Search

Presents notes relating to law compiled as of March 1896. Announcement of the death of Charles Doe, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire; Importance of the opinion of the House of Lords in the case "Angus v. Dalton"; Applications of the doctrine of respondent superior.

Examines the jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court to review judgments of the District Court and Circuit Court of Appeals. Supreme Court jurisdiction of appeals and writs of error; Provisions of the Judicial Code which grants appellate jurisdiction over the district courts; Determination of the appealability of cases from the District Court.

The article reports that since the United States Supreme Court ruled in May of 1954 that it is unconstitutional for any public institution of learning to discriminate against anyone because of race or creed, most Southern states have made token attempts to integrate. Until recently, three states had been successful in avoiding compliance with the Supreme Court ruling--Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Of the three noncompliant states, Alabama was unique in that in 1956 the University of Alabama admitted a Negro to the University but shortly thereafter expelled the student for violation of certain University regulations. Prior to the expelling of the student, however, the reaction of both students and the general public was rather severe and riotous. Since the student was expelled, no apparent serious attempt has been made to reintegrate the University, and the University remains legally integrated, actually segregated. The basic questions which stimulated the authors were not concerned with whether the University will eventually integrate--it is public knowledge that the University of Alabama is under court order to admit qualified Negroes--but rather with whether the students are ready to accept integration, even token integration.

Any person who studies the record of the Supreme Court of the United States must arrive somewhere near the conclusion that body of nine justices is the most powerful peacetime agency of government in this country. While the Supreme Court has continued to be composed, for the most part, of aged men who might be regarded as eligible to the comforts of retirement after lives of strenuous legal activity, the judicial duties which it ha to perform have become continually more oppressive. During the last decade, as the result of a speeding-up process, the court has actually considered an average of five-hundred and forty two cases annually, over two-hundred and twenty-five more than the average which it considered annually during the ten-year period from 1885 to 1894, and over one-hundred and forty more than the annual average from 1905 to 1914. In the put fifty years the court's production in the matter of cases considered has practically doubled. The working force has not been increased, and, if age is any index, its strength and vitality has not been enhanced.

The article continues an article of the same title in the previous issue of "Sozialer Fortschritt" on how selected U.S. Supreme Court decisions have influenced the development of U.S. society. Rulings dating from 1875 on civil rights, voting rights, racial segregation, and the legal status of African-Americans are named, cited, and summarized.

The article discusses Germany's Bundessozialhilfegesetz (BSHG - federal social welfare law) and the amendment to the Jugendwohlfahrtsgesetz (JWG - youth welfare law). Several provinces and cities filed constitutional challenges to the laws. The federal constitutional court's ruling in July 1967 is presented. The statutes were found essentially constitutional, although the court voided two paragraphs in each of the two laws.

The article discusses the four year delay of Germany's Bundesarbeitsgericht (Federal Labor Court) to render a decision on workers' incomes. The labor court in turn put blame on the Constitutional Court for failing to work expeditiously. The author finds the delays not only legally shameful but injurious to workers with financial obligations to meet.

Focuses on the U.S. Supreme Court case Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. versus Smith in the U.S. in 1939. Applications of the Jones Act to the case; Charges filed by the plaintiff; Ruling issued by the court on the case.

This article presents information regarding judicial decisions on criminal law and procedure. It describes the case People v. St. Maurice. Defendant was convicted of a crime and sentenced to pay a fine or in default thereof to be imprisoned. The judgment was affirmed by the court of appeal, and from this affirmance she appealed to the Supreme Court. While this last appeal was pending she died. The statutes provide that execution may be issued on a judgment imposing a fine, as on a judgment in a civil action and that such judgment constitutes a lien. Regarding the case People v. Schultz, it says that error in permitting a physician to testify that, according to the history of the case and to his findings, he thought it was a case of rape was prejudicial, where the court refused to permit another physician who had examined prosecutrix to state whether rape had been committed, and the prosecuting attorney in argument quoted as a proven fact the witness' opinion that prosecutrix's inflamed condition was caused by rape.

The article presents some Police Science legal abstracts and notes. An objection was raised by the defendant in the recent case of People vs. Jersky, 36 N. E. (2d) 347 (1941) to the testimony of an expert as to the distance from the deceased at which a revolver had been fired. The defendant pleaded self-defense, contending that the gun was fired at close range as he and the deceased were wrestling for its possession. In upholding the trial court's conviction the Illinois Supreme Court held that the expert's opinion pertained only to an evidentiary fact and not to an ultimate fact and that therefore his opinion could not be considered as an invasion of the jury's province. In the recent case of Apodoca vs. State, 146 S. W. (2d) 381 (Texas, 1940), the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that it was in violation of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination to compel a motorist (under arrest for killing a pedestrian) to submit to various tests for alcoholic intoxication. Since no other state has so strict a statute or so consistently conservative decisions upon the general subject of criminal confessions, this recent decision loses some of its significance in so far as other jurisdictions are concerned.

This article presents a decision made by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) on the Kriegsgefangenenentschädigungsgestz (Compensation Law for Prisoners of War) in West Germany. § 27 Sec. 4 of the discusses the fees that the plaintiff must pay even if the decision is made in the plaintiffs favor.