Rule of Law Commons^™

Probate And Administration On The American Frontier: A Study Of The Probate Records Of Wayne County- Northwest Territory 1796-1803; Indiana Territory 1803-1805; Michigan Territory 1805-1816, William Wirt Blume

Michigan Law Review

As late as 1815 there was only one county in Michigan Territory- Wayne County- made up of parts of the territory to which the Indian titles had been extinguished. As other counties were organized beginning in 1817, Wayne County was reduced to its present size. A law adopted July 27, 1818, provided that a probate court should be held in each county. By a proclamation dated October 2, 1818, Acting Governor Woodbridge declared it was "no longer expedient to continue the present subdivisions of this territory into districts" for probate purposes; instead, each county should be "a separate District and …

Freeman: Responsibility Of States For Unlawful Acts Of Their Armed Forces, Brunson Macchesney

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Responsibility of States for Unlawful Acts of Their Armed Forces. By Alwyn V. Freeman.

Clark & Sohn: World Peace Through World Law, Harding Bancroft

Michigan Law Review

A Review of World Peace Through World Law. By Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn.

"Congress Shall Make No Law…":Ii, O. John Rogge

Michigan Law Review

The framers of the federal bill of rights by the First and Tenth Amendments sought to deny Congress power over utterances unless they were connected with criminal conduct other than advocacy. Any power over such utterances was to reside in the states. However, the Supreme Court departed from the framers' intent.

One of the factors in this development was the emergence of an undefined federal police power. This occurred largely under the commerce and postal clauses. It began over a century ago. As early as 1838 Congress passed a law requiring the installation of safety devices upon steam vessels. Beginning …

"Congress Shall Make No Law..."*, O. John Rogge

Michigan Law Review

It is the position of the writer that, at least so far as Congress is concerned, speech is as free as thought, and that unless and until speech becomes a part of a course of conduct which Congress can restrain or regulate no federal legislative power over it exists. State power, despite the Fourteenth Amendment, may be somewhat more extensive. Certainly the framers of the First Amendment intended that it should be. This article will deal with federal power over speech.

Guided Tour In A Civil Law Library: Sources And Basic Legal Materials In French Civil And Commercial Law, G. M. Razi

Michigan Law Review

Lawyers everywhere rely upon their books with eagerness and confidence. The larger their libraries, the better equipped they feel to answer the questions of their clients. The composition of an average library differs somewhat in France and in the United States. In this country the law reports, in their familiar, substantial and elegant bindings, are displayed on the prominent shelves, while in Europe, the law reports-often merely paper bound-are relegated to some corner. The front place is reserved for the leather bindings and the gilt letters of the treatises bearing the names of outstanding authors in the various fields of …

Constitutional Law - Executive Powers - Use Of Troops To Enforce Federal Laws, Robert H. Elliott Jr., S.Ed., Richard I. Singer S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The recent use of federal troops in Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce the order of a federal district court requiring school integration has occasioned widespread controversy throughout the nation. It is the purpose of this comment to examine the constitutionality of such action and to consider its broader implications with respect to federal-state and congressional-executive relationships.

Constitutional Law - Courts-Martial - Power Of Congress To Provide For Military Jurisdiction Over Civilian Dependents, Gerald M. Smith

Michigan Law Review

Defendants, civilian wives of servicemen living overseas, were tried and convicted of murder by military court-martial under article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Their trials took place in the countries where they were living with their husbands. Defendants brought petitions for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the constitutionality of article 2(11) of the Uniform Code authorizing their trials by court-martial. Initially the United States Supreme Court rejected this contention. On rehearing, held, reversed, two justices dissenting. The guarantee of the right to jury trial contained in article 3, section 2, and the guarantees of the …

Constitutional Law - Due Process -Watkins V. United States As A Limitation On Power Of Congressional Investigating Committees, Allan F. Bioff S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of this comment to examine the nature and extent of the restraints imposed by the Watkins case as well as the potential problems raised by the decision.

Chafee, Jr.: The Blessings Of Liberty, Nathaniel Nathanson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Blessings of Liberty. By Zechariah Chafee, Jr.

Estoppel And Crown Privilege In English Administrative Law, Bernard Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

Perhaps the most anachronistic doctrine in Anglo-American public law is that of sovereign immunity. Under it, the State is placed in a privileged position of immunity from the principles of law which are binding upon the ordinary citizen, unless it expressly consents to be bound by such principles. In Anglo-American law the infallibility attributed to the King in the days when he was personally sovereign has been more recently recognized in the State, which the Crown now merely personifies. Thus, even today, and even in the American democracy, the basic principle of public law is that the King can do …

Social Scientists Take The Stand: A Review And Appraisal Of Their Testimony In Litigation, Jack Greenberg

Michigan Law Review

"How to inform the judicial mind, as you know, is one of the most complicated problems,'' said Justice Frankfurter during argument of the school segregation cases. And as law deals more and more with issues of great public consequence the judiciary's need for knowledge increases. Much of this knowledge is within the realm of what are called the social sciences.

Although jurisprudents and social scientists have long complained of a gulf between law and social science, little notice has been given to the recent, recurrent collaboration between the two at the trial level. In a variety of cases social scientists' …

The Wills Branch Of The Worthier Title Doctrine, Joseph W. Morris

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of this article to examine the history and origin of the wills branch of the worthier title doctrine, to ascertain the extent of its application and the manner of its application, to determine the legal consequences flowing therefrom, and to consider the desirability of its continued existence.

Evidence - Presumptions - Continuting Life During Seven-Year Absence, Douglas Peck S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Deceased, a wage earner, disappeared on December 28, 1943, and was unreported for more than seven years. Evidence was conflicting as to whether he had suicidal tendencies. He was adjudged dead in December 1950 by probate court, and plaintiff, as administratrix, filed a claim for monthly social security benefits to which deceased would have been entitled for the period from December 1943 to December 1950. The referee made a finding that deceased died in December 1943. On appeal to the United States District Court from a decision of the Appeals Council of the Federal Security Agency affirming the referee's finding …

Twenty-Nine Distinct Damnations Of The Federal Practice -- And A National Ministry Of Justice, Arthur J. Keeffe

Vanderbilt Law Review

There are certain fundamental truths. Neither the practicing lawyer nor the best judge has the requisite time to worry about the "why" of a rule of law. And this is true whether the point be one of substantive or adjective law although, as we know, the two are inter-mixed and one.

If the day's work be done, the bar and the judiciary must take the law as they find it, right or wrong, sensible or nonsensical, and do the best they can. Theirs is not to reason why.

I do not mean to deny that now and then a court …

Claims Against States, Leslie L. Anderson

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 1924, commencing a leading series of articles on "Government Liability in Tort," Professor Edward M. Borchard referred to what he called the "unexampled expansion of the police power in the United States." He wrote of the increasing risks which individuals in this country are left to bear from "defective, negligent, perverse or erroneous administration" of the functions of government. If those functions had increased at a considerable rate at the time of his article, what would one say of their extent today? Even the leaders of the New Deal discerned the risks to which increased governmental activity subjected people, …

Annual Survey Of Tennessee Law, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

The idea of an annual survey of the law of a particular jurisdiction is not a new one, either in this country or abroad. During a period of at least 25 years an increasing number of publications have undertaken to present such a survey. The task is a delicate one, and performances have been somewhat uneven. A mere digest of appellate opinions or a scissors-and-paste collection of expressed rules of law serves some useful purpose but scarcely justifies separate existence. On the other hand an exhaustive discussion of most of the individual decisions prevents a view of the forest for …

The Legislative Status Of An Unconstitutional Statute, Earl T. Crawford

Michigan Law Review

Once a statute has been found to violate some constitutional provision, a legislature is faced with a difficult problem of how to change the statute so as to effect the desired policy and still not violate constitutional principles. The general nature of this problem is suggested by such inquiries as these: Will the subsequent overruling of a previous judicial decision declaring a statute unconstitutional require any legislative action to put the statute into effect? Can a statute, which has been held violative of the constitution, be amended by corrective or curative legislation without complete re-enactment if the statute as amended …

Interstate Extradition And State Sovereignty, Eugene Cook

Mercer Law Review

Since the first days of the Federal Union the problem of defining and delimiting the sovereignty of the states has occupied our courts, our Congress, and our legislatures, and, sadly, even at times our armies. The concept of dual sovereignty is an abstract one representing a compromise between the conflicting principles of local autonomy and national authority, and, like many another constitutional principle, it has occasionally been restated and rearranged to meet the demands of new and shifting governmental philosophies.

Church, The State, And Mrs. Mccollum, Clarence Emmett Manion

Journal Articles

On March 8, 1948 the Supreme Court of the United States decided in substance that this language prohibits the tax-supported city school systems of the State of Illinois from assisting and encouraging general religious instruction. Just how a constitutional restriction against specified congressional action can possibly impede the activity of a local Illinois school board is an inglorious mystery of modern constitutional construction.

In one way or another however, and for one reason or many, the Court decided eight to one that when the First Amendment says "Congress" it means, among other things, a local school board and when it …

The Lawyer And The Public, Thomas Frank Konop

Journal Articles

In this address, I am purposely omitting a discussion of the subject of "Delays in Litigation" as that matter was covered by the address of Judge Cain on last Monday. Cherishing the hope that my talk may bring about a better acquaintance with, and a better understanding of the lawyer, I propose to address myself to the general public, rather than to my professional brethren. If any of you have ever attended an annual bar-banquet and there heard the usual and orthodox address on the legal profession, you undoubtedly went home impressed with the idea-whether you believed it or not-that …

Prof. Hepburn Tells Of Bill Codifying United States Law

Charles Hepburn (1918-1925)

No abstract provided.

Judges In The British Cabinet And The Struggle Which Led To Their Exclusion After 1806, Arthur Lyon Cross

Michigan Law Review

Among the anomalies in the queer and devious course of Eng- £ lish constitutional progress few have been more striking than the number of reforms which have been due to the Conservatives.. One of no little significance was brought about during that period of political stagnation-the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This was the exclusion of judges from the Cabinet, as the result of a political struggle in which the forces of opposition, though temporarily defeated, formulated a policy which was destined henceforth to prevail.

Constitutional Decisions By A Bare Majority Of The Court, Robert Eugene Cushman

Michigan Law Review

In December, 1823, the legislature of Kentucky, in a blaze of resentment against a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States invalidating a Kentucky statute,' petitioned Congress "so to organize the Supreme Court of the United States that no constitutional question * * * involving the validity of State laws, shall be decided by said Court unless two-thirds of all the members belonging to said court shall concur in such decision." 2 At the same time a United States senator from Kentucky was demanding that Congress- require for such decisions the concurrence of seven judges out of a …

Are Charges Against The Moral Character Of A Candidate For An Elective Office Conditionally Privileged, Jeremiah Smith

Michigan Law Review

Is candidacy for an elective office such a special occasion as to confer conditional privilege (prima facie protection) upon charges affecting the moral character of the candidate?

Are Charges Against The Moral Character Of A Candidate For An Elective Office Conditionally Privileged, Jeremiah Smith

Michigan Law Review

The above specific question, upon which there is a conflict of authority, cannot be intelligently discussed without first considering some features of the general law as to conditional privilege.

Political Crimes Defined, Theodore Schroeder

Michigan Law Review

Continental Europe is in the midst of revolutions. The immediate antecedents are such as to suggest the probable accompaniment of more widespread and perhaps even more intense passions of various sort, than have ever before been brought into being with a revolution. This in turn suggests the likelihood that there will follow more political plots and counter-revolutions than is usual in such cases. From such causes it is highly probable that the juridical meaning of the statutory words "an offense of a political character" will be a matter of frequent controversy, as successive crops of exiles claim the right of …

Adminsration Of Justice In The Lake Michigan Wilderness, George Pickard

Michigan Law Review

There is a strange and quite unassembled story to be told of the part played by the administration of justice in the development of civilization out of the wilderness that surrounded the great Lake Michigan basin. This vast body of fresh water that now serves as an inter-communicating medium for great centers of modem life, was once only a great separating sea between long reaches of forests, infested with Indian tribes. Here and there were little clusters of cabins, inhabited by an adventurous people, who, within the span of two centuries, were submitted to the successive sways of three great …

Book Reviews, Henry M. Bates

Michigan Law Review

This little book makes no pretense of exhaustive, scholarly treatment. It is without notes, citation of cases or authorities, or index; nevertheless it is a work which could be read with interest and benefit by every thoughtful citizen. The purpose of the author is to show the enormous expansion of federal power and actual control, a development, as Mr. West says, which was inevitable if "We the People of the United States" were to become a nation or long endure even as a union of states. But the conditions and circumstances which have produced this extraordinary accretion of power to …

Theory Of Popular Sovereignty, Harold J. Laski

Michigan Law Review

Alexis de Tocqueville has wisely insisted upon the natural tendency of men to confound institutions that are necessary with institutions to which they have grown accustomed.' It is a truth more general in its application than he perhaps imagined. Certainly the student of political and legal ideas will in each age be compelled to examine theories which are called essential even when their original substance has, under pressure of new circumstance, passed into some allotropic form. Anyone, for instance, who analyses the modern theory of consideration will be convinced that, while judges do homage to an ancient content, they do …