Before the Law: An Introduction to the Legal Process

Before the Law promotes an interdisciplinary approach for introducing students to the purpose and practice of law in our society. Excerpts from recent and classic court cases, as well as material on trends in legal studies come from a range of legal sources, including court opinions; sociological, psychological, and anthropological analyses; historical and philosophical approaches; and literary reflections. Readings cover such current topics as online dispute resolution and protection of personal and property rights in cyberspace; gay marriage; and post-9/11 legislation for fighting terrorism.

Foreword F.1 Before the Law, Franz Kafka F.2 Dialogue Between a Priest and K., Franz Kafka F.3 The Problem of Our Laws, Franz Kafka F.4 Couriers, Franz Kafka I. Law in Theory and Practice 1. Lawmaking and Precedent: How Judges and Lawyers Reason from Prior Cases 1.1 The Bramble Bush, Karl N. Llewellyn 1.2 State v. Pendergrass 1.3 Joyner v. Joyner 1.4 State v. Black 1.5 State v. Rhodes 1.6 State v. Mabrey 1.7 The Bramble Bush (continued), Karl N. Llewellyn 1.8 State v. Oliver 2. Law and Official Discretion 2.1 The Judging Process and the Judge's Personality, Jerome Frank 2.2 A Forgery Case 2.3 The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens 2.4 Incarcerated America 3. Law and Values 3.1 The Sorcerer and His Magic, C. Levi-Strauss 3.2 Simple Living and Hard Choices, Maureen A. Flannery 3.3 Cook v. State 3.4 Furman v. Georgia 3.5 The Hanging Judges, Bryan Stevenson 3.6 The End of Executions? The Anti-Death Penalty Movement Is Gathering Force, Linda Lutton 3.7 A Hanging, George Orwell 4. Law and Conflicting Interests 4.1 Why the "Haves" Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change, Marc Galanter 4.2 The Case of the Spoiled Chiles, Laura Nader 4.3 Susquehanna Fertilizer Co. v. Malone 4.4 Madison v. Ducktown Sulphur, Copper & Iron Co. 4.5 Ohio v. Wyandotte Chemicals Corp. 4.6 Living Is for Everyone, Miriam Davidson 5. Law, Status, Wealth, and Power 5.1 Das Capital, "The Working Day," Karl Marx 5.2 American Textile Mfrs. Inst. v. Donovan 5.3 The State, V.I. Lenin 5.4 From Day Clean to First Dark, Kenneth Stampp 5.5 Thornton and Wife v. The Suffolk Manufacturing Company 5.6 Streich v. General Motors Corp. 5.7 Testimony of John Higbie 5.8 Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB 5.9 Testimony of William H. Bywater 5.10 The New Free-Trade Heel, Jeffrey Ballinger 5.11 Service Economy, John J. Bonsignore 6. Law and Popular Will 6.1 The Cheyenne Way, Karl N. Llewellyn and E. Adamson Hoebel 6.2 Law and Authority, Peter Kropotkin 6.3 The Watchman, Franz Kafka 6.4 First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti 6.5 Proposition 215: The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 6.6 Romer v. Evans 6.7 Goodridge v. Department of Public Health 7. Feminist and Racial Perspectives on Law and Legal Order 7.1 EEOC v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. 7.2 International Union, UAW v. Johnson Controls 7.3 Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. 7.4 Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex, Kimberle Crenshaw 7.5 A Critique of "Our Constitution Is Color-Blind," Neil Gotanda Conclusion Suggested Additional Readings II. Law Enforcement 8. Legal Force 8.1 The Violence of Legal Acts, Robert M. Cover 8.2 Address to the Prisoners in the Cook County Jail, Clarence Darrow 8.3 The Rule of Law Versus the Order of Custom, Stanley Diamond 9. Legal Rights 9.1 The Law Is Terror Put into Word's, Peter d'Errico 9.2 Excerpt from "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King, Jr. 9.3 Feminism and Porn: Fellow Travelers, Wendy McElroy 10. Law's Techniques 10.1 Confronting the Complexity of the Policing Function, Herman Goldstein 10.2 Walking the Beat Alone: An African American Police Officer's Perspective on Petit Apartheid, Jackie Campbell 10.3 Terry v. State of Ohio 10.4 Brown v. Texas 10.5 Florida v. Bostick 10.6 Interstate Travel: Constitutional Challenges to the Identification Requirement and Other Transportation Security Regulations, Todd B. Tatelman Conclusion Suggested Additional Readings III. Lawyers 11. The Profession of Law 11.1 The Temper of the Legal Profession in the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville 11.2 Friendly Fire, David Goodman 11.3 The Big Casino, Roy Grutman and Bill Thomas 11.4 The Price of Law, Gilliam K. Hadfield 12. The Education of Lawyers 12.1 Law School: Caught in the Paradigmatic Squeeze, John J. Bonsignore 12.2 Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy, Duncan Kennedy 12.3 Diary of a Law Professor, Patricia J. Williams 13. Lawyers and the Adversary Process 13.1 The Ethics of Advocacy, Charles P. Curtis 13.2 The "Fight" Theory Versus the "Truth," Theory Jerome Frank 13.3 "I Have Nothing to Do with Justice," James Mills 13.4 The End of Law, Rex R. Perschbacker and Debra Lyn Bassett Suggested Additional Readings IV. The Jury 14. The Jury in a Historical and Cultural Context 14.1 Constitution of the United States, Amendments 15. The Jury as a Political Institution 15.1 Duncan v. Louisiana 15.2 Blakely v. Washington 15.3 Trial by Jury in the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville 15.4 Jury Nullification: The Right to Say No, Alan Scheflin 15.5 Merciful Juries: The Resilience of Jury Nullification, Alan W. Scheflin and Jon M. Van Dyke 15.6 Jury Instructions 15.7 United States v. Dougherty et al. 16. Jury Selection in a Pluralistic Society: The Problem of Gender Discrimination and the Case of Racial Peremptories 16.1 Equality, Law, and Belonging: An Introduction, Kenneth Karst 16.2 A Jury of Her Peers, Susan Glaspell 16.3 Our Juries, Our Selves: The Power, Perception, and Politics of the Civil Jury, Laura Gaston Dooley 16.4 Peremptory Challenges and Affirmative Action: Constitutional Protections for a Jury of Peers, Stephen Arons 16.5 Batson v. Kentucky 16.6 The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning with Unconscious Racism, Charles R. Lawrence III 16.7 Miller-El v. Cockrell 17. Decline of the Jury: Democracy at Risk? 17.1 Excerpt from The Transformation of American Law, Morton Horwitz 17.2 An Introduction to Tort Reform and Its Effect on the Survival of Trial by Jury, Stephen Arons 17.3 The Not-So-Quiet Revolution, Philip Corboy 17.4 Empirical Research and Civil Jury Reform, Valerie P. Hans and Stephanie Albertson 17.5 Johnson v. Louisiana 17.6 Apodaca et al. v. Oregon 17.7 The Unanimous Verdict, Jeffrey Abramson Conclusion Suggested Additional Readings V. Conflict Resolution 18. Legal Context of Dispute Resolution 18.1 The Transformation of Disputes by Lawyers: What the Dispute Paradigm Does and Does Not Tell Us, Carrie Menkel-Meadow 18.2 Mediation from a Feminist Perspective: Promise and Problems, Janet Rifkin 18.3 The Culture of Battering and the Role of Mediation in Domestic Violence Cases, Karla Fischer, Neil Vidmar, and Rene Ellis 18.4 Scrapping the Plea-Bargain, Jennifer Smith 19. Dispute Resolution and Community Justice 19.1 The Social Organization of Mediation in Nonindustrial Societies: Implications for Informal Community Justice in America, Sally Engle Merry 19.2 The Development and Impact of Victim-Offender Mediation in the United States, Mark S. Umbreit 19.3 Talking with the Enemy, Anne Fowler, Nicki Nichols Gamble, Frances X. Hogan, Melissa Kogut, Madeline McComish, and Barbara Thorp 20. Public Disputes and Dispute Resolver 20.1 Disputes Together: Conflict Resolution and the Search for Community, Robert M. Ackerman 20.2 Conflict Resolution, Cultural Differences, and the Culture of Racism, Howard Gadlin 20.3 The Calculator: How Herbert Feinberg Determines the Value of Three Thousand Lives, Elizabeth Kolbert Conclusion Trading Justice for Harmony, Laura Nader VI. Cyberspace and the Future of Law 21. Cyberspace and the Future of Law 21.1 Faking It: The Internet Revolution Has Nothing to Do with the NASDAQ, Michael Lewis 21.2 Law and Borders, David R. Johnson and David G. Post 22. Settling Disputes in Cyberspace 22.1 The Impact of Cyberspace on Disputes and Dispute Resolution, Ethan Katsh and Janet Rifkin 23. Protecting Rights in Cyberspace 23.1 Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists 24 . Protecting Property in Cyberspace 24.1 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster 24.2 Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc. Suggested Additional Readings Index