Holmes The Common Law

To every story there are at least two sides; for any considered conclusion a fact must have a contradiction. Moreover, arguments follow in tow. Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, displays the significance to Creationism and Darwinism in tandem. For either side to appropriately stay considered they must correlate with opposition. For an argument to be substantial and taken seriously, it must have debatable opposition and equal representation.

Edward Burke’s response to the French Revolution was a collection of thoughts that were written without any formal formatting. It is an influential writing that is in many ways still applicable to today’s society. There are many things that influenced Burke’s response to the French Revolution including his time as a Whig politician in which he was very involved in England’s political system. His views on American independence, religious tolerance for the people of Ireland, and theories on the social order, economic theory, and political principles are all factors that led to Burke’s response to Charles-Jean-François Depont with his second letter.

Martin Luther King discusses many philosophical principles in the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that relates with Aquinas discussion about law. Most of Martin Luther King’s philosophical ideas have to deal with natural law. According to Aquinas natural law is promulgated by reason and also rational participation in the eternal law. But in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” we can see how human law is connected to natural law always. The two philosophical principles I find most interesting that Martin Luther King is working in his letter and also relates with Aquinas discussions in the Summa Theologiae are the difference between unjust and just acts; and what breaking the law implies. These two philosophical topics appear in both of the readings very often because of its importance to human behavior. I decided to choose these principles because from my perspective, I think they are the ones that appear the most and give meaning to the whole message Martin Luther King and Thomas Aquinas are trying to let the world know.

One of the main reasons for this attitude is his criticism to those who insisted on implementing a regime of “liberty”, a term that involved different meaning for Burke considered. He was horrified by the anti-religious attitude in France and the triumph of atheism (Hampsher-Monk, 1996, p. 323 et ss). Moreover, he opposed to the influence by the Enlightenment movement on the French Revolution. Roland H. Stromberg (1990) emphasized that Burke considered the revolutionary ideas as philosophes’ mistakes. Political rationalists whose method was unrealistic, and plenty of abstraction (p. 36). Therefore, Burke not only adopted a counter-revolutionary attitude, but a counter-enlightenment one.

A month later, Holmes Attorneys defended his client, by saying, "Mr. Holmes suffers from a severe mental illness and was in the throes of a psychotic episode when he committed the acts that resulted in the tragic loss of life and injuries sustained by movie goers on July 20, 2012” (“Colorado Theater”, 2017). Holmes defense to his actions was because he believe the reason he killed everyone is because he was unable to control his actions because of the movie he watched.

Throughout history there have been many political changes that are either supported, or not, by citizens. In the given passage from, "Civil Disobedience," by Thoreau, a perspective of disagreeing with the government ways, is provided. Thoreau explains how a government should be in comparison to how it really is by utilizing his words to set the tone and mode, imagery to achieve his audience's understanding, and diction to make his writing scholarly.

The relationship between the law and society affects everyone and everything. How the law is written and how it is acted upon in society are two different things. It is imperative, therefore, that we as citizens pay attention to and understand the importance of the relationship between the law and society as it affects both our own lives and the lives of those around us. We engage in and witness the power of the law and society everyday. The law is personal, however, the law is also discretionary depending on where you look. Furthermore, from two scholarly perspectives, authors Richard Rothstein and Kitty Calavita, we can deepen our engagement with this relationship in their books, The Color of Law and Invitation to Law and Society, An Introduction

Thomas used Aristotle’s view of natural law to justify the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in political as well as religious matters. For the purpose of explaining the fundamental reasons of law he used Aristotle’s philosophy and added the use of an eternal ruler.

It is wise to start with Roman law. Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD - when the Roman and Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of the Empire. Laws before the Roman Empire were primarily based on centuries of customs which means that laws were not written. Roman law through its development carries more than a thousand years of jurisprudence. Roman legal history is framed by two codifications, the Twelve Tables and the Corpus Juris Civilis. Roman law, was effective in the Eastern Roman Empire (331-1453), and is also the basis of our legal system, civil system which most countries apply, from Europe to Latin America. Even English and North American Common law also were influenced by Roman law, particularly in the legal glossary - stare decisis, culpa in contrahendo, pacta sunt servanda.

Edmund Burke, after a visit to France in 1773, wrote a pamphlet titled Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) to express his disdain for the events and methods of the French Revolution. Where other political writers of the Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment Eras propose theories of politics and government, Burke does not promote a theory, a set of premises, a call to action, or even a succinct conclusion. He rather details his disposition of contractual government and politic science. He believes that the human condition, the traditions, experiences, and knowledge acquired by humans, is far to complex to be described by science and therefore avoids he commonly held views of political science from the Enlightenment Era. However, Thomas Hobbes, as he writes in Leviathan (1651) believed that all political phenomenons could be reported systematically as he equated all humans to machines, predictable by consistently acting in their self interest. [PG 3] Burke’s criticism that can be applied to Hobbes lies on three fronts; that the understanding human condition cannot be derived through logic; that consent, explicit or tacit, does not exist after the first social contract; and that a rebellion is neither possible nor effective when in a social contract.

From the Constitution’s ratification in 1787 through the 1850s, many American historians shared the consensus that the founding fathers had designed the Constitution the way they did because they were trying to protect the citizens and their rights. James Kent was one very prominent historian among this group. In his book, Commentaries on American Law (1826), he stated “THE government of the United States was erected by the free voice and joint will of the people of America, for their common defence [defense] and general welfare...and it is justly deemed the guardian of our best rights, the source of our highest civil and political duties, and the sure means of national greatness.” (Kent) Essentially, James Kent was trying to convey the point

Many times there are two different ideas or rules that get compared to each other when they focus on completely different subjects. In such case, an article entitled, “The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule,” published in the Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Review, 1975. In this article, the author, William S. Stevens, drew an analogy between the development of baseball’s “infield fly rule” and the corresponding development of English common law as it applies to the regulation of human behavior. In order to understand this analogy, one must first get familiar with the concept behind the, “Infield Fly Rule” and English Common Law (Anglo-American Common Law) to see how does this analogy calmed by William S. Stevens. Understanding the idea of

The precedent is a decided legal case, which is used as a basis for deciding later similar cases. The English Law system is a legal system where the precedent has a great weight. This law system can be subdivided into two main interrelated branches: statute (or statutory) law and common law. Statute is an Act of Parliament, which starts its life as a bill, goes through the parliament, receives royal assent and becomes law. [5] Common law works in a different way, the judges rather than the Parliament make common law or ‘judge-made law’. Considering criminal and civil cases, the judges take decisions based on the stare decisis principle (Latin “to stand by things decided”, the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent [4]), deliver rulings and create precedents, thus applying the law to real life situations. Therefore, the value of the precedent is very high in the English Common Law system.

There are many theories that suggest that crime is constructed socially, or is a product of the society in which the crime is committed. One such theory, proposed by Robert Merton, is known as strain theory. While strain theory is a useful model for explaining how societal values can drive people to commit crimes, it has several flaws and does not focus on how laws are made and how this contributes to the formation of crime. While Merton suggests that laws are created from consensus within a society, it will be argued that strain theory can also support the idea that laws are a “product of conflict” (Hagan 5).

No doubt the doctrine of the judicial precedent has proved to be a real advantage to society. However, we cannot neglect the fact that there are some disadvantages associated with this doctrine.