"Revised and updated guide to the language of law" -P. [1]Cover.
An English court in 1736 described rape as an accusation“easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defendedby the party accused, though never so innocent. ”To prove thecrime, the law required a woman to physically resist, to put up a“hue and cry,” as evidence of her unwillingness. Beginning in the1970s, however, feminist and victim-advocacy groups began changingattitudes toward rape so the crime is now seen as violent initself: the legal definition of rape now includes everything fromthe sadistic serial rapist to the eighteen-year-old who hasconsensual sex with a fourteen-year-old. This inclusiveness means there are now more rapists among us. Andmore of rape’s camp followers: the prison-makers, the communitywatchdogs, law-and-order politicians, and the real-crime/real-timeentertainment industry. Vanessa Place examines the ambiguity ofrape law by presenting cases where guilt lies, but lies uneasily,and leads into larger ethical questions of what defines guilt, whatis justice, and wh
An examination of privacy and the evolution of communication,from broken sealing wax to high-tech wiretapping A sweeping story of the right to privacy as it sped alongcolonial postal routes, telegraph wires, and even today’sfiber-optic cables, American Privacy traces the lineage of culturalnorms and legal mandates that have swirled around the FourthAmendment since its adoption. Legally, technologically, andhistorically grounded, Frederick Lane’s book presents a vivid andpenetrating exploration that, in the words of people’s historianHoward Zinn, “challenges us to defendour most basic rights.”--Fromthe Trade Paperback edition.
Peter Irons introduces 16 Americans who had the courage andperseverance to pursue a belief in their constitutional rights allthe way to the Surpreme Court. Their cases, decided by the SurpremeCourt between 1940 and 1986, raise four major issues of our time --religion, race, protest, and privacy.
The Religious Right has dedicated much of the last thirty years to molding the federal judiciary, always with an eye toward casting the Supreme Court in its image. Through broad political work that has involved grassroots campaigns as much as aggressive lobbying, and a welltended career path for conservative law students and attorneys, the Right has been incredibly effective in influencing major Court decisions on everything from laws banning prayer in school to women's secure access to abortion and birth control. How will the courts set in place in recent decades confront stem cell research, gay rights, or euthanasia in a new era? In The Court and the Cross, attorney and legal journalist Frederick Lane draws on legal history and savvy political analysis to expose, in layperson's terms, the Religious Right's unrelenting efforts to declare the United States a Christian nation.
Probably written by a student of Aristotle, The AthenianConstitution is both a history and an analysis of Athens' politicalmachinery between the seventh and fourth centuries BC, which standsas a model of democracy at a time when city-states lived underdiffering kinds of government. The writer recounts the majorreforms of Solon, the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus and his sons,the emergence of the democracy in which power was shared by allfree male citizens, and the leadership of Pericles and thedemagogues who followed him. He goes on to examine the city'sadministration in his own time - the council, the officials and thejudicial system. For its information on Athens' development and howthe democracy worked, The Athenian Constitution is an invaluablesource of knowledge about the Athenian city-state.
A perfect introduction to a vital subject very fewAmericans understand-the constitutional status of AmericanIndians Few American s know that Indian tribes havea legal status unique among America's distinct racial and ethnicgroups: they are sovereign governments who engage in relations withCongress. This peculiar arrangement has led to frequent legal andpolitical disputes-indeed, the history of American Indians andAmerican law has been one of clashing values and sometimes uneasycompromise. In this clear-sighted account, American Indian scholarN. Bruce Duthu explains the landmark cases in Indian law of thepast two centuries. Exploring subjects as diverse as jurisdictionalauthority, control of environmental resources, and the regulationsthat allow the operation of gambling casinos, American Indiansand the Law gives us an accessible entry point into a vitalfacet of Indian history.