Legal doctrine of self defense

You may have heard of the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old African-American on 26 February. The shooter was a neighbourhood watch volunteer* who believed the young man was acting suspiciously.

There has been an outpouring of sentiment for the plight of young Black males in America and much chastisizing of the racist bias, racial stereotyping and violent culture which made such a crime possible. The most interesting article I've read on the subject however deals with Florida's self defense legislation which made it difficult for the police to investigate or prosecute the shooter. I think this might be of particular interest to those of you interested in the American legal system.

In 2008, the Florida legislature passed a "Stand your ground" law which extended the "castle doctrine" (you are allowed to shoot if you are at risk in your own house) to public places. If under attack you were no longer required to retreat as far as you could before using deadly force. The change was mainly directed at protecting victims of domestic violence who employed deadly force against their abuser. But, in fact, the concept of self defence was much broadened, and if that is what you were acting under, you could not be charged with the crime.

George Zimmerman has since been charged but there was about a week's delay before the police launched the investigation.

*you may have seen a form of this type of watered-down vigilantism in TV shows and movies. It was, for instance, recently featured on Dexter, season 4.

the Emancipation Proclamation

NPR has a very good segment on the Emancipation Proclamation and the diverging opinions historians have on its meaning. As usual, I recommend you listen to the 9 minute broadcast which can readily be downloaded from the website.

Here is a quick reminder of the debates surrounding the interpretation of the Proclamation:

- Was the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation a momentous text meant to radically alter the situation of American Blacks?

- Was it merely a political gimmick, a tactical decision to save the Union?

- What did Lincoln believe he was doing when he signed the text which had been sitting in a drawer for several months?

- What should we make Lincoln's earlier declarations against Black freedom when he went as far as to blame the Negro for the war. In so doing was he asserting deeply held beliefs or trying to assuage the fears of his fellow Northerners?

In a new book on Lincoln and the Proclamation, Holzer reexamines the story of how Lincoln came to sign the document: massaging his hand so as not to quake and suggest that he had hesitated. This would suggest that the president was aware that this single piece of legislation might represent his most important legacy.

Holzer also looks at how the newly freed slaves interpreted Lincoln's actions and how they recognized him as the cause of their emancipation.

The second section of the article is devoted to the iconography of the Proclamation and is also well worth a glance.

the Pentagon Papers

The full set of documents composing the Pentagon Papers were released last week on the anniversary of their leak to the press.

Read more : Ellsberg's regrets.

the doll test today and other stories

Do you remember the psychological experiment that the supreme court justices referred to in the Brown v. Board decision? It has been conducted again. Here is a short video that one of you send me on this subject. It's a little troubling and strange (albeit 21 children makes for a very small panel and there seems to be no test panel with white children).

I also thought of you when I listened to this interview with the author of a book on a Comanche Indian born of a white mother and an Indian father. The woman was actually captured by the Native Americans in a raid. This is a story of violence and atrocities on both sides. It also offers interesting insights into the question of personnal identity ( can you stop being white? the consequences of being mixed race in the 19th century on the frontier...)

You can download this interview as a podcast on the NPR page or on i-tunes ( NPR: Fresh Air , 20 May 2011).

And finally, what does it mean to be Irish in America today? From the discrimation to McCartyism, JFK and Obama... Yet another quality podcast from Americana, a weekly BBC's programme on the US. I strongly recommend signing up to this podcast: a weekly 20 minute immersion in American life and politics.

I hope your exams went well,

AMZ

Church and State in America

Do you know the very liberal Daily Show host Jon Stewart?
Sometimes he is led to discuss constitutional matters, notably on the popular issue of separation of Church and State. Are the power of the States limited by the Bill of Rights?

If you can't remember, watch :

The Daily Show - Exclusive - Richard Beeman Extended Interview Pt. 1
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Part II :

The Daily Show - Exclusive - Richard Beeman Extended Interview Pt. 2
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

To find out more about David Barton you can watch an interview with Jon Stewart ( in which he makes the case against separation of Church and State) or you may want to read this short article from the NYTimes.

Conseil Constitutionel vs Supreme Court

A fellow student has called my attention to this interesting video from LCP. Jean-Louis Debré and Stephen Breyer, a Supreme Court Justice appointed by Bill Clinton in 1994 discuss the role of the judicial branch in government.

Not only is this discussion and the comparison relevant to what we've studied in seminar 11 but it is also very much related to what you've been doing in French and American Law.

Enjoy!

political ads 1950s-1960s

1. The first television commercial for an electoral campaign created by Roy Disney for candidate Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. His stature as a war hero and his appeal to both parties ( remember that the Democrats had asked him to run as President as well) and the well managed electoral campaign indeed got him in the White House. Note the three donkeys representing the Democratic party ( the donkey had become the symbol of the party under the Presidency of Grant).




2. The emotionally potent ad issued by the Johnson campaign for President in 1964. Although the ad was only aired once on television, it sent a shockwave through the country. It became a news item and was thus aired by the media as such, offering free air time to the Democratic ticket. This clip is famous for its suggestion that Barry Goldwater was not fit to be president because he was trigger happy and too likely to use nuclear weapons on foreign theaters of operation. However, when you listen carefully to the short speech that follows the explosion, I believe that the issues it raises are not germane to foreign policy tactics. Watch:



The terms "a world in which all God's children can live together"; "we must either love each other or die" suggests an allusion to something other than the Cold War and the nuclear threat. What do you think it might refer to?
(hint: consider why Barry Goldwater was gaining momentum at the time and who was supporting him)

For more ads of the 1964 campaign :

Lyndon B. Johnson : on nuclear testing, and on poverty. Note how the causes of poverty are reassessed in this ad, breaking away from the American tradition of portraying the poor as irresponsible and lazy). Finally, see how the legacy of JFK was used to bolster Johnson's Great Society platform. The tone of the campaing could turn quite sour and negative ads were aired.

Barry Goldwater ads : against Big Governement, on graft in Washington and integrity, and a response to Kruschev, on the no-win war in Vietnam.

Anniversary of the freedom rides : 1961

Here's an interesting and short article from NPR ( National Public Radio). The short article summarizes the life and shows how the fights of a civil rights activist evolved over time.

The 8 minute interview with James Farmer is very instructive on several accounts :

- strategy of filling the jails and legal implications of the strategy (to file an appeal, they needed to be freed, therefore to post bail before 40 days).

- treatment in prisons

- role of music and singing in jails : keeping the activists' morale high and breaking that of the guards.

- the education gap between the guards and the CRM activists ( the word "derogatory" means "showing no respect, demeaning").

There's also good interview with historian Raymond Arsenault who wrote a book about the freedom riders in 2006. He addresses the question of Kennedy's support of the freedom rides and more generally of his administration's committment to the movement.

- 'jail no bail' tactic of CORE (origin and impact).

- the origins of the desegregation of public transport ( 1944 case and 1947 first freedom rides)

- the Kennedy administration's policy on freedom rides

These two interviews can be listened to online, on downloaded to be listened to on the road.

Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War

April 1861 : the confederate forces launched an attack against Fort Sumter in SC after having been warned that a Union ship would bring supplies to the soldiers in the fort ( officially food but also ammunition).

This anniversary has given the press an occasion to look back on the Civil War era. I'd like to recommend the most interesting segments on this subject I've heard so far, provided by a BBC programme called Americana.

If you'd like to download the podcast and listen to it on the go, I've posted it here.

You will hear how some Americans understand the Civil War and David Blight will provide guidance to interpret what they are saying (first 12 minutes of the podcast).

What memory of the Civil War is being articulated by the re-enactors?

Next, several original testimonies on the battle of Antietam are read and commented upon.

Holidays' readings

Dear students,

I'd like to give you one more piece of advice on how best to prepare the exams. One of the most efficient learning tools is the writing of a chronology in which you would include all the key dates we've seen both in the lectures and in the seminars. By doing so, you will both brush up on the course work and build your own general picture of American history and be able to see what happened simultaneously and the general context of events.

If you'd like to do a little bit of reading, here are interesting reviews of a book on the Tea Party movement and their use of American history in French (here) or in English (here). For a more critical review by historian Gordon Wood, check this.

I really enjoyed listening to this interview with Eric Foner about his new book on Abraham Lincoln, The Fiery Trial. I discussed his thesis in the lecture, so this is a good reminder. Some of his lectures are also available on the Gilder Lerhman website.

Here you can watch short videos about the civil rights movement. And here you can listen to another civil rights song and read some comments about it.

This is a short introduction to the beginning of the movement ( you'll see Fannie Lou Hamer singing, Go tell it on the mountains).

The story of the death of Emett Till :

The Montgomery bus boycott:

James Meredith tries to register at the University of Mississippi. Note the constitutional remarks on the supremacy clause of the Constitution and the States Rights' doctrines of interposition or nullification. You'll also hear Kennedy trying to find a compromise and avoid using the federal army to integrate the Mississippi University:

What do you think Ross Barnett the governor of Mississippi meant by the word "heritage" when he declared in the middle of the crisis : I love Mississippi, I love her people, I love our heritage"?

For more extracts from Eyes on the Prize :

The lunch counter sit-ins, the 1960 election, desegregation of interstate transports (freedom riders) and the way Kennedy is pushed to take action by the civil rights movement organisations (episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4)

Here again, the intstrumental role of white hatred is emphasized: provoking violence was part of the strategy of the freedom riders. Such actions would in fact get public opinion to support the peaceful activists of the civil rights movement.

sermon podcast for SEMINAR 7

The sermon by Reverend Campbell is availbable HERE.

immigration in America

I couldn't find the excerpt from America America which I was looking for. So instead you can have a look at this short scene from the movie.

In this interview, Martin Scorsese discusses movie-making and the immigrant experience.
A few years back I wrote a post on West Side Story.

Finally, you may enjoy a very interesting post on a French blog on the song by Joan Baez on the Sacco & Vanzetti cause célèbre. The same blog offers a selection of songs and an analysis of their historical context. I strongly reccommend visiting it.

outline for lecture 7

The university website is experiencing problems putting the outlines online.

So if you can, please download the outline for Lecture 7 : here.

Simply click on where it says télécharger ce fichier.

Seminar 3 : the Bill of Rights

The podcast I've recommended for this week are short episodes made by a young law student in 2006 : basically at the end of every day he made a few podcasts summarizing what he'd learnt or been studying. I find it usually enjoyable and useful.

Visit the webpage : Life of Law Student : constitutional law II. and download the podcasts or search for it on i-tunes.

Here is a very good example of the current significance of the Bill of Rights and of the debate of free speech :




This is an extract from The West Wing, season 6, episode 8 (In the room)

I whole heartedly reccomend this TV series which is amazing : you'll learn a lot about the American constitution, the political workings of the institutions and the hot potato issues of the 2000s, and painlessly to boot.

a revolution in Egypt?

Lawrence Wright, speaking on the New Yorker podcast on American politics ( The Political Scene), characterized the events in Egypt as three things : a revolt, a revolution and a coup. The reporter identifies three distinct groups that are operating for different reasons and with different goals. The podcast is available here : on itunes or on the web.

It's the most cogent explanation I've heard so far on what is going on in Egypt right now and the one which echoes most with what we've been studying over the past two weeks.

You could reflect about how these three concepts apply to the American Revolution: which aspects of the American Revolution are akin respectively to a revolt, a revolution and a coup?

This framework is fairly effective on an event like the sack of Governor Hutchinson's mansion.

Answers to the exam questions

Dear students,

If you would like to have the answers to the exam questions please drop me an email. I will wait until I have a good number of requests before typing it all up and dispatching it by email. You can always have a look my earlier remarks on Prohibition (below) : this is one of the examples you could give to answer QUESTION 3.

If some of you are interested I will organize an hour-long session for you to come and see your exam papers at the beginning of next term. So let me know.

Here's a good article from the NYTimes series on the Civil War. This reminds me of two key terms I've used repeatedly last term :

• Contingency. Could the Civil War have been averted?
• Agency. How responsible for the war is Abraham Lincoln?

Best regards,

AMZ

Hours after telling you that the Obama presidency is regularly compared to the Carter administration, this is what I read :

American decline is the specter haunting our politics. This could be President Obama's undoing—or it could provide him with the opportunity to revive his presidency.

Fear of decline is an old American story. Declinism ran rampant in the late 1970s and early '80s. Stagflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, anxiety over Japan's then-commanding economy and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan all seemed to be symbols of a United States no longer in control of its destiny.

The NYTimes has an interesting review of a book on the beginning of Prohibition. How does prohibition of alcohol fit in with the rest of the 1920s ? Here's a short paragraph from the NYTimes review which I think you might find interesting since it places the 18th Amendment in the context of the conflict of cultures of the 1920s :

• "The 18th Amendment was a rarity in that it limited the rights of the individual rather than the activities of the government, thereby guaranteeing a hostile reception. As such, it holds the distinction of being the only constitutional amendment ever to be repealed. Which leads one to ask: How did this happen in the first place? Why would Americans curtail their precious right to drink?
• “Last Call,” by Daniel Okrent, provides the sobering answers. Okrent, the author of four previous books and the first public editor of The New York Times, views Prohibition as one skirmish in a larger war waged by small-town white Protestants who felt besieged by the forces of change then sweeping their nation — a theory first proposed by the historian Richard Hofstadter more than five decades ago. Though much has been written about Prohibition since then, Okrent offers a remarkably original account, showing how its proponents combined the nativist fears of many Americans with legitimate concerns about the evils of alcohol to mold a movement powerful enough to amend the United States Constitution."

Political ads

For the political ads of the 1950s and 60s : this is a link to an earlier posting on this blog.

For the podcast that might help you prepare for this week's seminar : http://dl.free.fr/iUcaFbb8c

A report on the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975 by a BBC journalist for News at Ten. It's all very stiff upper lip and restrained and yet very moving. Note the comments by viewers explaining that many Vietnamese were trying to flee the communist regime and saying that Americans should take credit for the war instead of reading it as an illegal war waged by war criminals (that's what the reference to Jane Fonda means).

Here's another video by a British reporter :