Aftermath of Death Sentence

2019 ◽  
pp. 134-165
Author(s):  
Jonathan Y. Okamura
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
The Public ◽  
Daily Newspapers ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Way

This chapter covers the period after Fukunaga was given the death sentence to more than a year later, including his execution in November 1929. It reviews the legal appeals to save him from being hanged, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The chapter also discusses the public assertions of colorblindness in the case by the Honolulu daily newspapers, the Nippu Jiji, and the presiding judge at his trial, which all sought to deny the decisive role that race played in his conviction. It outlines the advocacy efforts by the Japanese American community organized by the Hawaii Hochi to obtain a new trial for Fukunaga and the opposition to that campaign led by the Honolulu press, including the Nippu Jiji.

scholarly journals Is The Pcaob a “Heavily Controlled Component” Of The Sec?: An Essential Question In The Constitutional Controversy

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna M. Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Free Enterprise ◽  
Public Companies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Public Company ◽  
Essential Question ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, described as “the most important separation-of-powers case regarding the President’s appointment and removal powers to reach the courts in the last 20 years.” Established by Congress as the cornerstone of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“Sarbanes-Oxley” or the “Act”), the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (the “PCAOB” or the “Board”) was structured as “a strong, independent board to oversee the conduct of the auditors of public companies.” Its principal mission was to prevent the type of auditing failures that contributed to the scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and numerous other public companies in the period leading up to the passage of the Act.

New Deal Mass Surveillance: The “Black Inquisition Committee,” 1935–1936

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
David T. Beito
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Public Utility ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
The Public ◽  
Roosevelt Administration ◽  
The Press ◽  
Tax Returns ◽  
Mass Surveillance ◽  
The U.S

Abstract:At the behest of the Roosevelt administration in 1935, the U.S. Senate established a special committee to investigate lobbying activities by opponents of the “death sentence” of the Public Utility Holding Company Bill. Chaired by Hugo L. Black (D-Ala.), the “Black Committee” expanded its mission into a more general probe of anti–New Deal organizations and individuals. The committee used highly intrusive methods, notably catch-all dragnet subpoenas, to secure evidence. It worked closely with the IRS for access to tax returns and with the FCC to obtain copies of millions of telegrams. When the telegram search became public information, there was a major backlash from the press, Congress, and the courts. Court rulings in 1936, resulting from suits by William Randolph Hearst and others, not only limited the committee’s powers but provided important checks for future investigators, including Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The Claim of Issue Creation on the U.S. Supreme Court

1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Epstein ◽  
Jeffrey A. Segal ◽  
Timothy Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
The Creation ◽  
To Come ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Way

We argue that a variant of the sua sponte doctrine, namely, the practice disfavoring the creation of issues not raised in the legal record, is a norm with substantial consequences for the U.S. Supreme Court. Without it, justices would act considerably more like legislators, who are free to engage in “issue creation,” and less like jurists, who must wait for issues to come to them. Yet, McGuire and Palmer claim that justices engage in issue creation in a “significant minority” of their cases. We dispute this finding because we think it is an artifact of the way McGuire and Palmer collected their data. Indeed, for virtually every case in which they found evidence of issue creation, we show that the issue was actually present in at least one of the litigants' briefs. This suggests that justices may be policy seekers, but they are not policy entrepreneurs; an that briefs filed by third parties (such as amici curiae) are generally not a source of important issues considered by the Court.

The Execution of Wallace Wilkerson

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Acker ◽  
Ryan Champagne
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
Firing Squad ◽  
Lethal Injection ◽  
The U.S

Wallace Wilkerson was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1879 after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of his sentence. Shots from the marksmen’s rifles missed his heart. Not strapped into the chair where he had been seated, Wilkerson lurched onto the ground and exclaimed, “My God!…They missed it!” He groaned, continued breathing, and was pronounced dead some 27 min later. Relying on contemporaneous news accounts and legal documents, this article describes Wilkerson’s crime, the judicial decisions upholding his death sentence, and his execution. It next examines ensuing methods of capital punishment from the electric chair through lethal injection and notes persistent gaps between principle and practice in the continuing quest for increasingly humane modes of execution. The article concludes by suggesting that Wilkerson’s botched firing squad execution harbingered difficulties which continue to plague capital punishment. The implications for the future of the death penalty—a long-standing and resilient practice in American criminal justice—and the ultimate legacy of Wallace Wilkerson remain uncertain, although starkly evident is the daunting and perhaps impossible challenge of reconciling the paradox inherent in the concept of a “humane execution.”

scholarly journals Elonis v. United States: The Doctrine of True Threats: Protecting Our Ever-Shrinking First Amendment Rights in the New Era of Communication

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-223
Author(s):  
Mary Margaret Roark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The U.S

The First Amendment protects one of our most precious rights as citizens of the United States—the freedom of speech. Such protection has withstood the test of time, even safeguarding speech that much of the population would find distasteful. There is one form of speech which cannot be protected: the true threat. However, the definition of what constitutes a "true threat" has expanded since its inception. In the new era of communication—where most users post first and edit later—the First Amendment protection we once possessed has been eroded as more and more speech is considered proscribable as a "true threat." In order to adequately protect both the public at large and our individual right to free speech, courts should analyze a speaker’s subjective intent before labeling speech a "true threat." Though many courts have adopted an objective, reasonable listener test, the U.S. Supreme Court now has the opportunity, in deciding Elonis v. United States, to take a monumental step in protecting the First Amendment right to free speech. By holding that the speaker’s subjective intent to threaten is necessary for a true threat conviction, the Court will restore the broad protection afforded by the First Amendment and repair years of erosion caused by an objective approach.

scholarly journals A Paradox in Polarization? Cross-pressured Representatives and the Missing Incentive to Moderate

World Affairs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 182 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-96
Author(s):  
Benjamin T. Toll
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Way

Members of the public are often left choosing between two extreme candidates who will not represent the moderate, aggregate, public effectively. Cross-pressured members of the U.S. Congress serve a constituency that votes for the opposite party at the national level. If there is any group of representatives that have an incentive to moderate their voting behavior, it is cross-pressured members. In this article, I show that cross-pressured members are more moderate than the average member of their party. This could provide constraints on rampant partisanship in the form of districts that are comfortable electing a representative of one party and voting for the president of the other. However, I show that these members are significantly less likely to be reelected. Thus a paradox exists in which cross-pressured members who moderate their voting behavior are no more likely to be rewarded for behaving the way citizens claim they want to represent.

8. The Court and the world

2020 ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Linda Greenhouse
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Specific Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
The U.S

When the Framers set the Supreme Court in motion, they had no template for what they were about to create. “The court and the world” demonstrates that other countries were able to use the Supreme Court for inspiration, and many have done so. What they have chosen to take and leave from the Court’s example is instructive. Lifetime tenure is less common outside the United States, with most European courts preferring nine- or ten-year appointments and aiming for unanimity rather than majority. While specific knowledge about the Court is limited, the U.S. Supreme Court still holds a place in the public imagination.

scholarly journals Secrecy Inc.

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Daxton "Chip" Stewart ◽  
Amy Kristin Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Public Private Partnerships ◽  
Trade Secrets ◽  
The Public ◽  
Government Body ◽  
Public Oversight ◽  
The U.S

As governments engage in public-private partnerships, they have devised ways to shield the public’s business from the traditional level scrutiny offered by citizens and journalists, watchdogs of the public trust. The authors propose rethinking public oversight of private vendors doing government business. First, the authors explore the historical and legal background of open records laws. This core purpose is undermined by overly broad interpretations of trade secrets and competitive harm exceptions, a trend exacerbated by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2019 ruling. The authors demonstrate why public-private collusion to sabotage transparency demands a reinvigorated approach to the quasi-government body doctrine, which has been sharply limited for decades. The authors conclude with recommendations on reversing the trend.

scholarly journals Permanent Digital Legal Information: Disappearing URLs and Preservation of Digital Objects Cited in Court Decisions*

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sasha Skenderija
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Network Models ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Electronic Resources ◽  
Legal Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
The U.S

AbstractThe recent transformation of legal information has led to more drastic consequences in law than in some other fields. As electronic resources become more prevalent and available, courts begin citing to them. The emerging digital-born information and the new network models of communication such as Law Blogs and Wikipedia have already acquired a certain status, being cited by court decisions. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court recently cited a videotape in its decision of Scott v. Harris (2007), saying “it speaks for itself,” and included it in the opinion as an attachment.Unfortunately, like many other government entities, the courts have not taken precautions to make sure that the materials they cite remain stable and available to the public for long term access. This is so, even though “no one is supposed to ignore the law.” What happens when the materials one relies on disappear?This paper examines the serious implications that could arise from this situation. It will also examine the challenges, new roles and possible course of action for law libraries and librarians in ensuring the availability of digital objects in the legal field far in the future.

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