The Volokh Conspiracy
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Today in Supreme Court History: October 14, 1911
10/14/1911: Justice John Marshall Harlan I dies.
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McConnell v. Rhay, 393 U.S. 2 (decided October 14, 1968): Court holds that its rule of Mempa v. Rhay, 1967, that there is a right to counsel in revocation of probation and deferred sentencing proceedings, at least as to felony defendants, is to be applied retroactively (retroactive application is often, though not always, ordered in criminal procedure matters, though it requires a second case with similar facts to come along)
Arkansas v. Tennessee, 311 U.S. 1 (decided October 14, 1940): Court overrules Arkansas’s objections to Special Master report in this original jurisdiction dispute over various avulsion-created islands in the Mississippi River; the opinion introduced me to the terms “towhead” (shoal) and “thalweg” (zigzag line tracing the deepest points of a river bed as one goes downstream, often used to define a border)
In re Isserman, 348 U.S. 1 (decided October 14, 1954): upon rehearing, attorney gets un-disbarred! (had been disbarred after defending Communist Party members in the “Foley Square” trial which he had obstructed with “repetitious and insolent objections”, resulting in contempt and jail and state disbarment; no reason given for welcoming him back to the Bar, presumably not with hearts and flowers)
Gonzalez v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila, 280 U.S. 1 (decided October 14, 1929): in dispute over income from a Will which reached the Supreme Court of the Philippines (an American territory at the time), Court holds that First Amendment Free Exercise Clause prohibits civil courts from interfering with decisions of canonical authorities, even those affecting civil rights, absent fraud, collusion or abritratriness (extended by Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 1976, in which the Court said that not even arbitrariness would be examined) (this was the beginning of the “ministerial exception” to civil rights which has allowed Catholic institutions to fire gay teachers)
I first met “talweg” in an old French article about the geography of what were then the French colonies. It’s from German and was borrowed by several languages of western Europe back when German was an important language.
Still is. For quite some time Germany has had the biggest and strongest economy in Europe, especially as to exports. In America we can’t see this but for others it’s quite beneficial to know German.
It’s true in a sense that, as Bronowski put it in The Ascent of Man, “When Hitler came to power the German scholarly tradition was destroyed, almost overnight”, but German speakers had dominated scholarship for three hundred years before that and something like that can never be destroyed. It has a way of growing back.
If you want to do business in Europe it’s useful to know German. I know lawyers who make good money being German-English bilingual. We’re a long way from the time when you often had to learn German to read the literature in your field.
True
FYI, literal translation of talweg is valley (tal) path (or way) (weg).
Like Neandertal = Neander Valley.
https://www.donsmaps.com/neanderthaloriginal.html
Thanks!
When I was a kid I learned Neanderthal with a th sound, but now the higher profile science podcasters say it with a plain t sound.
When I was in the substance abuse treatment field you could show your sophistication by saying “methadone” with a short “o”, like “methadon”. Stupidly noncomformist, I would pronounce it “methadōōōōōōnne”.
Followed in 1955 by John Marshall Harlan II: The Sequel
John Marshall Harlan II: Electric Boogaloo
The sequel took a different direction than the original.
It’s like the difference between Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. A family connection, but the differences between the two were considerable.
Great man. US history would be better if his views had largely prevailed.
In today’s episode Sam leaps into the body of a 19th Century jurist in an attempt to impose 20th century values on the past. Prophet or Cassandra? Click here to find out…
Read a little further and Harlan also said,
“The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty.”
My Con Law professor, popular but not very smart, said that this passage demonstrated that Harlan was essentially a racist. The smarter people in the room (i.e., my fellow students) recognized that this was simply Harlan’s way of making his opinion, as you say radical at the time, more palatable to his readers.
I believe the assessment by you and your classmates was the correct one.
If taken in the sense that whites had inherited a great tradition of justice, but risked squandering their inheritance in exchange for injustice, and incurring a loss of power as a result. Very Old Testamentish.