Legal History Commons^™

George Washington’S Attorneys: The Political Selection Of United States Attorneys At The Founding, Scott Ingram

Pace Law Review

This Article examines the relationship between the Nation’s first President and the selection of United States Attorneys. It argues that politics played an important, if not primary, role in the President’s selections. George Washington sought those who would represent the government’s interests, adhere to the government’s policies, and advance Washington’s political goals. His selections also demonstrated Washington’s requirement of loyalty to America. In this respect, the politicization of United States Attorneys occurred at the outset. Part I of this Article defines politicization and identifies its four aspects. Part II describes the United States Attorney position as understood through the 1789 …

Law School News: Celebrating The First Women Lawyers In Rhode Island April 12, 2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Kegs In The Curtilage, Pamela G. Smith

Perspectives on Law School History

No abstract provided.

First Women Lawyers In Rhode Island: Dedication First Women Of The Rhode Island Bar (1920-1979) 04-11-2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Alfred Nevin, The Law School's First Student, Pamela G. Smith

Perspectives on Law School History

No abstract provided.

April 1, 1834, Pamela G. Smith

Perspectives on Law School History

No abstract provided.

Legacies Of Belle La Follette’S Big Tent Campaigns For Women’S Suffrage, Nancy Unger

History

In countless speeches and articles in La Follette’s Magazine, Belle Case La Follette urged that women needed the vote to secure “standards of cleanliness and healthfulness in the municipal home,” and because “home, society, and government are best when men and women keep together intellectually and spiritually.” This range of often mutually exclusive arguments created an inclusive big tent. However, arguing that women were qualified to vote by their roles as wives and mothers while maintaining that gender was superfluous to suffrage also contributed to an uneasy combination that would continue the conflict over women’s true nature and hinder their …

Criminalizing The Other: Exploring The Impact Of The Netherlands' Adaptation Of Prosecutorial Guidelines On Sentencing Disparities, Alia Nahra

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research explores the impact of the 2015 institution of prosecution guidelines in the Netherlands. Prior to this switch, the Openbaar Ministerie operated using a punishment point system, which provided a mathematical formula with which to decide sanctions. Though the motivation of this change was to make the overall system more efficient and enable individual prosecutors to consider each case in a customizable and more equitable form, this research demonstrates that the change has served instead as a perpetuator (and in some cases, facilitator) of the persistent ethnic and gender biases already at work in the Netherlands. The social and …

Antiquities Theft: The Role Of The Museum In Modern Symbolic Violence, Meredith M. Amato

Student Publications

Humans have been collecting artifacts for centuries, whether it is for their aesthetic value or for the acquisition of knowledge. However, these artifacts have, in most cases, been taken without permission from the countries of origin. Today, museums are struggling with the issue of repatriation and many refuse to return their priceless possessions. Western museums and their supporters are arguing that repatriation will put the artifacts in danger and hurt the chances for humanity to learn from them. The arguments of these museums are an attempt of symbolic violence on non-Western nations, who are seen as unfit or unable to …

The Picture, Nancy Bellhouse May

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Creative Lawyering For Social Change, Raymond H. Brescia

Georgia State University Law Review

Lawyers have long played an integral part in efforts to bring about social change. With an increasing desire to see change in the world, regardless of one’s political perspective, there is a growing interest in understanding the role that lawyers can play in bringing about such change. This type of lawyering is complex, however, and faces far more challenges than those the traditional lawyer faces in his or her work. Although all lawyers solve problems on behalf of their clients, the role of the social-change lawyer is more complex because the problems she seeks to address are more complex, mostly …

The Mass Murder Of The European Jews And The Concept Of ‘Genocide’ In The Nuremberg Trials: Reassessing Raphaël Lemkin’S Impact, Alexa Stiller

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Nuremberg’s prosecutors prominently used Lemkin’s genocide concept. They also dealt in detail with the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. However, for them ‘genocide’ and the Holocaust were not congruent. They used different definitions of Lemkin’s concept and interpreted the relationship between the mass murder of the European Jews and the entire mass violence of the Nazis differently. Lemkin had little influence on the application of his concept in the Nuremberg trials between 1945 and 1949. The implementation of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention put an end to the broad use of the original concept from 1944. Although both Lemkin …

O’Neill, Oh O’Neill, Wherefore Art Thou O’Neill: Defining And Cementing The Requirements For Asserting Deliberative Process Privilege, Andrew Scott

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The government may invoke the deliberative process privilege to protect the communications of government officials involving policy-driven decision-making. The privilege protects communications made before policy makers act upon the policy decision to allow government officials to speak candidly when deciding a course of action without fear of their words being used against them.

This privilege is not absolute and courts recognize the legitimate countervailing interest the public has in transparency. The Supreme Court in United States v. Reynolds held that someone with control over the protected information should personally consider the privilege before asserting it but did not provide definitive …

Standing For Standing Rock?: Vindicating Native American Religious And Land Rights By Adapting New Zealand's Te Awa Tupua Act To American Soil, Malcolm Mcdermond

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

On February 23, 2017, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (“Tribe”) was forced to disband its nearly year-long protest against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatened the integrity of its ancestral lands. The Tribe sought declaratory and injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, but the court ruled against the Tribe and failed to protect its interests. While the United States was forcibly removing Indigenous protesters, other countries were taking steps to protect Indigenous populations. In unprecedented legislative action, New Zealand took radical steps to protect the land and cultural rights of …

The Fire Rises: Refining The Pennsylvania Fireworks Law So That Fewer People Get Burned, Sean P. Kraus

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

On October 30, 2017, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act that repealed the state’s fireworks law, which had prohibited the sale of most fireworks to Pennsylvanian consumers for nearly 80 years. The law’s replacement generally permits Pennsylvanians over 18 years old to purchase, possess, and use “Consumer Fireworks.” Bottle rockets, firecrackers, Roman candles, and aerial shells are now available to amateur celebrants for holidays like Independence Day and New Year’s Eve. The law also regulates a category of larger “Display Fireworks,” sets standards for fireworks vendors, and introduces a 12-percent excise tax on fireworks sales that serves to …

Prosecutorial Discretion: The Difficulty And Necessity Of Public Inquiry, Bruce A. Green

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Prosecutors’ discretionary decisions have enormous impact on individuals and communities. Often, prosecutors exercise their vast power and discretion in questionable ways. This Article argues that, to encourage prosecutors to use their power wisely and not abusively, there is a need for more informed public discussion of prosecutorial discretion, particularly with regard to prosecutors’ discretionary decisions about whether to bring criminal charges and which charges to bring. But the Article also highlights two reasons why informed public discussion is difficult—first, because public and professional expectations about how prosecutors should use their power are vague; and, second, because, particularly in individual cases, …

The Faces Of The Second Amendment Outside The Home, Take Three: Critiquing The Circuit Courts Use Of History-In-Law, Patrick J. Charles

Cleveland State Law Review

This article seeks to critique the circuit courts’ varying history-in-law approaches, as well as to provide advice on the proper role that history-in-law plays when examining the scope of the Second Amendment outside the home. This article sets forth to accomplish this task in three parts. Part I argues why history-in-law is appropriate when adjudicating Second Amendment decisions outside the home. Part II examines the benefits and burdens of utilizing history-in-law as a method of constitutional interpretation, while breaking down the alternative approaches employed by circuit courts when adjudicating Second Amendment decisions outside the home. Lastly, Part III offers practical …

Mr. Try-It Goes To Washington: Law And Policy At The Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Daniel R. Ernst

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In December 1933, Jerome Frank, the general counsel of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration but better for writing Law and the Modern Mind (1930), a sensational attack on legal formalism, told an audience at the Association of American Law Schools a parable about two lawyers in the New Deal, each forced to interpret same, ambiguous statutory language. The first lawyer, “Mr. Absolute,” reasoned from the text and canons of statutory interpretation without regard for the desirability of the outcome. “Mr. Try-It,” in contrast, began with the outcome he thought desirable. He then said to himself, “The administration is for it, and …

Mr. Try-It Goes To Washington: Law And Policy At The Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Daniel R. Ernst

Fordham Law Review

In December 1933, Jerome Frank, the general counsel of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) but better known for writing Law and the Modern Mind (1930), a sensational attack on legal formalism, told an audience at the Association of American Law Schools a parable about two lawyers in the New Deal, each required to interpret the same ambiguous language of a statute. The first lawyer, “Mr. Absolute,” reasoned from the text and canons of statutory interpretation without regard for the desirability of the outcome. “Mr. Try-It,” in contrast, began with the outcome he thought desirable. He then said to himself, “The …

At Least Some Rights The White Man Was Bound To Respect: Bland V. Beverly And A Contract For Freedom In The Age Of Slavery, H. Robert Baker

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

By law in Maryland, slaves could not enter into legally binding contracts. Nonetheless, in 1833 Beverly Dowling struck an agreement with his owner, Sophia Bland, for his freedom in exchange for $200. Dowling paid $173 towards his end of the agreement before being arrested as a runaway and sold to a slave trader. Beverly Dowling petitioned the Baltimore city court for his freedom, and a jury found that he was free because he had, in the process of raising the money to pay his owner, traveled to the state of New York to work. I survey the law of manumission …

Professionals, Politicos, And Crony Attorneys General: A Historical Sketch Of The U.S. Attorney General As A Case For Structural Independence, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

We assume that the nineteenth century was an era of patronage, and the twentieth century marked the rise of professionalization. But the Office of the Attorney General reveals an opposite pattern — a troubling rise of cronyism in the DOJ from the early twentieth century.

This Article uses the rough categories of “professional,” “politico,” and “insider” or “crony,” based on each attorney general's background and how he or she rose to the office (rather than based upon their performance in the office.) Most AGs in the nineteenth century were "politicos" (major established political figures) or "professionals" (experienced lawyers relatively separate …

The Curtilage, Pamela G. Smith

Perspectives on Law School History

No abstract provided.

International Criminal Responsibility In Kosovo: Establishment Of The International Criminal Court – De Lege Lata, De Lege Ferenda, Mujë Ukaj, Qendresa Jasharaj

International Journal on Responsibility

The Special Court of Kosovo (Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor's Office) with headquarters in The Hague, is one of the biggest problems Kosovo faced since the declaration of independence. This topic has been treated very little in scientific terms, while in the media it is written very much, calling it harmful to Kosovo, and even had opinions that it is a racist court since the same will initially only judge the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) members for alleged war crimes in Kosovo. The Special Court of Kosovo is presented as a sui generis case in the practice of international …

Woolsack Honor Society, Pamela G. Smith

Perspectives on Law School History

No abstract provided.

The Honorable Sylvia H. Rambo, Pamela G. Smith

Perspectives on Law School History

No abstract provided.

Preserving Habeas Corpus For Asylum Seekers Just When They Need It Most, Jennifer Moore

Faculty Scholarship

The blog post reviews are very recent Ninth Circuit case, Thuraissigiam, which holds that “asylum seekers facing deportation have the right to challenge the summary denial of their asylum claims in federal court". The ruling in Thuraissigiam applies to individuals who have failed to establish a “credible fear of persecution” in expedited removal proceedings conducted at the border.

Dickinson Law's First Female Students, Pamela G. Smith

Perspectives on Law School History

No abstract provided.

Repealing Patents, Christopher Beauchamp

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Who Wore It Better? Federal V. State Government Regulation Of Sports Betting, Jennifer Roberts, Greg Gemignani

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering The Journal Clause: The Lost History Of Legislative Constitutional Interpretation, Nicholas Handler

Faculty Scholarship

Article I, Section 5 of the United States Constitution requires that each house of Congress keep a Journal of its proceedings. Contemporary observers have largely ignored this provision, treating it as a vestigial record-keeping requirement with little significance for modern law. This dismissive attitude is misguided. Historically, legislative Journals were one of the primary mechanisms by which Parliament, and later Congress, made and interpreted constitutional law. Journals are the official histories of legislatures’ activity. They record what legislatures do as institutions—what powers they exercise, what procedures they use, and what actions by the coordinate branches they protest or resist. In …