works and to those who are interested in his stated topic. It is a thoroughly unfocused, loose collection of facts and incidents that will interest only those with a curiosity about Alabama's Chief Justice Stone or the Texas law of self-defense. The paper does contain several seeds of thought that might,if given adequate attention, grow into testable hypotheses. Those hypotheses will be hard to evaluate, but they are of immense importance because they concern the fundamental …

Comment: Race, Property Rights, And The Economic Consequences Of Reconstruction, Robert B. Jones

Vanderbilt Law Review

Professors Haws and Namorato are to be praised for their pioneer work in studying the operation of a county court system in the Reconstruction era. They break new historical ground in this effort that has the potential for greatly contributing to the study of the legal history of the South. More scholars must engage in this endeavor if the field of legal history is to reach its full maturity. While their efforts are to be complimented it must be pointed out, however, that they generally fail to make their case in this Article. They do not show a significant link …

Recent Publications, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Bar Admission Rules and Student Practice Rules

Edited by Fannie J. Klein with contributions by Ms. Klein, Steven H. Leleiko, and Jane H. Mavity

In this single volume, the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility provides the first comprehensive collection of state and federal bar admission and law student practice rules. - - - - - - - - -

Desegregation from Brown to Alexander: An Exploration of Supreme Court Strategies

By Stephen Wasby, Anthony D'Amato,and Rosemary Metrailer.

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (Brown I) held that "separate" education for blacks …

Corporal Punishment In Public Schools: Constitutional Challenge After Ingraham V. Wright, Charles L. Schlumberger

Vanderbilt Law Review

Corporal punishment has been employed to maintain discipline and order in American schools since the colonial period.' During that era, the practice was not restricted to the classroom: corporal punishment was the generally accepted mode of correction for practically every civil and criminal offense. Attitudes toward correction did not begin to change until after the American Revolution. Since then, corporal punishment has been steadily discarded as a method of correction in both prisons and the military. Despite discontinuance in these areas, corporal punishment remains a well-established facet of the American educational process. Only a few states and municipalities have legislative …

The Inheritance Of Economic Status - By John A. Brittain, Michael R. Olneck

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Inheritance of Economic Status - by John A. Brittain

In the- mid-1960's and in the early 1970's, research results appeared that challenged conventional liberal beliefs about the causes and consequences of poverty. In 1966 the federal government published Equality of Educational Opportunity, a report prepared by James Coleman and his associates.' The data used in the report contained the startling result that, with some exceptions, within regions, the provision of educational resources was substantially uniform across racial and socioeconomic groups. Moreover, the data showed that what measurable differences existed between the schools attended by disadvantaged and advantaged students did …

Book Review, Igor I. Kavass

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The limited use of American case law in the Commonwealth countries should not be surprising. With the exception of English cases, the decisions of other Commonwealth countries receive the same indifferent treatment in all Commonwealth jurisdictions; the English courts studiously ignore the decisions of other Commonwealth countries. For that matter, American courts do not consult the case law of English and other Commonwealth countries all too frequently. Espinoza v. Farah Manufacturing Co. is a recent example in point. In that case, the Supreme Court was asked to interpret the meaning of the terms "nationality" and "national origin" as used. in …

Crisis In The Courts: Proposals For Change, Griffin B. Bell

Vanderbilt Law Review

The popular conception of the crisis in the courts focuses upon the condition of the courts and particularly upon the increasing volume of disputes that are presented for resolution. For example,Judge Ruggero J. Aldisert of the Third Circuit, one of the busiest federal circuits, has observed: "The reality is that today there is a mad rush to the Federal courts." The available statistics reflect Judge Aldisert's observation. For instance, according to the most recent report of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, record numbers of cases have been filed in the circuit and district courts during the past …

240 Men: The Antebellum Lower Federal Judiciary, 1829-1861, Kermit L. Hall

Vanderbilt Law Review

Between 1829 and 1861 antebellum presidents nominated 200 judges to the federal lower courts. Earlier administrations had appointed another forty jurists who held their positions during part or all of the era. Of these judges, 108 served in the federal district courts, 126 in the territorial courts, five in the Court of Claims, and one in a special circuit court established in 1855 for the northern district of California. The number of appointments available to an administration involved fate and the pace of territorial expansion;thus, during the first eight years of the period, Jackson nominated thirty-two judges, while in the …