July 31

On July 31st, 1981, a 42-day baseball strike ended.

In 1922, the Supreme Court decided that baseball was exempt from anti-trust legislation. This means, among other things, that price-fixing and practices to restrict employee wages are legal.

The Curt Flood case (Flood v Kuhn) in 1972 set the stage for free agency for players. Free agency gave players a chance to negotiate salaries as different clubs bid on their services. Prior to that time, players were stuck with the team they had originally signed with, even after their contract was completed, the reserve clause. The Supreme Court sided with Major League Baseball and the anti-trust exemption, but subsequent pressure from the players union created free agency via arbitration.

The issue in 1981 was still free agency. Teams wanted compensation for losing players to free agency; players wanted free agency to cost the teams to enhance its value. This compensation would be that the team the free agent went to would supply the former team with a player (not a "protected" player). In the end, the players agreed to restrict free agency to players who had spent six years in the majors. The owners would pull the compensation from any team in the league. The new rules would only apply to "premium" players.

While the owners could claim to "win", strikes hurt both sides. Owners lost millions in revenues, players lost salaries, and both lost goodwill from baseball fans.

July 30

July 30, 1419, was the date of the First Defenestration of Prague.

To defenestrate is to throw someone out a window, a rather extreme type of political dissent. The first defenestration was about a release of prisoners; a priest had led a march, an annoyed town official threw a rock, and the next thing you know the local judge, burgomaster, and several of the town council were ejected out the window. They died from the fall. This incident led to the Hussite Wars.

There was a Second Defenestration of Prague; this one was over Protestant/Catholic differences. This time the victims survived, either from angels or landing in horse manure depending on who you asked.

Other defenestrations of Prague occurred but were not assigned numbers.

Defenenstrations are not unique to Prague, although they get most of the notoriety. Lisbon had a few, there was one of a De'Medici, and even Chopin's piano. Deng Xioping's son was defenestrated in 1968 as part of the Cultural revolution.

July 29

Only July 29th, 1899, the first Hague Convention was signed.

The Hague Conventions were, along with the Geneva Conventions, an attempt to make warfare more "civilized". The first Hague Convention banned bombings via balloons, hollow point bullets, and chemical warfare. The second Hague Convention followed up in 1907, with more agreements on how warfare was to be committed, especially at sea.

The Geneva Protocol also followed up the Hague Convention, banning in more detail chemical warfare.

Despite the names, these are treaties, and the United States is a signatory.

July 28

On July 28th, 1996, Kennewick Man was discovered.

Kennewick Man is the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found by the Columbia River in Washington State.

These remains quickly became the subject of dispute. Archeologists wanted to examine the remains, while local Indian tribes wanted to put the remains to rest with appropriate ceremony. As the case involved Indian law, it was automatically heard in federal court, using NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). The tribe lost as the remains could not be directly linked to any current tribe culturally, largely as a consequence of the remains being so old and tribal records being largely oral.

In July 2005, scientific tests and measurements were performed. The remains are the legal property of the US Army Corps of Engineers, housed at the Burke Museum in Seattle.

July 27

On July 27, 1987, salvage operations began on the Titanic.

Law of salvage is ancient. Recovery of items lost at sea has been considered a public service, but sometimes there have been issues about what is "lost" at sea. Under the law, salvage for gain is acceptable, but legal duty to aid still applies.

Unless the vessel is "derelict" or clearly abandoned, or no owner can be tracked down, the owner of the vessel has rights to the salvage. If an insurance company that paid out a claim is still in business, they have the rights to the salvage.

A salvor does not get the complete amount of the find. What he will get is dependent on the difficulty of the operation, time and energy expended, the value of the recovery, and how much danger was involved. A salvor assumes the risk when they undertake the operation; in no case will a salvor be awarded more than the vessel is worth. 10-25% is more typical.

Some have tried to argue salvage as abandoned property, in which case the finder would recover the whole, and take possession, but courts have been largely unsympathetic. A vessel needs to be intentionally abandoned, and that is a difficult standard to meet.

Salvage can be very profitable, but risks can be high as well.

July 26

On July 26th, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981. This Order declared that all servicemen were equal, regardless of color, and and established a committee to make what changes would be necessary to make that a reality.

As this Executive Order was in regards to the military, Truman was not subject to Congressional approval. One of the Presidential enumerated powers is to control the US military. Executive orders can be declared unconstitutional (although in this case unlikely because this Order supports the 14th Amendment - and on a federal level no less).

Harry Truman had previously signed Executive Order 9808, which was to investigate civil rights, and 9980, which desegregated the Civil Service. He also had plans to institute a Voting Rights commission, abolish poll taxes, and create federal protection from lynching. However, these recommendations were left to Congress as Truman started his second term, with predictable results.

The lasting contribution Truman made to civil rights may have been in his Supreme Court appointees; Burton, Clark and Minton all voted in favor of Brown v Board of Education and other landmark civil rights cases. Vinson, the Chief Justice, also frequently sided on the side of civil rights.

July 25

On July 25th, 1952, Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.

Puerto Rico has the United States President as the head of state, but they also have an elected governor, a House of Representatives and a Senate. The US Congress has the same enumerated powers over Puerto Rico that it has over the states: maritime law, currency, citizenship, interstate commerce, foreign affairs, etc.

Puerto Rico differs from US states in that is exempt from certain federal taxes, and consequently does not get some kinds of funds states get. Puerto Ricans also do not vote in Presidential elections, and are not represented in either the Senate or House.

July 24th

Only July 24th, 1974, the Supreme Court found that Richard Nixon did not have authority to withhold tapes that had been subpoenaed for the special prosecutor, but upheld and formalized the broad scope of executive privilege. The case in question is United States v. Nixon.

Executive privilege has a long and dubious history. It is not spelled out in the Constitution or its amendments, and has been largely created by the bench and by declaration of the Executive Branch. The founding fathers did not particularly like the idea, based as it is on "crown privilege", and in fact, early cases asserting privilege frequently lost.

Most presidents, when they lose on an executive privilege, will comply but insist their cooperation was voluntary.

However, it has been generally agreed that the President does require some safe zone in which to make decisions. If the President has to perpetually answer to Congress about how every decision is made, he will not be willing to get open and honest advice. When upheld by the Supreme Court, that has usually been the justification, using the separation of powers doctrine.

Richard Nixon, on the other hand, was actively trying to interfere with a judicial proceeding. Which is the point where the Supreme Court tends to lose sympathy. The official stance is that need, or the absolute importance of the requested materials, will override the executive need for secrecy.

July 23rd

On July 23rd, 1942, the concentration camp Treblinka began operations. It operated until October 1943 and slaughtered 850,000 people, largely Jews and some Romani.

International law has traditionally had difficulty with massacres of populations within a country's boundaries. International law, for the most part, does not interfere with the workings inside a country, until WWII it was primarily about relationships between governments. International law is unusual in that it requires the consent of the governments it affects, so it can be difficult to get agreement on something a government may want to do itself later.

Additionally, the word genocide did not exist until 1944. It is hard to prosecute something you don't even have a good definition for.

The Nuremberg Trials was the first large-scale attempt to prosecute for genocide. The Nuremberg Trials was actually more than one series of hearings; there was a set dedicated to doctors such as Mengele, another for judges of the Nazi regime. But the first was for the generals and leaders of the movement.

The Nuremberg Trials were important for many reasons, but few tribunals have had to create law after the crimes occurred. In fact, the prosecution worked very hard to try to apply existing law to the charges against the war criminals. This meant that the largely feel-good treaty the Kellogg-Briand pact was presented as being binding. The law of conspiracy was brought in as well, as war crimes were traditionally committed on the battlefield, not at headquarters.

Still, the Allied forces went to great lengths to try to make the trials legitimate, giving the defense translated documents, access to lawyers, and time to prepare. Normally the victor would try the crimes, according to their own laws. In the case of Germany, the country was now being occupied by four separate nations. The Nuremberg Tribunals tried to accommodate the several nations involved by using its own rules of procedure. These rules of procedure were based on common law, not a civil law system like the Germans were used to.

The French and the Soviets called victims of the camps as witnesses; neither the US nor the British had. It was the eyewitness accounts of camps such as Treblinka that made genocide real to the general public. Without the painstaking research for the trials, it is unlikely historians today would have nearly as much information about the actual experiences of Nazi concentration camps.

Quite possibly the greatest legacy of the Nuremberg trials was the development of international law, and creating tools to deal with massacres. The formation of the United Nations was heavily impacted by the Nazi trials. The Rwanda tribunals today owe a great debt to the failures and successes of the Nuremberg Tribunals.

July 22nd

On July 22nd, 1937, the United States Senate voted down a proposal to modify the composition of the Supreme Court, known popularly as the court-packing plan.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had many ambitious plans to pull the United States out of the Great Depression. The Supreme Court, however, declared several programs unconstitutional. The Supreme Court prior to 1937 held that contracts were sacred. Any legislation to impose minimum wages, safe working conditions, or minimum ages to work were considered a violation of that right to contract. This time was known as the Lochner era after a famous case about working conditions (regulations lost). Property rights were also given high priority, making emergency farm mortgage programs impossible.

Roosevelt was also frustrated by the overturning of programs intended to regulate industries like coal and agriculture. Although these industries were clearly affected by interstate commerce, the Supreme Court view of when a commodity became interstate was very narrow. The Schechter decision made setting up legislative agencies very difficult. Roosevelt felt like he was being blocked at every turn.

In autumn 1933, Roosevelt started looking at how to go about reforming the court.

Up until this point, most of these decisions were justifiable under stare decisis, the common law tradition of deferring to precedent. Some, however, were reaching back to old cases that had since been overturned. Even this very conservative court was making law.

Roosevelt's eventual plan was to reform the court based on age. A perpetual complaint about the Supreme Court is how justices stay on too long. The original proposal was that for every justice that stayed on past the age of 70, another judge would be appointed. This younger justice would have a greater say in any decision.

There were other facets to the proposal, including one limiting the number of Supreme Court nominees to six. Other sections applied to lower courts and ways to ease their caseloads.

Reaction from the public was hostile. From this point on, the proposal never really gained much momentum. Nonetheless, the bill worked its way through the House and the Senate, including a few revisions.

Although Roosevelt did not get his extra justices, in the long run he won the war. On March 29th, 1937, the Supreme Court handed down three decisions that made the New Deal possible, the famous Switch in Time that Saved Nine. Notable among these was Parrish v. West Coast Hotel, which allowed a minimum wage in Washington state. While these decisions would be a final nail in the court packing plan coffin, Roosevelt did get his ultimate goal of a less obstructionist Supreme Court.

On July 22nd, the Senate rejected the bill, sending it back to strip all court-packing provisions. The plan was effectively dead.

Ironically, shortly after this the Court finally started to turn over. Roosevelt soon had plenty of appointments to fill. It's difficult to judge whether Roosevelt would have gotten the same results with more patience. But no President since has seriously contemplated reforming the Supreme Court.

July 21st

On July 21st, 1925, a verdict was handed down in the Scopes evolution trial.

The Scopes "monkey trial" does not bear much resemblance to Inherit the Wind. While the film is a fine drama, the town of Dayton, Tennessee was excited to have such celebrities as William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow and H. L. Mencken.

The trial was also a setup. The ACLU has been looking for someone to challenge the Butler Act, which prohibited teaching evolution. John Scopes, who was actually a football coach, volunteered. His friends, Sue and Herbert Hicks, would prosecute. (Yes, Sue Hicks inspired the Johnny Cash song.) All-star teams of both sides of the legal aisle quickly formed.

It should be noted that official state textbooks did teach evolution.

It's not even entirely clear that Scopes did teach the contested subject matter, but he was duly arrested and the circus commenced.

The trial was grand entertainment for the town, and was broadcast on national radio. The theory of evolution squared off against the biblical version of events. The First Amendment, specifically the establishment clause, did not factor into the trial until appeal. (The Establishment Clause states that the government may not establish a state religion, or enact legislation designed to favor one belief.)

Many scientific experts were called in, but only one zoologist was allowed to testify in person. The rest instead submitted written reports. To be fair, the experts on the Bible did not present in front of the jury and their testimony was excluded as well.

Bryan had not argued in a courtroom in over three decades. Darrow had won his famous Leopold & Loeb case the year before. It is not surprising that Bryan did not acquit himself as well as had been expected. Nonetheless, it was still a shock when Darrow called Bryan to the stand as a Bible expert. Not so much a shock to Bryan, who had agreed on the condition that Darrow get the same treatment as the next witness.

Darrow ripped Bryan to pieces on the stand when asked to justify various accounts from the Bible. Darrow didn't make a very good impression either, rude and sarcastic. Judge Ralston had endured enough and ended the questioning after two hours. Darrow never testified and the trial wrapped up.

The trial lasted seven days, and ended with Darrow asking for a guilty verdict in order to get an appeal. After all, the basic facts were never in contention. Scopes had admitted to teaching evolution, in defiance of the Butler Act.

On July 21st, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100.00.

Six days later, William Jennings Bryan died. He was still in Dayton, and had died in his sleep.

The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the trial on technical grounds, not constitutional ones. When referred back to the Supreme Court, they declined to hear the case. So, the defense's case was in vain from a legal standpoint.

The Butler Act itself was repealed in 1967.

For more information about this and other famous trials, see
Douglas Linder's Famous Trials

July 20th

On this day, July 20th, 1969, the Apollo 11 project landed astronauts on the moon. Although a flag was planted, the moon was not declared a U. S. territory.

Well before the landing, international ramifications were already being discussed. The Outer Space Treaty, to which the United States is a party, prohibits the moon and other extraterrestrial bodies from hosting nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction. The moon is prohibited from any but peaceful purposes, such as research.

The moon officially belongs to all mankind, and no government can declare it a territory nor claim its resources.

The Outer Space Treaty has been in force since October 10, 1967.