Legal History Commons^™

Essay: The Romance Of Nuremberg And The Tease Of Moral Justice, Thane Rosenbaum

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Justice Story Cuts The Gordian Knot Of Hung Jury Instructions, George C. Thomas Iii, Mark Greenbaum

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

Constitutional law grows more complex over time. The complexity is due, in large part, to the rule of stare decisis. When faced with precedents that it does not wish to follow, the Court usually distinguishes the case before it. Thus, the constitutional landscape is littered with cases that do not fit well together. Navigating past these shoals is often difficult for courts following the Supreme Court’s lead. One example is the law governing instructions that a trial judge can give a deadlocked jury in a criminal case. The right to a jury trial entails the right to have the jury …

Dostoyevsky And The Therapeutic Jurisprudence Confession, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 41 (2006), Amy D. Ronner

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Second Chance For Justice: Reevaluation Of The United States Double Jeopardy Standard, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 371 (2006), Andrea Koklys

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Limiting The Presidency To Natural Born Citizens Violates Due Process, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1343 (2006), Paul A. Clark

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Story Of Crawford, Richard D. Friedman

Book Chapters

Michael Crawford had been charged with assault. At his trial, the prosecution offered a statement made in the police station on the night of the incident by Crawford's wife Sylvia, who did not testify at trial. He objected, in part on the ground that this violated his right under the Confrontation Clause. The trial court nevertheless admitted the statement, and Crawford was convicted. The Washington Supreme Court ultimately affirmed the judgment. In rejecting the Confrontation Clause challenge, that court purported to apply the then governing doctrine of Ohio v. Roberts, under which the Clause posed no obstacle to admissibility if …

Intimate Homicide: Gender And Crime Control, 1880-1920, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

The received wisdom, among feminists and others, is that historically the criminal justice system tolerated male violence against women. This article dramatically revises feminist understanding of the legal history of public responses to intimate homicide by showing that, in both the eastern and the western United States, men accused of killing their intimates often received stern punishment, including the death penalty, whereas women charged with similar crimes were treated leniently. Although no formal "battered woman's defense" existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, courts and juries implicitly recognized one--and even extended it to abandoned women who killed their unfaithful …

Taking The Stand: The Lessons Of The Three Men Who Took The Japanese American Internment To Court, Lorraine K. Bannai

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Who Are The Good Guys? The Legacy Of Watergate And The Tangled Webs We Weave, Jeffrey A. Breinholt

ExpressO

This article examines the astounding revelation that Deep Throat, the anonymous source that brought down the Nixon Presidency, was Mark Felt, the man who ran the FBI during the Watergate Scandal. Was Mark Felt a hero or a villain? Thanks to the recent publication of Bob Woodward’s The Secret Man in combination with historical case law, we now have more historical evidence about what motivated Felt and how he reacted to his own legal misfortunes. This article examines this record and shows that categorizing Felt along the hero/villain continuum is not an easy task, but argues that this type of …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

The Medieval Blood Sanction And The Divine Beneficence Of Pain: 1100 - 1450, Trisha Olson

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Police And Democracy, David Alan Sklansky

Michigan Law Review

Part I of the Article describes the emergence in postwar America of a particular understanding of a democracy, an understanding generally referred to as "democratic pluralism," "analytic pluralism," "pluralist theory," or simply "pluralism." We will spend a fair bit of time unpacking pluralism, because its fine points will prove important when we turn to the task of tracing its reflections in criminal procedure. That task is taken up in Part II, which examines the ways in which the central tenets of democratic pluralism found echoes in criminal procedure - construed broadly to include not only jurisprudence and legal scholarship but …

Cleaning Up The Eighth Amendment Mess, Tom Stacy

ExpressO

This article criticizes the Court’s interpretation of the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause and proposes its own understanding. The Court’s jurisprudence is plagued by deep inconsistencies concerning the text, the Court’s own role, and a constitutional requirement of proportionate punishment.

In search of ways to redress these fundamental shortcomings, the article explores three alternative interpretations: 1) A textualist approach; 2) Justice Scalia’s understanding that the Clause forbids only punishments unacceptable for all offenses; and 3) a majoritarian approach that would consistently define cruel and unusual punishment in terms of legislative judgments and penal custom. As evidenced by the …

Book Review: Forensic Linguistics, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

Review of John Gibbons' text "Forensic Linguistics"

A Brief Look At Broward County Lawyers’ And Judges’ Attitudes Toward Plea Bargaining As A Tool Of Courtroom Efficiency, Mohammad A. Faruqui

ExpressO

Even the most rigidly ideological prosecutors acknowledge that they need to plea out most of the less serious criminal charges to ensure justice without incurring an unmanageable backlog of cases. But what do most criminal lawyers and judges think about the plea arrangment system? Is it fair to defendants? Do lawyers use plea bargains to better serve their clients by finding the best deal, or do they use plea bargains to cut their case load for what some call "garbage cases?" This paper surveys a small sample to see how 21st century Broward County criminal lawyers feel about the plea …

American Courts Are Drowning In The "Gene Pool": Excavating The Slippery Slope Mechanisms Behind Judicial Endorsement Of Dna Databases, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 115 (2005), Meghan Riley

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hegel's Anti-Spinozism: The Transition To Subjective Logic And The End Of Classical Metaphysics, George Di Giovanni

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

No abstract provided.

The Alley Behind First Street, Northeast: Criminal Abortion In The Nation's Capital 1873-1973, Douglas R. Miller

ExpressO

The thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade found our country no less divided over abortion than it was during the era of its prohibition. As the bitter struggle over judicial nominations throughout the present administration suggests, abortion’s future remains at the forefront of American political debate.

In their push for increased limitations, abortion opponents generally overlook the historical consequences of prohibition. Abortion rights proponents often invoke history in their opposition to new restrictions, but tend to do so superficially, and only in a manner that supports their position.

This article attempts a more complex study of criminal abortion’s legal and …

Pleas' Progress, Stephanos Bibas

Michigan Law Review

George Fisher's new book, Plea Bargaining's Triumph, is really three books in one. The first part is a careful, detailed explanation of how and why plea bargaining exploded in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the nineteenth century. This part is the fruit of an impressive amount of original research in Massachusetts court records and newspaper archives. The second part of the book looks more broadly at other academic histories of plea bargaining in England, California, and New York. It explains how the forces that produced plea bargaining in Middlesex County likewise contributed to plea bargaining's rise elsewhere. The final part …

Deportations, Removals And The 1996 Immigration Acts: A Modern Look At The Ex Post Facto Clause, Lupe S. Salinas

ExpressO

The article addresses the punitive aspects of the deportation procedures as impacted by the 1996 Immigration Acts. When faced with the precedents in the field, that deportation is a civil procedure, federal courts conclude that the Ex Post Facto Clause does not apply. However, the article draws upon common law and other historical bases for the conclusion that a modern view should hold that conviction-related removals are punitive and subject to ex post facto analysis.

Time Travel, Hovercrafts, And The Fourth Amendment: If James Madison Could Have Seen The Future, George C. Thomas

ExpressO

Recent historical work has raised the intriguing possibility that the Framers meant to accomplish only one goal in the Fourth Amendment: to forbid general warrants. On this historical account, the first clause stating a right of the people to be "free from unreasonable searches and seizures" is merely declaratory of the principle that led the Framers to ban general warrants. Rephrased to be true to this history, the Fourth Amendment would say: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against general warrants shall not be violated, and no general warrants shall issue." …

Citizens Of An Enemy Land: Enemy Combatants, Aliens, And The Constitutional Rights Of The Pseudo-Citizen, Juliet P. Stumpf

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

The Botched Hanging Of William Williams: How Too Much Rope And Minnesota’S Newspapers Brought An End To The Death Penalty In Minnesota, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

This article describes Minnesota's last state-sanctioned execution: that of William Williams, who was hanged in 1906 in the basement of the Ramsey County Jail. Convicted of killing a teenage boy, Williams was tried on murder charges in 1905 and was put to death in February of the following year. Because the county sheriff miscalculated the length of the rope, the hanging was botched, with Williams hitting the floor when the trap door was opened. Three deputies, standing on the scaffold, thereafter seized the rope and forcibly pulled it up until Williams - fourteen and half minutes later - died by …

The Domestic Security Enhancement Act Of 2003: A Glimpse Into A Post-Patriot Act Approach To Combating Domestic Terrorism, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 327 (2004), Timothy Scahill

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Remaining Silent: A Right With Consequences, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 649 (2004), Jeffrey D. Waltuck

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Loose Not The Floodgates, Benjamin J. Cooper

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down sodomy laws, arguing that while the ruling was necessary, it raises concerns about the broader regulation of sexual conduct outside marriage. The author contends that such laws, despite rare enforcement, serve societal functions, including protecting marriage and providing moral boundaries that deter harmful behavior, particularly among young people.

Challenging Dissent: The Ontology And Logic Of Lawrence V. Texas, Jami Weinstein, Tobyn Demarco

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which invalidated a Texas antisodomy statute criminalizing homosexual conduct. The Court held that the statute failed rational basis review and rejected the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality as a legitimate state interest. The decision reflects a broader recognition of the fundamental right to make autonomous, private, consensual, adult sexual choices. The analysis critiques Justice Scalia's dissent, arguing that his fears about the end of morals legislation are unfounded and that laws based solely on moral disapproval lack a rational basis.

The Confrontation Clause Re-Rooted And Transformed, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

For several centuries, prosecution witnesses in criminal cases have given their testimony under oath, face to face with the accused, and subject to cross-examination at trial. The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the procedure, providing that ‘‘[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witness against him.’’ In recent decades, however, judicial protection of the right has been lax, because the U.S. Supreme Court has tolerated admission of outof- court statements against the accused, without cross-examination, if the statements are deemed ‘‘reliable’’ or ‘‘trustworthy.’’ …

Killing The Non-Willing: Atkins, The Volitionally Incapacitated, And The Death Penalty, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Jamie Wilson, nineteen years old and severely mentally ill, walked into a school cafeteria and started shooting. Two children died, and Jamie was charged with two counts of capital murder. Because he admitted his guilt, the only issue at his trial was the appropriate punishment. The trial judge assigned to his case, after hearing expert testimony on his mental state, found that mental illness rendered Jamie unable to conform his conduct to the requirements of law at the time of the crime—not impaired by his mental illness in his ability to control his behavior, but unable to control his behavior. …

The New Frontier Of Constitutional Confession Law - The International Arena: Exploring The Admissibility Of Confessions Taken By U.S. Investigators From Non-Americans Abroad, Mark A. Godsey

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article is part two in an ongoing series. Part I, published at 51 DUKE L. J. 1703 (2002), argued that Miranda warnings should not be strictly required when U.S. agents interrogate non-U.S. citizens abroad. This Article picks up where the first left off, and asks the question: "In the absence of Miranda, do any provisions in the Bill of Rights restrict the ability of U.S. agents to obtain confessions from non-Americans abroad?"

The Article begins by examining the back up or default rules to Miranda in the domestic setting. These rules are the "due process involuntary confession rule," which …