Law - Recent Titles from Ohio University Press

The Lawyer Myth

Fri, 01 Feb 2008

The Lawyer Myth (2008)
A Defense of the American Legal Profession

By Rennard Strickland and Frank T. Read

“When you mentioned to family or friends that you were considering becoming a lawyer, you probably faced skepticism, if not serious criticism . . . You are undoubtedly asking yourself if three or four years of a rigorous and costly legal education is really worth the candle. For you . . . we add these final comments. We hope that they will reassure you, as well as your friends and family, that it is possible, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. proclaimed, ‘to live greatly in the law.’”
— from The Lawyer Myth

Lawyers and the legal profession have become scapegoats for many of the problems of our age. In The Lawyer Myth: A Defense of the American Legal Profession, Rennard Strickland and Frank T. Read look behind current antilawyer media images to explore the historical role of lawyers as a balancing force in times of social, economic, and political change. One source of this disjunction of perception and reality, they find, is that American society has lost touch with the need for the lawyer’s skill and has come to blame unrelated social problems on the legal profession. This highly personal and impassioned book is their defense of lawyers and the rule of law in the United States.

The Lawyer Myth confronts the hypocrisy of critics from both the right and the left who attempt to exploit popular misperceptions about lawyers and judges to further their own social and political agendas. By revealing the facts and reasoning behind the decisions in such cases as the infamous McDonald’s coffee spill, the authors provide a clear explanation of the operation of the law while addressing misconceptions about the number of lawsuits, runaway jury verdicts, and legal “technicalities” that turn criminals out on the street.

Acknowledging that no system is perfect, the authors propose a slate of reforms for the bar, the judiciary, and law schools that will enable today’s lawyers—and tomorrow’s—to live up to the noble potential of their profession. Whether one thinks of lawyers as keepers of the springs of democracy, foot soldiers of the Constitution, architects and carpenters of commerce, umpires and field levelers, healers of the body politic, or simply bridge builders, The Lawyer Myth reminds us that lawyers are essential to American democracy.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Lawyer+Myth.
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The Rescue of Joshua Glover

Sun, 31 Dec 2006

The Rescue of Joshua Glover (2006)
A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War

By H. Robert Baker

On March 11, 1854, the people of Wisconsin prevented agents of the federal government from carrying away the fugitive slave, Joshua Glover. Assembling in mass outside the Milwaukee courthouse, they demanded that the federal officers respect his civil liberties as they would those of any other citizen of the state. When the officers refused, the crowd took matters into its own hands and rescued Joshua Glover. The federal government brought his rescuers to trial, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court intervened and took the bold step of ruling the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional.

The Rescue of Joshua Glover delves into the courtroom trials, political battles, and cultural equivocation precipitated by Joshua Glover's brief, but enormously important, appearance in Wisconsin on the eve of the Civil War.

H. Robert Baker articulates the many ways in which this case evoked powerful emotions in antebellum America, just as the stage adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin was touring the country and stirring antislavery sentiments. Terribly conflicted about race, Americans struggled mightily with a revolutionary heritage that sanctified liberty but also brooked compromise with slavery. Nevertheless, as The Rescue of Joshua Glover demonstrates, they maintained the principle that the people themselves were the last defenders of constitutional liberty, even as Glover's rescue raised troubling questions about citizenship and the place of free blacks in America.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Rescue+of+Joshua+Glover.
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Noble Purposes

Sun, 31 Dec 2006

Noble Purposes (2006)
Nine Champions of the Rule of Law

Edited by Norman Gross

John R. Vile on Samuel Sewall

John D. Gordan III on James Alexander

Paul Finkelman on Lemuel Shaw

Kermit L. Hall on Hugh Lennox Bond

Barbara Allen Babcock on Clara Shortridge Foltz

Mark Curriden on Noah Parden

Phillip B. Gonzales on Octaviano Larrazolo

Henry M. Greenberg on Louis Marshall

Cornell W. Clayton on Francis Biddle

Throughout the history of the United States, the acts of a few have proved to be turning points in the way our legal system has treated the least of us. The nine individuals whose deeds are recounted have compelling stories, and though they remain unknown to the general public, their commitment to the rule of law has had a lasting impact on our nation.

Noble Purposes brings their stories to life. It describes the contributions of such individuals as James Alexander, the guiding and central force in the colonial-era trial of John Peter Zenger, which sowed the seeds for the American Revolution and the constitutional guarantee of a free press.

In the 1870s, Hugh Lennox Bond stared down threats as judge in the trials of the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan, while Clara Shortridge Foltz overcame tremendous resistance during her fifty-year law practice, which included advocacy of public defender offices.

Early last century, Louis Marshall paved the way for the rights of minorities in America and abroad, while Francis Biddle, FDR's attorney general, sought to maintain civil liberties during World War II, arguing against the internment of Japanese Americans and later serving as the American judge in the Nuremberg trials.

Edited by legal scholar Norman Gross and written by leading legal historians from around the country, the profiles presented in Noble Purposes tell the stories of these and other individuals who stood firmly in support of the rule of law, often against great odds.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Noble+Purposes.
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The Fairer Death

Sat, 30 Sep 2006

The Fairer Death (2006)
Executing Women in Ohio

By Victor L. Streib

Women on death row are such a rarity that, once condemned, they may be ignored and forgotten. Ohio, a typical, middle-of-the-road death penalty state, provides a telling example of this phenomenon. The Fairer Death: Executing Women in Ohio explores Ohio’s experience with the death penalty for women and reflects on what this experience reveals about the death penalty for women throughout the nation.

Victor Streib’s analysis of two centuries of Ohio death penalty legislation and adjudication reveals no obvious exclusion of women or even any recognition of an issue of sex bias. In this respect, Ohio’s justice system exemplifies the subtle and insidious nature of this cultural disparity.

Professor Streib provides detailed descriptions of the cases of the four women actually executed by Ohio since its founding and of the cases of the eleven women sentenced to death in Ohio in the current death penalty era (1973–2005). Some of these cases had a profound impact on death penalty law, but most were routine and drew little attention. A generation later, reversals and commutations have left only one woman on Ohio’s death row.

Although Streib focuses specifically on Ohio, the underlying premise is that Ohio is, in many ways, a typical death penalty state. The Fairer Death provides insight into our national experience, provoking questions about the rationale for the death penalty and the many disparities in its administration.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Fairer+Death.
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The History of Michigan Law

Mon, 12 Jun 2006

The History of Michigan Law (2006)

Edited by Paul Finkelman and Martin J. Hershock

The History of Michigan Law offers the first serious survey of Michigan's rich legal past. Michigan legislators have played a leading role in developing modern civil rights law, protecting the environment, and assuring the right to counsel for those accused of crimes. Michigan was the first jurisdiction in the English-speaking world to abolish the death penalty. As the state industrialized, its legal system responded to the competing demands and interests of farmers, railroads, entrepreneurs, and workers.

Michigan was a beacon of liberty for fugitive slaves and free blacks before the Civil War and an early leader in the adoption of laws to protect civil rights and prohibit discrimination after that conflict. The state was the site of the Ossian Sweet murder trial, which illustrated the tensions in Michigan between law and popular ideology. The History of Michigan Law documents and analyzes these legal developments and others, including the history of labor law, women's rights, and legal education.

This landmark volume will serve as the entry point for all future studies that involve law and society in Michigan and will be invaluable in the comparative study of state law. As the Michigan Supreme Court enters its third century, The History of Michigan Law has relevance beyond the legal community, for scholars and students of American history.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+History+of+Michigan+Law.
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The History of Indiana Law

Thu, 01 Jun 2006

The History of Indiana Law (2006)

Edited by David J. Bodenhamer and Randall T. Shepard

Long regarded as a center for middle-American values, Indiana is also a cultural crossroads that has produced a rich and complex legal and constitutional heritage. The History of Indiana Law traces this history through a series of expert articles by identifying the themes that mark the state’s legal development and establish its place within the broader context of the Midwest and nation.

The History of Indiana Law explores the ways in which the state’s legal culture responded to—and at times resisted—the influence of national legal developments, including the tortured history of race relations in Indiana. Legal issues addressed by the contributors include the Indiana constitutional tradition, civil liberties, race, women’s rights, family law, welfare and the poor, education, crime and punishment, juvenile justice, the role of courts and judiciary, and landmark cases. The essays describe how Indiana law has adapted to the needs of an increasingly complex society.

The History of Indiana Law is an indispensable reference and invaluable first source to learn about law and society in Indiana during almost two centuries of statehood.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+History+of+Indiana+Law.
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The Black Laws

Tue, 15 Nov 2005

The Black Laws (2005)
Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio

By Stephen Middleton

Beginning in 1803, the Ohio legislature enacted what came to be known as the Black Laws. These laws instituted barriers against blacks entering the state and placed limits on black testimony against whites. Basing his narrative on massive primary research, often utilizing previously unexplored sources, Stephen Middleton tells the story of racial oppression in Ohio and recounts chilling episodes of how blacks asserted their freedom by challenging the restrictions in the racial codes until the state legislature repealed some pernicious features in 1849 and finally abolished them in 1886.

The fastest-growing state in antebellum America and the destination of whites from the North and the South, Ohio also became the destination for thousands of southern blacks, both free and runaway. Thus, nineteenth-century Ohio became a legal battleground for two powerful and far-reaching impulses in the history of race and law in America. One was the use of state power to further racial discrimination, and the other was the thirst of African Americans and their white allies for equality under the law for all Americans.

Written in a clear and compelling style, this pathbreaking study will be required reading for historians, legal scholars, students, and those interested in the struggle for civil rights in America.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Black+Laws.
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A Place of Recourse

Thu, 15 Sep 2005

A Place of Recourse (2005)
A History of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, 1803-2003

By Roberta Sue Alexander

The first history of a federal district court in a midwestern state, A Place of Recourse explains a district court's function and how its mission has evolved. The court has grown from an obscure institution adjudicating minor debt and land disputes to one that plays a central role in the political, economic, and social lives of southern Ohioans.

In tracing the court's development, Alexander explores the central issues confronting the district court judges during each historical era. She describes how this court in a non-slave state responded to fugitive slave laws and how a court whose jurisdiction included a major coal-mining region responded to striking workers and the unionization movement. The book also documents judicial responses to Prohibition, New Deal legislation, crime, mass tort litigation, and racial desegregation.

The history of a court is also the history of its judges. Accordingly, Alexander provides historical insight on current and past judges. She details behind-the-scenes maneuvers in judicial appointments and also the creativity some judges displayed on the bench—such as Judge Leavitt, who adopted admiralty law to deal with the problems of river traffic.

A Place of Recourse demonstrates that, at least in the Southern District of Ohio, the federal district court has played the role its creators hoped it would—upholding federal law even when the citizens of the region actively opposed such enforcement.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/A+Place+of+Recourse.
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Closing Arguments

Mon, 15 Aug 2005

Closing Arguments (2005)
Clarence Darrow on Religion, Law, and Society

Edited by S. T. Joshi

Clarence Darrow, son of a village undertaker and coffinmaker, rose to become one of America's greatest attorneys—and surely its most famous. The Ohio native gained renown for his central role in momentous trials, including his 1924 defense of Leopold and Loeb and his defense of Darwinian principles in the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial.” Some have traced Darrow’s lifelong campaign against capital punishment to his boyhood terror at seeing a Civil War soldier buried—and no client of Darrow’s was ever executed, not even black men who were accused of murder for killing members of a white mob.

Closing Arguments: Clarence Darrow on Religion, Law, and Society collects, for the first time, Darrow’s thoughts on his three main preoccupations, revealing a carefully conceived philosophy expressed with delightful pungency and clarity. His thoughts on social issues, especially on the dangers of religious fundamentalism, are uncannily prescient. A dry humor infuses his essays, and his reflections on himself and his philosophy reveal a quiet dignity at the core of a man better known for provoking Americans during an era of unprecedented tumult. From the wry “Is the Human Race Getting Anywhere?” to the scornful “Patriotism” and his elegiac summing up, “At Seventy-two,” Darrow’s writing still stimulates, pleases and challenges.

A rebel who always sided intellectually and emotionally with the minority, Darrow remains a figure to contend with sixty-seven years after his death. “Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet,” Darrow once said. Closing Arguments demonstrates that, in his case, that statement is true.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Closing+Arguments.
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Frontiers of Freedom

Wed, 26 Jan 2005

Frontiers of Freedom (2005)
Cincinnati’s Black Community 1802–1868

By Nikki M. Taylor

Nineteenth-century Cincinnati was northern in its geography, southern in its economy and politics, and western in its commercial aspirations. While those identities presented a crossroad of opportunity for native whites and immigrants, African Americans endured economic repression and a denial of civil rights, compounded by extreme and frequent mob violence. No other northern city rivaled Cincinnati's vicious mob spirit.

Frontiers of Freedom follows the black community as it moved from alienation and vulnerability in the 1820s toward collective consciousness and, eventually, political self-respect and self-determination. As author Nikki M. Taylor points out, this was a community that at times supported all-black communities, armed self-defense, and separate, but independent, black schools. Black Cincinnati's strategies to gain equality and citizenship were as dynamic as they were effective. When the black community united in armed defense of its homes and property during an 1841 mob attack, it demonstrated that it was no longer willing to be exiled from the city as it had been in 1829.

Frontiers of Freedom chronicles alternating moments of triumph and tribulation, of pride and pain; but more than anything, it chronicles the resilience of the black community in a particularly difficult urban context at a defining moment in American history.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Frontiers+of+Freedom.
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