Legal History Commons^™

Law On The Installment Plan, Bruce W. Frier

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Ulpian by Tony Honoré

The Jury, Seditious Libel And The Criminal Law, Thomas A. Green

Book Chapters

The seditious libel trials of the eighteenth century constitute an important chapter in the history of freedom of the press and the growth of democratic government. While much has been written about the trials and about the administration of the criminal law in eighteenth-century England, little has been said about the relationship between the libel prosecutions and the more pervasive and long-standing problems of the criminal law. We have perhaps gone too far in positing-or simply assuming-a separation between political high misdemeanors and common-run felony cases such as homicide and theft. For there were points of contact between the two: …

The Federal Coconspirator Exception: Action, Assertion, And Hearsay, Christopher B. Mueller

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Medieval English County Court, Stephen D. White

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The County Courts of Medieval England, 1150-1350 by Robert C. Palmer

A Comparative Perspective On Legal Evolution, Revolution, And Devolution, Laura Nader

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Courts--A Comparative and Political Analysis by Martin Shapiro, and Lawsuits and Litigants in Castile, 1500-1700 by Richard L. Kagan

Roman Law Influence On The Civil Law, Charles Donahue Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Making of the Civil Law by Alan Watson

The Feudal Framework Of English Law, Robert C. Palmer

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Legal Framework of English Feudalism by S.F.C, Milsom

Social Research And The Use Of Medieval Criminal Records, Edward Powell

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England by James Buchanan Given, and Crime and Conflict in English Communities, 1300-1348 by Barbara A. Hanawalt

Canadian Merger Policy And Its International Implications, Eric K. Gressman

Michigan Journal of International Law

The implications of Canadian merger policy are of deep concern to U.S. and other foreign investors who have invested or are considering investing in Canada. U.S. interests own 60 percent of Canada's manufacturing industry. In 1978, approximately 250 mergers in Canada involved a foreign-owned or foreign-controlled buyer (usually U.S.). Therefore, it is not surprising that Canada's merger policy is no less important to the decisions of foreign investors in Canada than the Justice Department's policies are to domestic investors in the United States. At the same time, the Canadian government and public are concerned with their merger policy as a …

Incapacitating The Habitual Criminal: The English Experience, Sir Leon Radzinowicz, Roger Hood

Michigan Law Review

In this Article, Sir Leon Radzinowicz and .Dr. Roger Hood trace 150 years of unsuccessful English efforts to identify, sentence, and reform habitual criminal offenders. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Rummel v. Estelle has publicized habitual offender statutes in the United States. But Rummel primarily addressed the constitutionality, rather than the desirability, of a state habitual offender statute. This Article examines the broader policy questions common to habitual offender programs in both the United Stales and Great Britain. It describes the tension between liberal tradition and the state's desire to incapacitate those who repeatedly threaten life or property.

Review Of Wiltshire Gaol Delivery And Trailbaston Trials, 1275-1306, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

Ralph B. Pugh's handsome edition of Wiltshire gaol delivery and trailbaston trial rolls for the reign of Edward I provides a valuable resource for scholars of medieval crime and criminal law. The period covered bridges the era of the infrequent general eyres and that of the frequent circuits to try those being held on criminal charges. This transition period saw the development of various institutions and procedures designed to deal with a decline in social stability and an increase in criminal activity. To date, most scholarship has focused either on the workings of the mid-thirteenth- century eyre or on the …

What Causes Fundamental Legal Ideas? Marital Property In England And France In The Thirteenth Century, Charles Donahue Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Categorizing broadly, the marital property systems of the Western nations today are divided into two types: those in which husband and wife own all property separately except those items that they have expressly agreed to hold jointly (in a nontechnical sense) and those in which husband and wife own a substantial portion or even all of their property jointly unless they have expressly agreed to hold it separately. The system of separate property is the "common law" system, in force in most jurisdictions where the Anglo-American common law is in force. The system of joint property is the community property …

The Greek Concept Of Justice, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Greek Concept of Justice by Eric A. Havelock

The Cardinal's Court: The Impact Of Thomas Wolsey In Star Chamber, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Cardinal's Court: The Impact of Thomas Wolsey in Star Chamber by John A. Guy

New Developments In Law In The People's Republic Of China, Stanley B. Lubman

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Recently, Chinese leaders have begun to promote the development of legal standards andformal legal institutions for China. In this article, Mr. Lubman explores the background and current status of the role of law in China and assesses its relationship to China's economic development, domestic politics, and international economic relations. Mr. Lubman suggests that students of Chinese law must create new theoreticalperspectives to study the new developments.

China's Changing Constitution , Jerome Alan Cohen

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

In 1978, the People's Republic of China promulgated its third constitution since the communist revolution. In many respects, the new constitution reflects the attitudes andpolicies of Peking's current leadershp. In this article, Professor Cohen analyzes the changes wrought by the new constitution in property relations, restraints on executive power, and the protection of individual liberties by comparing it with its predecessors.

Review Of Society And Homicide In Thirteenth-Century England, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

JAMES GIVEN has produced the first systematic book-length treatment of the sociology of medieval English crime. His work does not pretend to be comprehensive: it deals only with homicide. Nor does it cover more than a century, the thirteenth; the author has wisely left the earlier system of criminal law, based on private compensation, to other scholars, and he says just enough about late thirteenth- and early fourteenth- century social and legal change to suggest he believes that that period, too, must await its own interpretation. Still, the social history of homicide in the thirteenth century proves itself fascinating terrain, …

Introduction To Blackstone Volume Iv, Thomas A. Green

Other Publications

The final volume of Blackstone's Commentaries sets forth a·lucid survey of crime and criminal procedure informed by those propositions concerning English law and the relations between man and state that characterize the entire work. Perhaps no area of the law so tested Blackstone's settled and complacent views as did the criminal law, particularly the large and growing body of statutory capital crimes. In the end, Blackstone failed to demonstrate that English criminal law reflected a coherent set of principles, but his intricate and often internally contradictory attempt nevertheless constitutes a classic description of that law, and can still be read …

A Critique Of Two Arguments Against The Exclusionary Rule: The Historical Error And The Comparative Myth, Donald E. Wilkes, Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mixed Courts Of Egypt: A Study Of The Use Of Natural Law And Equity, Gabriel M. Wilner

Scholarly Works

The system of Mixed Courts in Egypt was an unusual institution. It represented an international solution in the context of what was obviously a colonial situation. The system lasted 74 years from 1876 to 1949. A system of law was established whose sources were general codes created especially for use by the Mixed Courts. The Charter of the Mixed Courts specified two residual sources of law. It is these sources and their application upon which this paper is principally focused. Article 34 reads: "The new Courts, in the exercise of their jurisdiction in civil and commercial matters, and within the …

Emptio, "Taking", Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

According to Festus, "Emere, quod nunc est mer cari, antiqui acdpiebant pro sumere" and modern philologists do accept some such meaning as the original in Latin.)

The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae) however, thinks there is no certain example of this sense of emere and considers the instances adduced by Skutsch) to be scarcely convincing. I should like to produce for consideration a different instance drawn from the derivative emptio or emptor. The instance in question may not take us as far back as emere = sumere but will at least to emere = accipere.

Emptio, "Taking", Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

According to Festus, "Emere, quod nunc est mer cari, antiqui acdpiebant pro sumere" and modern philologists do accept some such meaning as the original in Latin. The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae however, thinks there is no certain example of this sense of emere and considers the instances adduced by Skutsch to be scarcely convincing. I should like to produce for consideration a different instance drawn from the derivative emptio or emptor. The instance in question may not take us as far back as emere = sumere but will at least to emere = accipere. Roman legal tradition tells us that the …

Notes Toward A History Of American Justice, Lawrence M. Friedman

Buffalo Law Review

Adapted from the Mitchell lecture delivered by the author at the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law on October 17, 1973

The Rescripts Of The Emperor Probus (276-282 A.D.), Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

In an earlier study, I examined the private law in the rescripts of Carus and his two sons, the Emperors who ruled from 282 to 284, immediately before the accession of Diocletian, and found as the main conclusion that, despite everything, the quality of legal decision had remained reasonably high. This paper considers the four rescripts that survive from the troubled reign of the preceding Emperor, Probus. None contains a great legal innovation; none shows a drastic lowering of legal standards. Their importance lies in what they reveal about general matters. Despite the enormous military and economic problems of the …

Jeremy Bentham's Codification Proposals And Some Remarks On Their Place In History, Terry Difilippo

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Bentham's Philosophy Of Law On The Early Nineteenth Century Codification Movement In The United States, George M. Hezel

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Towards A Subjective Theory Of Law: Some Legal Implications Of Existentialism, Barry Bassis

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Societal Concepts Of Criminal Liability For Homicide In Medieval England, Thomas A. Green

Articles

THE early history of English criminal law lies hidden behind the laconic formulas of the rolls and law books. The rules of the law, as expounded by the judges, have been the subject of many studies; but their practical application in the courts, where the jury of the community was the final and unbridled arbiter, remains a mystery: in short, we know little of the social mores regarding crime and crimi- nals. This study represents an attempt to delineate one major aspect of these societal attitudes. Its thesis is that from late Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the middle …

Review Of The King's Pardon For Homicide To A.D. 1307, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

NAOMI D. Hurnard's The King's Pardon for Homicide before AD 1307 is significant and instructive for both legal and social historians. The author has painstakingly pieced together the available evidence from a variety of classes of mediaeval English public records to achieve a clear statement of the law of excusable homicide, i.e., non-felonious but requiring a royal pardon. She has lucidly presented the procedure which marks out the legal life story of persons deserving pardon, from the pardonable slaying to the formal proclamation of the king's peace. But she has also accomplished much more. Through careful and generally sound use …

An Unprincipled Decision On A Will, Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

In this article Professor Alan Watson reviews the decision of Alfenus from Ancient Rome (D.28.5.45 Alfenus 5 dig).