Legal History Commons^™

Judicial Elections, Public Opinion, And Their Impact On State Criminal Justice Policy, Travis N. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

This dissertation explores whether and how the re-election prospects faced by trial court judges in many American states influence criminal justice policy, specifically, state levels of incarceration, as well as the disparity in rates of incarceration for Whites and Blacks. Do states where trial court judges must worry about facing reelection tend to encourage judicial behavior that results in higher incarceration rates? And are levels of incarceration and racial disparities in the states influenced by the proportion of the state publics who want more punitive policies? These are clearly important questions because they speak directly to several normative and empirical …

Abram I. Elkus: The New York Yankees' First Lawyer, Robert M. Jarvis

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Invention Of A Slave, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On June 10, 1858, the Attorney General issued an opinion titled Invention of a Slave, concluding that a slave owner could not patent a machine invented by his slave, because neither the slave owner nor his slave could take the required patent oath. The slave owner could not swear to be the inventor, and the slave could not take an oath at all. The Patent Office denied at least two patent applications filed by slave owners, one of which was filed by Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, who later became the President of the Confederate States of America. But …

Justice John Marshall Harlan: Professor Of Law, Brian L. Frye, Josh Blackman, Michael Mccloskey

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

From 1889 to 1910, while serving on the United States Supreme Court, the first Justice John Marshall Harlan taught at the Columbian College of Law, which became the George Washington University School of Law. For two decades, he primarily taught working-class evening students in classes as diverse as property, torts, conflicts of law, jurisprudence, domestic relations, commercial law, evidence-and most significantly-constitutional law.

Harlan's lectures on constitutional law would have been lost to history, but for the enterprising initiative-and remarkable note-taking-of one of Harlan's students, George Johannes. During the 1897-98 academic year, George Johannes and a classmate transcribed verbatim the twenty-seven …

Justice John Marshall Harlan: Lectures On Constitutional Law, 1897-98, Brian L. Frye, Josh Blackman, Michael Mccloskey

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

From 1889 to 1910, while serving on the United States Supreme Court, the first Justice John Marshall Harlan taught at the Columbian College of Law, which later became The George Washington School of Law. During the 1897–1898 academic year, one of Harlan’s students, George Johannes, along with a classmate, transcribed verbatim the twenty-seven lectures Justice Harlan delivered on constitutional law. In 1955, Johannes sent his copy of the transcripts to the second Justice Harlan, who eventually deposited them in the Library of Congress.

To create this annotated transcript of Justice Harlan’s lectures, Professor Frye purchased a microfilm copy of Johannes’s …

Keeping Up With New Legal Titles, Franklin L. Runge

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this book review, Franklin L. Runge discusses The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr: Law, Politics, and the Character Wars of the New Nation by R. Kent Newmyer.

The Letter Of Richard Wyche: An Interrogation Narrative, Christopher G. Bradley

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This is a translation, with introduction, of the Letter of Richard Wyche—one of only two heresy interrogation narratives from medieval England written from the perspective of the accused heretic.

The Letter is an autobiographical account of Richard Wyche’s interrogation, in 1402-1403, at the hands of church officials. Wyche originally composed the Letter in (Middle) English but it survives only in a Latin translation, alongside other forbidden texts in a manuscript now in Prague. Wyche wrote and covertly sent away this Letter to an audience of intimates sympathetic to the cause (the so-called Wycliffite or Lollard heresy) before his interrogations ended. …

Americans' Unwillingness To Pay Taxes Before The American Revolution: An Uncomfortable Legacy, Richard A. Westin

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

When one reflects on the sorry condition of America’s finances one has to wonder why there is such resistance to fiscal discipline. Is it merely because there is an obstreperous group in the US Congress who cannot abide any tax? Has the public been subtly lobbied into believing that American taxes are high, pointless and intolerable or is there some gene in the America’s body politic that has always been there that expresses itself from time to time in a pernicious cheapness? Perhaps all those things are true, or perhaps none. Nevertheless, a glance backward at Colonial days can stimulate …

The Dialectic Of Obscenity, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Until the 1960s, pornography was obscene, and obscenity prosecutions were relatively common. And until the 1970s, obscenity prosecutions targeted art, as well as pornography. But today, obscenity prosecutions are rare and limited to the most extreme forms of pornography.

So why did obscenity largely disappear? The conventional history of obscenity is doctrinal, holding that the Supreme Court’s redefinition of obscenity in order to protect art inevitably required the protection of pornography as well. In other words, art and literature were the vanguard of pornography.

But the conventional history of obscenity is incomplete. While it accounts for the development of obscenity …

Property In Law: Government Rights In Legal Innovations, Stephen Clowney

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

One of the most enduring themes in American political thought is that competition between states encourages legal innovation. Despite the prominence of this story in the national ideology, there is growing anxiety that state and local governments innovate at a socially suboptimal rate. Academics have recently expressed alarm that the pace of legal experimentation has become "extraordinarily slow," "inefficient," and "less than ideal." Ordinary citizens, too, seem concerned that government has been leeched of imagination and the dynamic spirit of experimentation; both talk radio programs and newspapers remain jammed with complaints about legislative gridlock and do-nothing politicians who cannot, or …

Strader V. Graham: Kentucky's Contribution To National Slavery Litigation And The Dred Scott Decision, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 1841, three Kentucky slaves in Louisville boarded a steamboat bound for Cincinnati. Within days, they had made their way to Detroit and then to permanent freedom in Canada. Their owner, a prominent central Kentucky businessman, soon tracked them down and tried to lure them back to bondage in the United States. When these efforts failed, he sued the steamboat owners for the value of the lost slaves in a Kentucky court. After ten years of litigation, this case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court’s decision in favor of the Kentucky slaveholder would prove to be an important precedent …

The Peculiar Story Of United States V. Miller, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On April 18, 1938, the Arkansas and Oklahoma state police stopped Jack Miller and Frank Layton, two washed-up Oklahoma bank robbers. Miller and Layton had an unregistered sawed-off shotgun, so the police arrested them for violating the National Firearms Act (“NFA”). Surprisingly, the district court dismissed the charges, holding the NFA violates the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed in United States v. Miller, holding the Second Amendment does not guarantee the right to keep and bear a sawed-off shotgun as a matter of law.

Seventy years later, Miller remains the only Supreme Court opinion construing the Second Amendment. …

The Sad, Sad Story Of Lula Viers, Richard H. Underwood, Sharon Ray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this article, Professor Richard H. Underwood explores the murder ballad entitled Lula Viers. Lula Viers was from the Appalachia region of Kentucky.

The Legislative Privilege To Judge The Qualifications, Elections, And Returns Of Members, Paul E. Salamanca, James E. Keller

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Stella Kenney: A Little Problem In Evidence, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this article, Professor Richard H. Underwood explores the murder ballad entitled Stella Kenney. Stella Kenney (whose real name was Kinney) was from Carter County, Kentucky.

Time Out Of Mind: Our Collective Amnesia About The History Of The Privileges Or Immunities Clause, Michael P. O'Connor

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Confederation-Era Discrimination Against Interstate Commerce And The Legitimacy Of The Dormant Commerce Clause Doctrine, Brannon P. Denning

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Crimesong: Some Murder Ballads And Poems Revisited, Richard H. Underwood, Carol J. Paris

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This short Article, by a law professor and a law librarian, was written because of our personal interest in the old ballads, and because of the professor's desire to spice up the “meals-ready-to-eat” diet of problems and cases fed to students in law school courses. But more than anything else, this Article was written for the fun of it. To the extent that we appear to be advancing the occasional high-sounding hypothesis, we want the reader to understand that our speculations are offered only as an invitation to the sociologists, musicologists, and historians. Our backgrounds are limited, and we do …

Not So Great Moments In Trial Advocacy: Clement Vallandigham, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The subject of this comment is "The Lawyer as Hero." Being the contrarian that I am, I thought I would present the story of someone who I do not consider to have been a hero—Clement L. Vallandigham. History has not been kind to him. I am sure those of you who do remember his name think of him as a traitor and a rascal—a loathsome individual. But to some, and for a time, he was a hero and a champion in court. This just goes to show that one person's hero is another person's goat.

Book Review | John Evangelist Walsh, Moonlight: Abraham Lincoln And The Almanac Trial (2000), Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A book review of Moonlight: Abraham Lincoln and the Almanac Trial, written by John Evangelist Walsh, and published in 2000.

A Reminder: The Constitutional Values Of Sympathy And Independence, Robert G. Natelson

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Taxation Of Banking Institutions (1802-1996): An Historical Overview, Timothy J. Eifler

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Religion, Establishment, And The Northwest Ordinance: A Closer Look At An Accommodationist Argument, Thomas Nathan Peters

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

From Sheet Music To Mp3 Files--A Brief Perspective On Napster, Harold R. Weinberg

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Chutzpah As A Legal Term: The Chutzpah Championship, Chutzpah Award, Chutzpah Doctrine, And Now, The Supreme Court, Jack Achiezer Guggenheim

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

United States V. Tucker: Should Independent Counsels Investigate And Prosecute Ordinary Citizens?, Hanly A. Ingram

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Perjury: An Anthology, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Professor Underwood takes an in-depth look at the occurrence of perjury from ancient Rome to the O.J. Simpson trial. This journey through time provides insight into the motives of perjurers, the difficulties involved in catching them; and the alarming frequency with which they succeed, unchastised.

“Some Kind Of Lawyer”: Two Journeys From Classroom To Courtroom And Beyond, Terry Birdwhistell

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In January 1996 a panel of the American Bar Association released a report concluding that "discrimination continues to permeate the structures, practices and attitudes of the legal profession." It has been a long journey in women's efforts to obtain equity in both law schools and in the legal profession generally. This article is composed of two interviews with University of Kentucky College of Law graduates: Norma Boster Adams (’52) and Annette McGee Cunningham (’80). Twenty-eight years separated Norma Adams and Annette Cunningham at the College of Law. They faced different obstacles and chose varied paths to success. While each can …

Truth Verifiers: From The Hot Iron To The Lie Detector, Richard H. Underwood

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction, The Sesquicentennial Of The 1848 Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention: American Women's Unfinished Quest For Legal, Economic, Political, And Social Equality, Carolyn S. Bratt

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On July 19, 1998, America celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention. Almost three hundred women and men including Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass met on that July date in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, for a two-day discussion of the "social, civil and religious rights of woman." At the conclusion of the meeting, sixty-eight women and thirty-two men signed their names to a Declaration of Sentiments and this country's organized women's rights movement began. The Declaration of Sentiments was the earliest, systematic, public articulation in the United States of the ideas that fuel …