The Criminal Prosecution Strands of Restraints on Government

2018 ◽  
pp. 50-55
Author(s):  
Eric M. Freedman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Public Power ◽  
Female Prisoner ◽  
Female Prisoners ◽  
Early National ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Private Citizens

The legal restraints on public power during the colonial and early national periods included criminal prosecutions of officeholders, which could be pursued by both by private citizens and public prosecutors. We have only episodic knowledge of American private criminal prosecutions and thus cannot confidently generalize about their characteristics, as the Supreme Court seems to have recognized in Robertson v. United States ex rel. Watson (2010). Even today, the law on both the state and federal levels is continuing to evolve. In contrast, ample data shows that public criminal prosecution of officeholders has long been common and well-accepted. This chapter provides some examples from both sides of the Atlantic from the sixteenth through eighteenth century (e.g. prosecution of: London sheriffs Skynner and Catcher for gross abuse of female prisoners; General Thomas Picton, former Governor of Barbados, for ordering torture of native female prisoner to secure confession; North Carolina Secretary of State James Glasgow for issuing fraudulent land warrant; New Hampshire officials for failure to perform statutory duties).

Interweaving Actions

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-59
Author(s):  
Eric M. Freedman
Keyword(s):  
New Hampshire ◽  
Favorable Outcome ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Criminal Defendant ◽  
Early National ◽  
False Imprisonment

This Chapter describes how the system of restraints on power during the colonial and early national periods was synergistic yet homeostatic. The synergies arose because aggrieved parties might pursue their remedies simultaneously rather than sequentially. For example, when J.P. Wyseman Claggett of New Hampshire sent James Dwyer to jail pending trial on theft charges, the immediate result was both a criminal indictment for unlawfully altering the order and, as this Chapter details, a false imprisonment action by Dwyer against both Claggett and the constable who conducted the arrest. Yet while interweaving actions amplified the power of the system they also served as stabilizers. If a particular action were abused the victim might have recourse to a damages action of his or her own. For example, as several malicious prosecution cases in this Chapter illustrate, a criminal defendant who secured a favorable outcome could sue a party who had pursued a private criminal prosecution or wrongfully procured initiation of a public criminal prosecution.

Captain Hodsdon’s Legal Entanglements

2018 ◽  
pp. 30-39
Author(s):  
Eric M. Freedman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Army ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
The United States ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
Early National Period ◽  
Early National ◽  
The Subject ◽  
False Imprisonment

Illustrating the numerous legal restraints on power in the early national period, this chapter focuses on Captain Isaac Hodsdon of the United States Army, accused of wrongfully imprisoning men in Stewartstown, New Hampshire during the War of 1812. They first obtained a state writ of habeas corpus. Hodsdon’s response, that he would not produce the men because one was a prisoner of war and the other detained on federal charges was—quite appropriately—found contemptuous. He was prosecuted in private criminal contempt proceedings, and also held liable for damages in a false imprisonment action. Meanwhile the New Hampshire legislature (to whom Hodsdon apparently gave a false account of the events) passed a restoration to law statute, enabling him to overcome a missed deadline. Ultimately the United States Congress (of which his counsel, John Holmes, had become a member) granted him indemnity. These events were the subject of tart newspaper exchanges in the Concord Statesman & Register and the New-Hampshire Patriot.

6 Extraterritorial Application of U.S. Law

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley Curtis A
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Supreme Court

This chapter considers the application of federal and state law to conduct that takes place outside the territory of the United States. It begins by discussing the territorial scope of U.S. constitutional rights. The chapter then discusses the “presumption against extraterritoriality” that the Supreme Court applies when interpreting federal statutes. For situations in which the presumption is overcome or is inapplicable, the chapter explains how customary international law principles relating to prescriptive jurisdiction can be relevant in U.S. litigation through application of the Charming Betsy canon of construction. In addition, the chapter discusses the role of “universal jurisdiction” in U.S. litigation and criminal prosecution. Possible constitutional limitations on the extraterritorial application of both federal statutes and state laws, based on due process and other considerations, are also considered.

Maritime Enterprise in the New Republic: Investment in Baltimore Shipping, 1789–1793

1984 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early National ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
New Republic

By systematically analyzing ship registry documents it is possible to illuminate shipholding practices at major American ports in the early national era. In this article, Professor Gilbert focuses on shipholding in Baltimore in the period just prior to the late eighteenth century European war-induced shipping boom. He finds the port's foreign trade to be largely controlled by Baltimore residents. Merchants owned by far the largest percentage of the shipping, while mariners constituted an important, albeit secondary, investor group. Sole ownership of vessels was more extensive in Federalist Baltimore than in colonial Boston or Philadelphia. More detailed comparisons of shipowning practices among the major United States ports, Gilbert concludes, await further research.

In the Supreme Court of the United States: Clara Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust..

1988 ◽  
Vol 43 (12) ◽  
pp. 1019-1028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald N. Bersoff ◽  
Laurel P. Malson ◽  
Donald B. Verrilli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fort Worth ◽  
The Supreme Court

“Christians Love the Jews!” The Development of American Philo-Semitism, 1790-1860

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Whalen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Early National Period ◽  
Early National ◽  
Social Views ◽  
British Research

Philo-Semitism is America's enduring contribution to the long, troubled, often murderous dealings of Christians with Jews. Its origins are English, and it drew continuously on two centuries of British research into biblical prophecy from the seventeenth Century onward. Philo-Semitism was, however, soon “domesticated” and adapted to the political and theological climate of America after independence. As a result, it changed as America changed. In the early national period, religious literature abounded that foresaw the conversion of the Jews and the restoration of Israel as the ordained task of the millennial nation—the United States. This scenario was, allowing for exceptions, socially and theologically optimistic and politically liberal, as befit the ethos of a revolutionary era. By the eve of Civil War, however, countless evangelicals cleaved to a darker vision of Christ's return in blood and upheaval. They disparaged liberal social views and remained loyal to an Augustinian theology that others modified or abandoned.

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