tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6493142765016058848.post3252954572039253766..comments2024-01-08T18:50:03.087-08:00Comments on LawAndOrder: How Shall We View The Webster Smith Case?ichbinaljhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07968729252544011395noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6493142765016058848.post-67009413495709321552010-04-14T05:09:49.502-07:002010-04-14T05:09:49.502-07:00(A History of American Law, L. M. Friedman, 3rd Ed...(A History of American Law, L. M. Friedman, 3rd Ed., 2005, Simon & Schuster)<br /> An amazing piece of work that is not just a history of the American legal system, but a history of America as seen through its laws. It manages to cover everything from the development of equity law to the explosion of torts to the history of commerce and contracts, all without being pedantic or overly general.<br /><br />Friedman relies on odd laws, great cases, and telling quotes to explain his story. In discussing the battle between civil and common law in California, he quotes an early California legislature which waxed poetic on the wonders of the caveat emptor rule (it apparently caused commerce to "whiten every sea, woo every breeze"). He discusses an early law in Virginia that classified slaves as real estate instead of chattel, highlighting their novel nature in English legal history. He discusses the 1878 case of Hall v. DeCuir, where the Supreme Court overturned a Louisiana state law forbidding racial discrimination on common carriers as an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce, showing how the Court not only blocked federal anti-discrimination laws, it blocked any state attempts to staunch racial animosity, the Fourteenth Amendment notwithstanding.<br /><br />Friedman also wades into such complicated debates as the one surrounding the "Field Code," first passed in New York in 1848, which began the "codification" of American law yet could only get as far as clarifying civil procedure. Codes on penal and public law would sometimes have to wait a century for passage, at least outside the so-called Wild West (which he shows was overrun by more lawyers per capita than even the developed East. In this story, the West was filled with litigators, not cowboys.)<br /><br />I thought that this book might simply recapitulate some of Friedman's work in "Crime and Punishment in American History," but the sections on criminal law are brief, and usually deal with oddities and legal development. Overall, the books compliment each other nicely. Also, despite its broad title, the book focuses overwhelmingly on the nineteenth century (the colonial period is too sketchy and the 20th century is big enough that he deals with it in-depth in another book). Still, this is a great work that gave me a new appreciation for the world of the lawichbinaljhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968729252544011395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6493142765016058848.post-64919997053843413552010-04-07T17:04:28.606-07:002010-04-07T17:04:28.606-07:00Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) apologized o...Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) apologized on Wednesday 7 Apr 2010 for failing to include slavery in his proclamation declaring April as Confederate History Month. In his statement, McDonnell said slavery "has left a stain on the soul of this state and nation."ichbinaljhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968729252544011395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6493142765016058848.post-41569210924647482772010-04-03T23:33:53.106-07:002010-04-03T23:33:53.106-07:00ON JULY 6, 1944, Jackie Robinson boarded an Army b...ON JULY 6, 1944, Jackie Robinson boarded an Army bus at Fort Hood, Texas. He was one of thousands of Blacks thrust into the Jim Crow South during World War II. The driver demanded that Robinson get to the back of the bus "where the colored people belong.” Robinson refused, and so began a series of events that led to his arrest and court-martial <br />The court-martial of 2d Lt. Jackie Robinson took place on August 2, 1944.<br />During World War II, according to the historian Jack D. Foner, “many Black soldiers were unjustly convicted by courts-martial, either because their officers assumed their guilt regardless of the evidence or because they wanted to ‘set an example’ for other Black soldiers.”ichbinaljhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968729252544011395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6493142765016058848.post-63609441541038009772010-04-01T06:27:45.584-07:002010-04-01T06:27:45.584-07:00The first cadet ever court-martialed at the Coast ...The first cadet ever court-martialed at the Coast Guard Academy in New London has lost another appeal. <br />Cadet Webster Smith has filed a series of appeals since his conviction in 2006. Now, his only hope is to get his case to the United States Supreme Court. <br />The most recent appeal lost by Smith in the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces denied the request for a new trial. <br />Smith was kicked out of the Coast Guard and served five months in a military prison after being convicted of extortion, sodomy and other charged. Smith was acquitted of the most serious charge, rape. <br />The allegations he was convicted of were made by a fellow Coast Guard cadet, Shelly Roddenbush. <br />The judge at Smith’s court-martial would not let his lawyers ask her about her past. They said her past sexual relationships could have given her a motive to lie. <br />Smith appealed and said his constitutional right to confront his accuser had been violated. But, the court of appeals disagreed, saying "further cross-examination of Shelly was not 'constitutionally required.'" <br />Smith received the same response in 2008 from the United States Coast Guard Court of Appeals. <br />Both courts said the judge allowed enough background to give jurors an idea of Shelly’s past. <br />The latest opinion said more detail was "neither material nor vital to Smith's defense." <br />Smith is now married and has a child.ichbinaljhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968729252544011395noreply@blogger.com