Columbus Bar Briefs review of A Place of Recourse
Winter 2006
First, a short disclaimer is in order. Back in the days when I envisioned myself becoming a Professor of History, writing intellectual tomes and pontificating to students about Great Ideas, I heard about Roberta Sue Alexander when I took several Early American History courses with her former husband, John Alexander.
Given indirect knowledge of the author and given that I, like the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, spent years based in Cincinnati, I anticipated a book full of historic gossip about people I knew as well as history about the Court.
In part, I got what I expected. There were blurbs about people I knew or knew of like the late Judge Carl B. Rubin whose son I knew in college of Judge Robert M. Duncan who, until recently, lived down the street from me in Columbus or Judge James L. Graham who swore my late father-in-law into citizenship.
The book summed up the lives of the judges on the Court and significant cases that they decided.
For example, Alexander reviewed the case of runaway slave Margaret Garner, who murdered one of her children and tried to kill the others so that they would not have to grow up in slavery. Alexander points out that the case illustrates the continuing tug of war between federalism and states during the 1850s.
This case, called the most notorious fugitive slave case, was first written up by Quaker Abolitionist Levi Coffin in his 1876 book, Reminiscences. Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize-winning novel, Beloved, was based upon the case as was the opera premiered in 2005, The Strange Case of Margaret Garner, with music by Richard Danielpour and libretto by Toni Morrison.
U.S. Commissioner for the Southern District of Ohio John L. Pendy heard the case brought by the slave owner under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. In an attempt to bring the case under Ohio law rather than federal law, governed by the Fugitive Slave Act, the attorney for Garner obtained a murder indictment against his client.
But, Federal Judge Humphrey H. Leavitt refused to honor the state's writ of habeas corpus. “He held that once fugitives, under a valid warrant, were in federal custody, state processes could not be honored, even if the state were pressing criminal murder charges.”
Judge Leavitt, not personally in favor of slavery, felt bound by his oath of office to uphold the Constitution, the government and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. He also presided over at least twelve cases brought under the Fugitive Slave Act where the slave owners were pitted against slaves and those who tried to help them.
Later, the desegregation of schools and the extent to which a community school should be mandated to open its doors to individuals of a different race were important issues before all federal courts. Alexander touches briefly on the struggle between federal and state which, at the same time of the desegregation movement, was titled toward the federal controlling state activity. In the personal memory of some who will read this article, the Southern District Court decided Deal v. Cincinnati Bd. Of Educ., Bronson v. Bd. of Educ., and Penick v. Columbus Bd. of Educ., concerning the scope of integration of schools in the southern part of Ohio.
The book touches on jurisdictional problems such as state-federal relations which seem constantly to be present. For example, should the Eleventh Amendment override the Fourteenth when it comes to determining the ability of the federal government to impose its power visa vi civil rights or laws concerning disability or the power of women to apply for relief in federal courts if the state court leaves them with nothing?
This book is a solid history of our judicial system written by someone who is both a historian and a lawyer. It describes the growth of the U.S. Court system by focusing on one federal district court out on ninety-one and the types of cases handled by the judges. The U.S. district courts are, as Alexander notes in her introduction, “more than arenas in which individual citizens come to protect their constitutional rights and freedoms and the federal government enforces its laws against those accused of violations and noncompliance. They also provide forums in which private parties can resolve their disputes peacefully.”
There was quite a but more about the origins of the Court, and the role it and the judges who sat on its bench played in Ohio's history that can be explained and summed up in one, short book review.
The book is worth reading, but don't settle down with it in a comfortable chair when you are tired. While some histories are written like novels. This one is detailed and cannot be called light reading. It has much information stuffed into 274 pages of text and at times seems to hop rather than flow from topic to topic.
The length of the discussion of the Garner case is long and heavily footnoted. The small print makes reading the book a bit more difficult than necessary.
That said, it is an important study of the court system. Perhaps, it would be good for the first year law students to read so they understand how the court system developed and what some of the major arguments have been. Certainly, we who practice in the courts should read this book to gain valuable background into our legal system and its history.
1. Alexander, A Place of Recourse, p. 43. The real Margaret Garner was returned with other escaped slaves to Kentucky and was sold down the river before Ohio Governor Chase's request for Garner to be returned to Ohio to be tried for murder could be honored by the Kentucky Governor. On the way downriver, her boat sank and another of her children died.
Columbus Bar Briefs
Winter 2006
