Federalism and Criminal Law

mapThis is the fourth in a series of posts reviewing last term’s criminal cases in the United States Supreme Court and previewing the new term.

Habeas corpus presents the classic federalism problem in criminal law: how can federal courts overturn flawed state-court judgments while maintaining due respect for state sovereignty and the autonomy of state criminal-justice systems?  But federalism issues can also appear in criminal cases that originate in federal court.  In its new term, the Supreme Court has at least two such cases.

First, in United States v. Johnson, the Court will consider whether a battery conviction in Florida state court counts as a violent crime for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, a federal sentencing statute.   (I have posted several times about ACCA in the past year, most recently here.)  Although “battery” normally evokes images of serious violent crime, Florida law defines battery so that it includes any nonconsensual touching, regardless of risk of injury.  For that reason, the Florida Supreme Court has already ruled that battery is not a violent crime for state-law purposes.  Thus, in Johnson, the United States Supreme Court is confronted with a question of whether it should defer to state-court characterizations of state crimes for purposes of implementing a federal statute.

Second, in United States v. Weyrauch, the Court must decide whether a state official can be convicted of honest-services fraud based on a conflict of interest that did not violate state law.  (This is one of three new cases in which the Court will consider various dimensions of the federal crime of honest-services fraud.) 

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Horace Scurry: Our First African-American Law Student

Horace S. Scurry was one of many fascinating individuals who passed through the Milwaukee Law School between the time of its founding in the early 1890’s and its merger with Marquette University in 1908.  He appears to have been the first African-American to join the ranks of that institution’s students.

Details of Scurry’s life are meager.  He was born in 1865 in Delaware, Ohio, and first arrived in Milwaukee in 1882 at age 17.  He attended school in Milwaukee and then returned to Ohio, where he enrolled in Ohio Wesleyan College (which was in his hometown of Delaware).  The college catalog listed him as a Milwaukee resident, and he apparently entered college with the intention of becoming a teacher. In 1900, he was working at Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, as the steward of the teachers’ house and, reportedly, as a teacher.

He returned to Milwaukee at some point and enrolled in the Milwaukee Law School.

Although he studied law, he does not appear to have been admitted to the bar.  The Milwaukee Law School was designed to prepare students for admission to the Wisconsin bar and did not award degrees of its own.  However, in 1908, following the merger, Marquette University awarded a law degree to any former student of the Milwaukee Law School who had been admitted to the Wisconsin bar.  Scurry’s name does not appear on the list of degree recipients, although it is possible that he was admitted but did not bother to apply for the Marquette degree.

In any event, Scurry’s future was in neither education nor law, but in religion.  In the early twentieth century (if not sooner), he became an ordained Baptist minister. He was affiliated with the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Milwaukee (a black Baptist church) and with the Wisconsin State Baptist Convention.  After his entry into the ranks of the clergy, he retained an interest in politics and public affairs.  The archives of the American Socialist Party contain a letter written to Scurry by Norman Thomas, the party’s perennial presidential candidate.

In 1935, Scurry, aged 70 and retired from the ministry, was awarded a monthly old-age pension of $30 from the Milwaukee county court.  A story in the December 17, 1935, edition of the Milwaukee Journal reported the award of the pension by County Judge John C. Karel and mentioned Scurry’s prior affiliation with the Milwaukee Law School.  Scurry died on June 6, 1943, still affiliated with the Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

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Marking the Tenth International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

nov25_stamp_96x96As I wrote about a year ago today, November 25th has been designated by the United Nations as “International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women” since 1999.  The date was selected to “commemorate the lives of the Mirabal sisters,” who were assassinated on November 25, 1960 during the Trujillo dictatorship (as explained more fully in the General Assembly resolution to which I just linked).

Today Vice President Biden issued a statement marking the occasion:

Violence against women is found in every culture around the world. It is one of our most pervasive global problems, yet it is preventable.  When gang rape is a weapon of war, when women are beaten behind closed doors, or when young girls are trafficked in brothels and fields – we all suffer. This violence robs women and girls of their full potential, causes untold human suffering, and has great social and economic costs….

Indeed, it is hard to overestimate the impact of pervasive violence against women in the lives of women, men, and children all over the earth.  According to a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report,

The UN Development Fund for Women estimates that one in three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused.

It describes domestic violence against women as perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation known today.

Women are more at risk of death or disability from violence than from cancer, road accidents, war, or malaria.

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