Legal History Commons^™

The Confrontation Right, Richard D. Friedman

Book Chapters

This chapter examines the right of criminal defendants to be confronted with the witnesses against them. It first provides an overview of the nature, purposes, and costs of the confrontation right before discussing the history of the confrontation right. It then considers a range of issues that may arise in any jurisdiction (or in some cases, any common law jurisdiction) with regard to the confrontation right, using as a touchstone the current status of the right in the United States. In particular, it describes situations in which the question of whether a statement is testimonial typically arises, such as fresh …

Beyond The Borders Of The Law: Critical Legal Histories Of The North American West (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Reality Check: The Need To Repair The Broken System Of Delegating Legislative Power Under The National Emergencies Act, Michael J. Pastrick

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

When the National Emergencies Act was enacted in 1976, Congress could revoke a national emergency declaration by the President by a simple majority vote. Following a major Supreme Court decision in 1983, Congress, to simply retain its own legislative authority, suddenly was required to muster the support of two-thirds of the members of each chamber to override such a declaration. This Article proposes a practical, simple, and sturdy repair to the National Emergencies Act that will limit the potential for executive abuses by requiring Congress to extend, rather than to revoke, a national emergency declaration.

The Short History Of The Rule Of Law In The United States (1954-2016), Ryan Rowberry

Faculty Publications By Year

Many Americans and outside observers assume that the United States of America was founded upon a cluster of principles known as the "Rule of Law". Indeed, Articles I, II, and III of the United States Constitution of 1789, purportedly establish the rights and authorities of three co-equal branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Adherence to the Rule of Law in the United States, however, has a much shorter history. During the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, the President of the United States - leader of the executive branch - often ignored or contradicted decisions by the …

Occasional Publications Of The Bounds Law Library, Number Nine: Law And Miscellaneous Works: The Lives And Careers Of Joel White And Amand Pfister, Booksellers And Publishers, Paul M. Pruitt Jr., David I. Durham, Michael H. Hoeflich

Occasional Publications of the Bounds Law Library

Occasional Publications of the Bounds Law Library, Number Nine follows Amand Pfister and Joel White, booksellers and publishers, through their careers in 19th century Alabama. It includes images of their printed catalogs and other pertinent documents.

Sticks, Stones, And So-Called Judges: Why The Era Of Trump Necessitates Revisiting Presidential Influence On The Courts, Quinn W. Crowley

Indiana Law Journal

This Note will be primarily divided into three main sections. Part I of this Note will begin by discussing the importance of judicial independence in modern society and the role of elected officials in shaping the public perception of the courts. Additionally, as problems of judicial legitimacy are age-old and date back to America’s founding, Part I will include a brief discussion of an early clash between President Thomas Jefferson and the courts.

Parts II and III of this Note will seek to place President Trump’s conduct towards the judicial branch within the proper historical context. Part II examines the …

Islam In The Mind Of American State Courts: 1960 To 2001, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

This project reviews how American state courts portrayed Islam and Muslims from 1960 until September 11, 2001. The purpose of this project is not to construct some overarching theoretical framework to explain American social and legal views of Islam and Muslims, though I will necessarily interpret what the cases say to some extent. Given the lengthy time period involved, the number of cases in which Muslims or Islam are referenced, and the fact that these cases come from many states, it seemed prudent to defer to others who have constructed critiques of the way American law as a whole has …

Insidious Encroachment? Strengthening The "Crown Jewels": The 2018 Reauthorization Of Fisa Section 702, John F. Schifalacqua

American University National Security Law Brief

No abstract provided.

The Three Ages Of Modern American Lawyering And The Current Crisis In The Legal Profession And Legal Education, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

During the first months of 2018, two short pieces on legal education were published. One reported on the results of a survey of college graduates, law school graduates, and holders of other advanced degrees. The study found that today’s law graduates were less likely than pre-recession counterparts to report that the J.D. degree was worth the cost and more likely to have second thoughts about the decision to go to law school. The findings prompted Aaron Taylor, executive director of the Access Lex Center for Legal Education Excellence, to conclude that there are “two distinct worlds of law graduates” made …

Law Is Not Enough, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

In this Carhart Memorial Lecture, Professor Neil Siegel seeks to explain why, over the past several years, many Americans of diverse ideological commitments have been emphasizing the importance of constitutional norms. It is because they understand that law is not enough to sustain the American constitutional project. Why is law not enough? Because the vitally important purposes that Americans ascribe to the U.S. Constitution require more than legal fidelity for their vindication. Constitutional norms are constitutional in the sense that they are closely tied to the purposes, or spirit, of the Constitution. They are constitutional in the sense that it …

Celebrating Four Unruly Women, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In 1846, prison administrators at the Kingston Penitentiary replaced the daily whipping and flogging of prisoners with a new form punishment - The Box. The Box, as Ted McCoy describes it in his new book, Four Unruly Women: S fries f Incarceration and Resistance from Canada's Most Notorious Prison, was a six foot tall, three foot deep coffin used to impose a form of extreme isolation on unruly prisoners. The Box became the primary form of severe punishment for women prisons at Kingston when flogging was abolished.

Four Unruly Women depicts a shocking portrait of the cruelty and inhumanity imposed …

Owning Heller, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Recent historical research using big-data techniques casts doubt on whether District of Columbia v. Heller was rightly decided according to originalist methods. These new discoveries put originalists in a bind. Do they embrace “faint hearted” originalism: the idea that as between the need for stability in prior decision making, settled expectations, and the coherence of the law, some adulterated decisions must remain enforced for the greater good? Or do they follow Justice Thomas’s reasoning in Gamble v. United States, remain stout-hearted, and reject any prior decision that cannot be supported by the common linguistic usage of the founding era – …

Constitutional Conflict And Sensitive Places, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Annals Of Murder: The Life And Works Of Thomas M. Mcdade, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

Thomas M. McDade is best known (if not well-known enough) for his seminal 1961 reference bibliography, The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900. Beyond that singular text on early American murder trial accounts, though, lies more than 70 additional publications on American legal history, law enforcement, and literature, gathered together for the first time in an annotated bibliography of McDade’s lesser-known writings. The article also examines McDade’s fascinating life and varied career as an early FBI agent, World War II veteran, corporate executive, and true crime chronicler.

Goodrich-Amram: Who Were They?, Joel Fishman

Law Faculty Publications

Generations of Pennsylvania judges and lawyers have used Goodrich-Amram Procedural Rules with Forms as a major treatise on the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure. The authors wrote the first edition beginning in 1940 as Pennsylvania Procedural Rules Service, with Forms: Civil Practice Under the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure, published by Matthew Bender and Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company. There were four volumes with updates published as pamphlets refilling the volumes as needed. Two additional publications were A 1963 Supplement to the Rules Binder (binder) and a September 1977 pamphlet to the Rules Binder.2 In 1976, a …

Comparative Legal History. Edited By Olivier Moréteau, Aniceto Masferrer, And Kjell A. Modéer. Cheltenham, Uk; Northampton, Ma: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019 [Book Review], Dana Neacsu

Law Faculty Publications

Comparative Legal History stands out for both its content and its execution. At a time when most law schools devote themselves to the study of hic et nunc (here and now), Comparative Legal History proves there is something more than the rather dogmatic and pragmatic description of what is traditionally recognized as the law. In an age of hyper specialization, it discredits the absurd notion of law as (hard) science. Law, a human product, can easily be the object of scientific observations, but does that scientific observation need to be limited to the study of rules and norms in force …

Slouching Toward Universality: A Brief History Of Race, Voting, And Political Participation, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel Charles

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this brief history of race and voting in the United States, we look at five distinctive yet interrelated moments. The first is the founding period, a moment when the framers put our constitutional structure in place and set the initial federalist calculus in favor of the existing states. This is perhaps the most important moment in the story. The framers chose to allow the states to define the criteria for voting qualifications for federal elections. Instead of uniformity and centralization, they opted for diversity and decentralization. This is a choice that reverberates to this day. The second moment is …

When Big Brother Becomes “Big Father”: Examining The Continued Use Of Parens Patriae In State Juvenile Delinquency Proceedings, Emily R. Mowry

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The U.S. Constitution grants American citizens numerous Due Process rights; but, historically, the Supreme Court declined to extend these Due Process rights to children. Initially, common-law courts treated child offenders over the age of seven in the same manner as adult criminals. At the start of the 20th century, though, juvenile reformers assisted in creating unique juvenile courts that used the parens patriae doctrine and viewed children as delinquent youths in need of judicial parental guidance rather than punishment. Later, starting in 1967, the Supreme Court released multiple opinions extending certain constitutional Due Process rights to children in juvenile delinquency …

Judges Do It Better: Why Judges Can (And Should) Decide Life Or Death, Andrew R. Ford

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Following its decision in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court of the United States has attempted to standardize procedures that states use to subject offenders to the ultimate penalty. In practice, this attempt at standardization has divided capital sentencing into two distinct parts: the death eligibility decision and the death selection decision. The eligibility decision addresses whether the sentencer may impose the death penalty, while the selection decision determines who among that limited subset of eligible offenders is sentenced to death. In Ring v. Arizona, the Court held for the first time that the Sixth Amendment right to …

Contractual Incapacity And The Americans With Disabilities Act, Sean M. Scott

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The doctrine of contractual incapacity allows people with mental disabilities to avoid their contractual liability. Its underlying premise is that the law has an obligation to protect people with such disabilities both from themselves and from unscrupulous people who would take advantage of them; mental incapacity provides this protection by rendering certain contracts unenforceable. The Disability Rights Movement (“DRM”), however, has challenged such protective legal doctrines, as they rest on outmoded concepts about people with mental disabilities.

This essay argues that the mental incapacity doctrine undermines the goals of the DRM and the legislative goals of the Americans with Disabilities …