Legal History

Stash of $10 million in buried gold coins offers lesson in property and tax law

A California couple who say they stumbled across $10 million in buried 19th-century gold coins while walking their dogs on their property last year didn’t immediately reveal their stunning find because they wanted to resolve any potential legal issues. But the relevant law concerning the unidentified couple probably boils down…

Mar 4, 2014 11:50 PM CST

50 years after New York Times v. Sullivan, do courts still value journalists’ watchdog role?

Fifty years ago, in the midst of the change and turmoil associated with the civil rights movement, the U.S. Supreme Court altered the nation’s course on many issues, including the First Amendment. On March 9, 1964, a unanimous Supreme Court bucked precedent for libel and slander law and, in doing…

Mar 1, 2014 11:20 AM CST

March 1, 1875: Grant signs the Civil Rights Act

In February 1870, Charles Sumner, a Radical Republican from Massachusetts, introduced a bill that attempted to clarify and expand the freedoms available to blacks after the abolishment of slavery during the Civil War. The bill, finally signed into law by Ulysses S. Grant as the Civil Rights Act of 1875,…

Mar 1, 2014 7:20 AM CST

South Korean box-office hit chronicles astonishing success of self-trained but ambitious attorney

The film inspired by the life of Roh Moo-hyun, who was later elected president of South Korea. 360b / Shutterstock.com A low-budget film that tells the fictionalized story of the astonishing success of a real-life attorney has quickly become a box-office smash in South Korea. And it’s not a bad…

Feb 6, 2014 6:44 PM CST

Which law firm is the oldest in the United States?

Guinness World Records may be the pop culture authority on the world’s oldest person. But when it comes to figuring out which is the oldest law firm in the United States, Guinness is silent—but the Internet isn’t. The title belongs to Rawle & Henderson, the venerable firm begun in Philadelphia—home…

Feb 1, 2014 10:50 AM CST

Feb. 1, 1960: Students spark civil rights sit-ins at lunch counters

On the afternoon of Feb. 1, 1960, four students from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College walked into the F.W. Woolworth store in downtown Greensboro. After purchasing some personal items, they settled down at the store’s lunch counter and tried to order. Because the students were black, the staff…

Feb 1, 2014 7:10 AM CST

Remains of 55 are exhumed at notorious reform school, 24 more than records showed were buried there

Records for a notorious Florida reform school and a 2009 state investigation showed that 31 bodies had been buried on the grounds. Now a research team from the University of South Florida has unearthed remains for 55 people, and DNA is being sought from relatives of boys who went missing…

Jan 29, 2014 5:10 PM CST

Judge Judy is behind a new courtroom TV show, ‘Hot Bench’

The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considered a “hot bench,” whose judges don’t hesitate to jump in and fire tough questions at lawyers appearing before the court in oral arguments. And that’s even more true of the U.S. Supreme Court, said Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook in a…

Jan 23, 2014 11:09 PM CST

Suspect in JFK airport $5M cash heist portrayed in ‘Goodfellas’ is among 5 indicted by feds

More than 30 years after hooded gunmen stole $5 million in cash from a cargo terminal of John F. Kennedy International Airport, a reputed crime family member is accused of a role in the record-breaking theft in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. Vincent Asaro, said by the feds to be…

Jan 23, 2014 5:50 PM CST

Letters: Your top 10 trials

YOUR TOP 10 TRIALS Regarding “Courting Destiny,” November: Loved the article. However, perhaps more important than the trial of Socrates or the Adam and Eve story was Aeschylus’ trilogy, The Oresteia (or, more specifically, the third play, The Eumenides), in which Orestes was tried (by a jury of 12, including…

Jan 1, 2014 11:10 AM CST

4 vignettes lead to a single moral about writing better briefs

No. 1: In the mid-1980s, I was working on a brief with the legendary Dallas appellate lawyer Marvin S. Sloman. We had just acquired new “laserjet” printers that gave us the ability to use several fonts other than Courier, a font that mimicked the look of Royal and Underwood type-writers…

Jan 1, 2014 9:20 AM CST

Jan. 21, 1977: Carter pardons Vietnam-era draft dodgers

On Sept. 8, 1974, barely a month into his happenstance presidency, Gerald Ford granted a full and unconditional pardon to his disgraced predecessor, Richard Nixon. Ford reasoned that a criminal trial would cause “prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing [Nixon] to further punishment and degradation.” In a…

Jan 1, 2014 7:20 AM CST

Most important legal stories in 2013

Perhaps the best way to understand the biggest legal events in 2013 is to hit ABAJournal.com. Events from the past played a heavy influence on some of the year’s biggest legal stories. Civil rights groups recoiled in horror when the U.S. Supreme Court all but obliterated a seminal law in…

Dec 26, 2013 7:15 PM CST

Bootlegger tried to peel off $30K in cash to pay lawyer after 1931 trial victory

When a bootlegger went on trial in Troy, N.Y., in the Christmas season of 1931, on charges of kidnapping and assaulting a driver who wasn’t part of his organization, then-Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt had was hoping to put Jack “Legs” Diamond away for good. But the popular gangster, known for…

Dec 11, 2013 5:15 PM CST

Nelson Mandela, ‘a giant among men’ who taught us the meaning of the rule of law, dies at 95

Nelson Mandela, a longtime political prisoner who went on to become globally recognized as an inspirational leader of his country and win the Nobel Peace Prize, died peacefully amidst his family Thursday night at his home in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was 95 years old. Convicted and sentenced to a…

Dec 6, 2013 8:20 PM CST