The evolution of commitment law in the nineteenth century

The generally accepted interpretation of the evolution of commitment law in the nineteenth century is challenged by means of an historical investigation of the law's development in a single state—Pennsylvania. Rather than an abrupt switch from relaxed commitment procedures to a system of stringent safeguards, which most historical accounts of the period describe, examination reveals that Pennsylvania law underwent a slow accretion of procedural protections, with the essential discretionary role of families, friends, and physicians left undisturbed. The implications for current policy of this challenge to the traditional account are discussed.     

行政诉讼司法变更权研究

行政诉讼司法变更权,是法院行政审判权的重要组成部分。确立司法变更权,是我国民主法制建设的要求。我国现行《行政诉讼法》规定的司法变更权是有限的,只适用于行政处罚案件。为了有效地监督和制约行政机关行使行政职权,更好地实现行政诉讼保护公民、法人和其他组织合法权益的目的,应当适当扩展司法变更权的范围。     

Family enterprise in the Baltic estate economy: The nineteenth century

During the nineteenth century, the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire exhibited characteristics of economic change typical of Eastern European rural areas where the landed estate and an enserfed peasantry were dominant forces. Family enterprise, other than agricultural enterprise was rare, even among estate owners. The number of estate “manufactories” remained small throughout the first half of the century, and estate owners discouraged peasant entrepreneurship of any kind. Only in the post-1850 decades, as a consequence of reforms enacted by the Imperial government, did rural economic differentiation become sufficiently pronounced to require notice in various census-type enumerations (1881, 1897). Still, family-based peasant entrepreneurship remained exceptional, and reports about it took anecdotal form.     

Network strategies of nineteenth century Hesse-Cassel emigrants

Between 1820 and 1930 over 5 million Germans emigrated to overseas destinations, most to the U.S. By the 1850s the number of German migrants living in the U.S. was large, a consequence partly of cumulative causation. I provide evidence for the dramatic increase in networks by using micro-level data for the German principality of Hesse-Cassel in the mid-nineteenth century. A conservative measurement of network relationships finds that after 25 years almost half of them were related to a previous family member from the same village. Migrants who used family networks tended to move in small units. Usually only a few years separated networked family members, but some links lasted over a decade. Women were unlikely to start a network but more likely than men to travel to the U.S. Within some families, migrants switched from continental destinations to the U.S., perhaps due to the failure of the 1848 March Revolution.     

The legal nature of shares in landowning joint stock companies in the nineteenth century

This essay examines some of the contexts in which women appear especially in non-royal deeds from the kingdom of Scotland in the years between roughly 1150 and 1350. It is based on a survey of several thousand charters written on behalf of both men and women, native, Anglo-Norman and European. It considers how charter evidence may be used to illuminate the extent to which women both used and shaped the laws and customs that governed the conveyance of land in medieval Scotland, and examines changes in women's legal capacity over time. Recent studies on literacy in later medieval Europe have shown that women participated actively in the literate culture of the period and that they exerted a sometimes profound influence on written texts themselves, and this theme is explored at some length in the context of Scottish charter evidence. Also examined is the extent to which traditional Gaelic customs in respect of women's property rights shaped and influenced the early common law of Scotland.     

English marriages and Scottish divorces in the early nineteenth century

Law printing changed dramatically in the reign of Charles I. This article shows that the legally imposed monopoly on printing books of the common law (the law patent) was breached regularly and seemingly with impunity. Piracy, false attributions of authorship and concerns about quality all appear from the late-1620s onwards. The article explains these changes by stressing a number of factors: changes related to the holder of the patent and those printing under it; difficulties and tensions in the enforcement of the patent; and unauthorized printing creating a more competitive (and therefore challenging) market for law printers.     

Sources of judicial attitudes toward criminal sanctioning

Through a 1979 survey of 89 Illinois judges, the present study attempts to assess how various social, political, and occupational factors influence judicial attitudes toward criminal sanctioning. Specifically, our analysis examined the relative impact of background characteristics (e.g. age, community context) versus occupational variables (e.g., years on the bench, former prosecutor and/or defense attorney) on five sanctioning scales: rehabilitation, punishment, capital punishment, punishing white-collar offenders, and the treatment of juvenile delinquents. The analysis revealed that political orientation was the most important variable examined. Political ideology was found to be related to all but one of the sanctioning scales (punishing white-collar offenders). In contrast, the social and occupational variables generally were not significantly related to judicial attitudes on the purposes of sentencing.     

The evolution of mortality in an industrial town: Le Creusot in the nineteenth century

The article examines the population of the town of Le Creusot in detail with respect to the characteristics and evolution of mortality in the second third of the nineteenth century, during the town's rapid industrial growth. The authors analyze mortality statistics of Le Creusot in relation to other towns in the same department (Saône-et-Loire), to the neighboring city of Lyon, to another industrial town, Seraing, and with France as a whole. The effects of industrialization and the influx of labor on the mortality rate of Le Creusot appear to be undeniable. Life expectancy at birth among inhabitants of Le Creusot in 1836 was thus attained again only in 1876, after forty years of worsening living and environmental conditions. Among the causes noted for excess mortality in industrial towns, it is important to distinguish those due to working conditions (accidents, fatigue) and the direct consequences of industrial activity (factory smoke, toxic waste) from those due to living and housing conditions and the state of public and private hygiene in the town.     

The psychiatrist's guide to right and wrong: judicial standards of wrongfulness since M'Naghten

In insanity defense litigation, the precise legal definition of wrongfulness is often critically important. References in the M'Naghten Rules to the appropriate standard of wrongfulness were ambiguous, resulting in a divergence of judicial opinion as to whether wrongfulness means legal wrong, subjective moral wrong, or objective moral wrong. This article reviews and analyzes these three judicial standards of wrongfulness in the context of case law from jurisdictions that follow each of the respective standards. The evolution of knowledge of right and wrong tests of criminal responsibility is traced back to its philosophical roots. Most psychiatrists claim no expertise in matters of morality or law. The American Psychiatric Association would bar psychiatric expert testimony on the ultimate issue of insanity, on the grounds that there are "impermissible leaps in logic" when psychiatrists opine on the probable relationship between medical concepts and moral-legal constructs. Whether or not they testify on the ultimate issue, psychiatrists should ascertain the applicable standard of wrongfulness in order to properly relate their findings to the relevant legal criteria for insanity and thereby enhance the probative value of their testimony.     

论我国司法鉴定启动权制度改革

司法鉴定启动权制度是司法鉴定程序中的重要组成部分,不仅影响着司法审判的客观公正性,更关系到当事人诉讼权利的保障.本文通过对两大法系司法鉴定启动权制度进行比较研究,在结合我国司法鉴定制度现状的基础上,对我国司法鉴定启动权制度改革进行了分析,并提出了相关建议.     

A reinterpretation of criminal law reform in nineteenth century England

This study challenges the traditional idealistic interpretation that the movement for reforming the criminal law in early nineteenth century England was generated by the enlightened doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. Historical evidence is presented that suggests that even without Bentham a new penal policy would have emerged. Parliament mitigated the severity of the criminal law largely in response to the business community, which demanded more swiftness and certainty in the conviction of property offenders.     

The demographic consequences of changing employment opportunities: Women in the Dutch Meierij in the nineteenth century

"In the nineteenth century, the demographic development of the Meierij, a region in the south-east of the Netherlands, was different from that of the rest of modernizing northern Europe. Infant mortality remained high, while it dropped elsewhere. The article shows why the current explanation for high infant mortality, which links a sustained high infant mortality to a change in feeding habits is not valid. Increased fertility due, among other reasons, to a lower marital age offers a better explanation. Changes in economic options open to unmarried women provide the clue. With fewer premarital occupational possibilities, women would have been more inclined to marry, or there would have been less pressure on them to forestall a marriage in order to profit to the full from the occupational options. More and earlier marriages meant more children were born, and also a higher infant mortality rate."     

Problems in the pathways to judicial success: women in the legal profession in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This paper considers women’s representation in the under-explored context of the judiciary in Northern Ireland. Previous research into the experiences of women practitioners in the legal profession in Northern Ireland has indicated that women are discouraged from pursuing judicial careers for a variety of reasons associated with their gender. Further research into the gendered barriers these women practitioners face is required in order to assess the extent to which the same may impede their career progression. This paper uses a critical, social constructionist feminist approach to explore some of the gendered barriers influencing women’s under-representation in Northern Ireland’s judiciary. It is contended that representation can only be improved when women’s retention and progression through the ranks of the legal profession is addressed. Employing gender as a lens, this paper will analyse potential difficulties faced by the women solicitors and barristers in Northern Ireland in order to assess future judicial gender parity prospects in this jurisdiction as it is these women solicitors and barristers who form the female “talent pool” from which future members of the judiciary will be selected.     

Surnames,marriage, and consanguinity in eighteenth and nineteenth century haute-provence

A study of the stem family system in a group of villages in Haute-Provence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveals the existence of a high degree of isonymy (same-namedness). The sources employed were marriage contracts and parish registers permitting genealogical reconstitution. Does isonymy always signify a marriage between close relatives bearing the same name? In fact, although the spouses might share a common ancestor, that ancestor might date back many generations. The relatively frequent occurrence of marriages among homonymous spouses should not be interpreted as absolute proof of a union between close relatives. Indeed, heteronymic alliances, even exogamic ones, can hide a marriage between first cousins, if consanguinity is transmitted by the mothers.     

Women,family, and small business in late nineteenth century Sweden

In Sweden, unmarried women and widows had a long historical tradition of involvement in the retail trades and in handicrafts. They supervised enterprises between the death of their husbands and another male heir, and poor women had the right to become hawkers or innkeepers. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the number of unmarried women increased, and the authorities wanted to open new trades in which women could earn their own living and not become an economic burden on local government. Given these new possibilities, women developed several different strategies, which can be seen in the three Swedish towns of Sundsvall, Härnösand, and Umeå when their business history of the later part of the nineteenth century is examined. Women's business involvements exhibit the older patterns of family survival, but now add motives having to do with status maintenance and emancipation.