The Goodson Blogson

As part of a new consortial arrangement, Duke now has campus-wide access to all database titles published by Adam Matthew Digital . While the Duke University Libraries already subscribed to a number of the company's historical research titles, the deal has added more than a dozen new sources to the Duke community’s access. One of the most intriguing of these new additions is London Low Life: Street Culture, Social Reform and the Victorian Underworld , a full-text research database of primary sources related to London in the 1800s and 1900s. The "Browse Documents" section provides easy access to materials on topics like "Crime and Justice" (pamphlets, broadsides, and news accounts of crimes and trials), "Politics, Scandal, and the News" (political cartoons and other publications, often related to legal proceedings), and "Disreputable London" (tourist guides to the seedier side of the city as well as slang dictionaries of the era). The databas...

Halloween is just around the corner. Maybe you're too busy with law school to properly plan a costume. Maybe the party store has been picked clean by the time you get around to it, and now you're stuck with a risqué postal worker outfit from the bargain bin. Oh well, you can't just show up to the party dressed as a stressed-out law student, right? Except now, that gunner from your criminal law section who reads the U.S. Code for fun starts telling you how your last-resort costume is actually a federal crime. Wait, what? Is your legal career over before it even begins? Probably not (at least, not for this). 18 U.S.C. § 1730 does state that "Whoever, not being connected with the letter-carrier branch of the Postal Service, wears the uniform or badge which may be prescribed by the Postal Service to be worn by letter carriers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both." Originally enacted in 1872 ( 17 Stat. 296 ), Congress am...

Live on the air during a BBC radio interview late last week, best-selling author Naomi Wolf received some unwelcome news about her new book, Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalization of Love . While discussing the history of same-sex relations in Victorian England, the program host disputed the author's claims that "several dozen executions" for the crime of homosexuality were recorded at the Old Bailey (London's Central Criminal Court). Wolf based this claim on the use of the phrase "death recorded" for defendants, such as 14-year-old Thomas Silver, whose guilty plea and death sentence for sodomy were recorded in 1859 . During the exchange, which can be heard around the 20:00 – 25:00 minute mark of the recording , host Matthew Sweet refuted Wolf's assertion that death sentences had been carried out for Silver and others convicted of sodomy or homosexuality. Sweet, whose 2001 book Inventing the Victorians debunked a number of common misconcep...

At the close of business on Friday, news broke that Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III had filed the results of a nearly two-year-long investigation, " Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election ," to Attorney General William P. Barr. Today, Barr submitted a letter to the House Judiciary Committee which briefly summarized the report’s conclusions. As reported in various news outlets, the report summary is divided into two parts: Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and obstruction of justice. The investigation described two elements of Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, but "did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." The obstruction portion reviewed various actions by the President that had raised potential obstruction concerns. Notably, Barr's letter states...

Today marks 19 years since the shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in which two students killed 13 of their classmates before committing suicide. Since that tragic day, such incidents have become sadly more commonplace, with Education Week creating a statistical tracker to record school shootings in 2018 . Already this year, 22 people have lost their lives in school shootings, with the majority of these victims killed during the February 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The Parkland shooting has since galvanized the national debate about gun control reform. Yesterday, legal research database HeinOnline announced the release of a free new online library on Gun Regulation and Legislation in America , which is now available to the Duke University community. This library compiles federal legislative histories of firearms laws, congressional committee hearings, Congressional Research Service reports, Supreme Court briefs...

A new display in the Riddick Room case features material from the library's most recent archival acquisition, the Little Rascals Daycare Case Papers . The collection concerns seven people who were falsely accused of sexually abusing dozens of children at a daycare in Edenton, North Carolina in the late 1980s. The case is one example of the preoccupation with perceived abuse taking place at daycares and preschools in the 1980s and 1990s. Often, these cases also involved allegations of Satanism or devil worship. Like the Little Rascals case, most of these daycare abuse accusations turned out to be false. Riddick Room display of Little Rascals Daycare Case Papers; curated by Lee Cloninger & Cas Laskowski The Little Rascals Daycare material primarily concerns State v. Kelly , the trial of Robert "Bob" Kelly, the husband of the daycare's manager, Betsy Kelly. Both were members of the "Edenton Seven." Only two of the seven ever went to trial. Altho...

At Washington, D.C.'s Memorial Continental Hall, a distinguished group of federal officials, legal academics, and law enforcement representatives gathered to discuss crime prevention strategies. They traded the latest police investigation techniques, expressed concerns about the exploding narcotics trade, and debated the effects that media coverage of crimes has on society. While it sounds like this could be happening right now, it was actually at the Attorney General's National Conference on Crime , which took place more than 80 years ago: December 10-13, 1934. Attorney General Homer S. Cummings ( biography ) announced the conference plan in July 1934, shortly before boarding a ship from Los Angeles to Hawaii ("in connection with land condemnation proceedings of the government," according to the Chicago Tribune ). The Wall Street Journal reported that the planned December "crime parley" would include discussion of "prisons, paroles, bar ethics, and ...

On June 29, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Furman v. Georgia , which held that imposing death sentences on three inmates would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Expressing concerns about "arbitrary and discriminatory" imposition of capital punishment, the Court's per curiam opinion effectively suspended death sentences in the U.S. (Just four years later, the Court would reinstate the death penalty with its 7-2 opinion in Gregg v. Georgia , which reviewed amended Georgia statutes concerning capital punishment.) As discussed in both Supreme Court opinions, and in countless articles and books, capital punishment in America has a long and controversial history. While the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited "cruel and unusual punishment," the death penalty was common in every state, and the federal Crimes Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 112, c. 9) included death as the punishment for treason against the United States, willful murd...

The 2013 and 2017 chemical weapon attacks on civilians in Syria have generated ongoing conversations about the role of international criminal courts in humanitarian crises. A new book in the Goodson Law Library, Christopher Rudolph's Power and Principle: The Politics of International Criminal Courts (KZ7230 .R83 2017), explores the history and politics behind international criminal courts, and their role in humanitarian law. To learn more about international criminal tribunals, check out the Goodson Law Library's recently-updated research guide to International Criminal Law . This brief guide links to print and electronic resources for researching the International Criminal Court and other specialized international criminal tribunals, as well as guidance for locating books and other materials in the Law Library's collection. A more extensive overview of online research resources for international criminal law can be found on the American Society for International Law...

Are you one of the millions of users who downloaded the Pokémon GO app in its first week of release? Or have you spent the last few days confused by your friends' sudden stream of social media references to "PokéStops," "Poké Balls," and "Pidgeys"? For the uninitiated, Pokémon GO is an augmented-reality game, available in the US on iPhone or Android mobile devices, which encourages players to head outdoors in search of computer-generated creatures which pop up on your screen. Users catch the Pokémon by throwing a virtual ball, then engage in competitive battles with other users' Pokémon. The game was an instant cultural phenomenon, capitalizing on nostalgia for the Pokémon cartoons of the early 2000s and the prevalence of smartphones. Almost immediately, users began to flood public spaces which have been designated as Pokémon "Gyms" (including many churches, parks, and even the White House ). Despite safety warnings from municipal pol...

Part II of “Remembering the Nuremberg Trials” by Reference Librarian Marguerite Most (see part I) introduces several documents which predated World War II and were cited by the victor allies to support the legitimacy of the trials, and continues with an introduction to the significance of the trials for international criminal law today.  Following the unconditional surrender of Germany in 1945 and the signing of the London Charter, the Nuremberg trials (formally known as the International Military Tribunal (IMT)) opened. The trials established a framework for what is now commonly understood to be " international criminal law ." But for nearly the entire seventy years since the Nuremberg trials ended in October 1946, lawyers and historians have discussed the repercussions of the trials as legal and historical precedent. Here is how Amnesty International explains the legacy. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum explains the significance of the trials here . Some le...

In this two-part guest post, Reference Librarian Marguerite Most explores resources related to the current Riddick Room exhibit on the Nuremberg trials. Part I looks at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials (the International Military Tribunal), which occurred in 1945-1946 at the end of World War II. Part II, appearing later this week, is a brief introduction to the influence of the Tribunal on international law and the International Criminal Court, and a look back at several of the 18th and 19th century documents on which the legitimacy of the trials was built. The year was 1945 and the Second World War was over. On November 20, the Nuremberg Trials began. The trials were the first attempt to punish those responsible for the inhuman crimes committed by the German Nazi regime. The 70th anniversary year of the trials in 2015 was commemorated with numerous programs and in those seventy years historians and legal scholars have continued to examine their legacy. They are considered a landmark ...

This guest post was written by Marguerite Most , Reference Librarian and Senior Lecturing Fellow. "Men think 'tis a disgrace to change their mind… But there is not a greater piece of folly than not to give place to right reason." Samuel Sewall, January 1689. Source: Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall , a 2007 biography about Sewall in the Goodson Law Library collection. Scholars of colonial history will know the name Samuel Sewall . He was one of nine judges who presided over the 1692 witchcraft trials in Salem, and the only one to publicly acknowledge and accept blame for the harm and horror of the trials. Sewall is almost as well-known as the author of the first abolitionist tract in colonial America. Portrait of Samuel Sewall by Nathaniel Emmons (1728). Massachusetts Historical Society . In May 1692, Samuel Sewall was appointed by Massachusetts Governor William Phips to sit on the Court of Oyer and Terminer, a court created specific...

This guest post was written by Marguerite Most , Reference Librarian and Senior Lecturing Fellow. People were accused and executed for witchcraft throughout the colonies during the seventeenth century, but especially in Massachusetts. Today dressing in a witch's costume on Halloween is a way to make merry. But in the 17th-century Massachusetts Bay Colony, Puritans, who followed strict religious rules in their daily lives, lived in a pre-science era. Witches were real, and their doings explained what could not be otherwise explained. In the years preceding the Salem witchcraft trials Puritans ministers warned from the pulpit about demonic possessions and visits from Satan. Everyday reality mingled with an invisible world inhabited by these spirits, and religious values permeated every aspect of society. Satan was said to appear as a “black rogue,” or an Indian or an animal called a witch's familiar. For the Puritans, the devil and his witches affected the world in very serio...

Students of evidence already know that hypnotism has a long history in our legal system (for example, a 1902 Yale Law Journal article explored " Legal Aspects of Hypnotism "). Hypnotically-refreshed testimony, highly controversial on the subject of its admissibility and reliability, has received the majority of scholarly attention over the years. But another, even older, twist on hypnotism and the law resurfaced this week – liability for harm to a hypnotist's subject . In an unusual case from Florida, a school board approved a $600,000 settlement agreement with the families of three high school students who died in 2011 after they were hypnotized by the school's former principal. During an investigation after the tragic suicide of the first student, the school discovered that then-Principal George Kenney had hypnotized as many as 75 students and staff members in the school, and also taught students self-hypnosis techniques as a method to improve concentration. (A...

What is a year of your life worth? If you spent it behind bars for a crime you didn't commit, the answer may be lower than you think. As NPR reported yesterday , slightly more than half the states have procedures in place for restitution when a wrongfully-convicted person is exonerated. An interactive map , with links to the relevant code sections, is available courtesy of the Innocence Project. North Carolina fixes the amount at $50,000 per year in prison – an amount equal to the federal government and several other states, though experts note that this amount was selected by the federal government ten years ago simply to match the top-paying state at the time. Texas tops the list at $80,000, while Wisconsin offers only $5,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment. Although Wisconsin may look comparatively stingy, the states which offer higher amounts are not necessarily being generous. In many states, acceptance of the fixed payout waives a former inmate's right to sue – whic...

One of the most popular postings in Goodson Blogson history was our 2009 exploration of Hollywood's "Hays Code," which governed immoral or indecent conduct in American films during the early part of the twentieth century. (In hindsight, the attraction might have been the salacious title lifted directly from the Code's text, " Complete Nudity Is Never Permitted ".) The 2009 post outlined the history of Hollywood’s self-censorship from the 1920s to the 1960s, which began as a way to evade planned scrutiny by a proposed Federal Motion Picture Commission. Thanks to the film industry's self-regulation efforts, the planned federal agency never materialized. In its place came a series of morality codes, drafted by former U.S. Postmaster General William Hays. The “Hays Code” grew from a 1927 brief list of " Don'ts and Be Carefuls " into the more formal " Code to Govern the Making of Motion and Talking Pictures " which began to appear in t...

The Duke University Libraries now have access to Ancestry Library Edition , the institutional subscription level for Ancestry.com . All members of the University community can now access the popular genealogy database via campus computers, or from off-campus with a NetID and password. This news comes right on the heels of a Library of Congress blog post encouraging readers to use the holiday season as an opportunity to begin tracing family histories. But if family trees don't interest you, there may still be hidden treasures in the Ancestry database. Genealogists have long known the value of legal research materials; for example, see Kurt X. Metzmeier's 2006 bar newsletter article History in the Law Library: Using Legal Materials to Explore the Past and Find Lawyers, Felons and Other Scoundrels in Your Family Tree , available on SSRN . With this campus-wide access to Ancestry, perhaps legal researchers will discover the value of genealogical materials in turn. Ancestry’s ...

[Guest blogger Marguerite Most , Reference Librarian and Senior Lecturing Fellow, highlights some of the items which can be found in the library’s most recent display of special collections.] On November 20th, 1945, the Nuremberg Trials opened in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. The trials were restricted to the "punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries." In June, prior to the opening of the Trials, delegates of the major wartime powers met in London to discuss what to do with Nazi leaders. The American delegate and chief United States prosecutor at the trials, Associate Justice Robert Jackson, told negotiators from the other nations, "What we propose is to punish acts which have been regarded as criminal since the time of Cain and have been so written in every civilized code." The Goodson Law Library's J. Marshall Doswell, Jr. Nuremberg Trials Collection is a collection of books and memorabilia relating to the Tria...

Today's New York Times Magazine contains an in-depth examination of "restorative justice" in action. Author Paul Tullis recounts the 2010 murder of Florida college student Ann Grosmaire, shot by her boyfriend Conor McBride after a lengthy and heated argument. But Grosmaire's tragic death is just the beginning of the story. "Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?" asks the story's headline. For the parents of Ann Grosmaire, the answer was an emphatic yes. McBride had turned himself in to police almost immediately, confessing his guilt and remorse. He had been a welcome presence in their lives for three years prior to their daughter's killing. "Before this happened, I loved Conor," said Ann's mother, Kate Grosmaire. "I knew that if I defined Conor by that one moment — as a murderer — I was defining my daughter as a murder victim. And I could not allow that to happen." After learning about restorative justice f...