Finding transcripts and associated documents for late 19th century Pennsylvania Orphans Court and Supreme Court decisions Elisabetha Dietsche was my great-great-great-great-grandmother. She lived in Elzach, Baden (now part of Germany) from 1798 to 1844. Under the law in Baden at the time, she and her partner needed permission from the mayor to marry. That permission was denied, and the couple did not marry. Nevertheless, she went on to give birth to 7 children, all from the same father, all therefore illegitimate. Frustratingly, the name of the father was not recorded in the baptism record of any of the children, nor can I find it elsewhere. Three of the children emmigrated to Pennsylvania, Xavier, Rosalie, and Conrad - my 3x great-grandfather. Xavier died, and there followed a dispute between his widow and Rosalie/Conrad over the estate. This led to 86 Pa. 219 (Pa. 1878), Appeal of Woltemate, which was decided by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1878: Pennsylvania State Reports - Volume 86 - Page 219 Weekly Notes of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the County Courts of Philadelphia, and the United States District and Circuit Courts for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Volume 1 However, all I've been able to find is these reports, or very similar ones, of the PA Supreme Court decision (not even the original Orphan's Court decision). I would love to find more; their father is mentioned as being covered in the administratix' auditor's report from the original case (Orphans Court of Philadelphia County: of January Term 1875 No 220) - and presumably, he would be named in that document, or in notes from either the original trial or the PA Supreme Court hearing. So my question is twofold: 1) is there a chance that that any of that still exists somewhere - a transcript/notes/etc from the Orphan's Court hearings, the auditor's report, and/or the transcript/notes/etc from the PA Supreme Court - anything with more detail than is found in the reported brief, and 2) Where would such records be stored, if they exist, such that I could request copies?
is there a chance that that any of that still exists somewhere - a transcript/notes/etc from the Orphan's Court hearings, the auditor's report, and/or the transcript/notes/etc from the PA Supreme Court - anything with more detail than is found in the reported brief There are probably even odds that the judgment of the Orphan's Court remains, mostly likely in microfiche form in a file cabinet somewhere if it exists at all. There is an outside chance the the court filings in the case are still archived somewhere. Most states have destroyed them, but a few states, mostly in the East, have retained very old records of courts of probate jurisdiction which have been used by economic history researchers to estimate the amount and distribution and character of wealth in the early U.S. The odds that the transcript, exhibits in the case, the full trial court record that was considered in the case on appeal, or the judge's notes still exists is very low. Where would such records be stored, if they exist, such that I could request copies? In roughly the order of likelihood: The archives of the clerk's office of the successor court to the Orphan's Court. The state archivist's records. The historical records department of the local library that included the location of the Orphan's Court. The records of the historical society closest to the location of the Orphan's Court. The notes of the judge, if the case was notable enough, might be in the personal papers of the judge, if the judge was notable enough to have deposited his records. This would be most likely with a college or university that the judge attended, or a college or university near where the judge died, or a local library or local historical society near where the judge died or near where the judge lived most of his professional life. The name of the judge should be present in the appellate decision. This said, the likelihood that there is anything about this case in category 5 is remote. I would suggest beginning with a Google search of &quot;Pennsylvania Orphans Court records&quot; including the name of the relevant county (Philadelphia, in this case). One particularly notable link to these records is this one. This states: Probate matters in Philadelphia County are handled by the Orphans' Court and start when the county was created. In addition to wills and administrations, the Orphans' Court also handles: audits of accounts of executors, administrators, trustees, and guardians; distribution of estates; appointments of guardians; adoptions; appeals from the Register of Wills; inheritance tax appeals, and various petitions and motions. Online Probate Indexes . . . . 1683-1994 Pennsylvania Probate Records 1683-1994 at FamilySearch
Which Supreme Court justices, present or historical, have ruled the most against intellectual property rights? In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of intellectual property rights, overturned more expansive rulings of the Federal Circuit, and overridden Patent and Trademark Office policies consistently. All but two the 26 U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the subject (pro or anti-IP holder) in the last 13 years (both in 2018) have either been unanimous or had only one dissenter (with no one consistent dissenting justices). The two 2018 cases with more than one dissenting justice, each involving the inter partes review of previously grated patents by the PTO under a new patent statute, implicate separation of powers and civil procedure issues that have historically been more controversial than pure intellectual property issues. Oil States Energy Services v. Greene's Energy Group (2018) (7-2 with Gorsuch and Roberts dissenting) (upholding PTO invalidation of previously granted patents); SAS Institute v. INACU (2018) (5-4 with Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan dissenting)(expanding scope of PTO reconsideration of previously granted patents). Matal v. Tam (2017) (unanimous) (overturning PTO policy on offensive trademarks); Sandoz Inc. v. Amgen Inc. (2017) (unanimous) (weakening patent protections vis-a-vis biologically similar drugs to patented ones); Impressions Products, Inc. v. Lexmark Int'l, Inc. (2017) (7-1 Ginsberg joining the ruling in part and dissenting in part) (weakening rights of patent holders); TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC (2017) (8-0) (overruling Federal Circuit by limiting venue in patent infringement cases); SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC (2017) (7-1 with Breyer dissenting) (disallowing laches defense to patent law claims); Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple, Inc. (2016) (unanimous) (limiting damages awards in multi-component products where only some components are infringing); Octane Fitness, LLC v. Icon Health &amp; Fitness, Inc. (2014) (unanimous) and Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Management Systems (2014) (unanimous) (the Federal Circuit had set too high a standard for the recovery of attorneys' fees for frivolous patent prosecutions); Alice v. CLS Bank, Int'l. (2014) (unanimous) (limiting software patents); Medtronic v. Mirowski (2014) (unanimous) (burden of proof wrongly placed on someone other than the patent holder); Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics (2013) (unanimous) (invalidated patents on naturally occurring DNA sequences); Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. (2012) (unanimous) (district court's factual findings made clear that drug monitoring device patent merely restated a law of nature and was invalid); Caraco v. Novo (2012) (unanimous) (alleged infringers right to bring counterclaims expanded); Bowman v. Monsanto Co. (2012) (unanimous) (first sale doctrine does not invalidate ban on reproducing crops grown with patented GMO seeds); Kappos v. Hyatt (2012) (unanimous)(expanding ability of applicant denied a patent to challenge the denial with additional evidence); Global-Tech v. SEB (2011) (8-1, Kennedy dissenting) (added knowledge of infringement element in claim for induced patent infringement); Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. Partnership (2011) (unanimous) (presumption of validity of patent continues to apply during patent re-examination process conducted by PTO); Bilski v. Kappos (2009) (unanimous to reverse, complicated holding as to extent of new law)(limiting software patents); Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc. (2008) (unanimous) (disavows Federal Circuit doctrines allowing patent holders to limit use of patented device after a first sale); KSR International v. Teleflex (2007) (unanimous) (expanding obviousness defense); MedImmune v. Genentech (2007) (8-1, Thomas dissenting) (allows for contests of patent validity without risking liability by infringing patent prior to legal ruling on question); Microsoft v. AT&amp;T (2007) (7-1, Roberts dissenting) (U.S. patents laws don't have extraterritorial application); eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. (2006) (unanimous) (sets higher standard for obtaining injunctions once infringement is established); Merck KGaA v. Integra Lifesciences I, Ltd. (2005) (unanimous) (exemption from patent infringement applies to use of patented drugs for narrow purposes of research associated with FDA drug approval process).* Intellectual property issues have not been a partisan or ideological issue on the U.S. at any time in recent memory, and have not been a signature issue of any one justice relative to the other justices. Dissents in IP cases, where they have occurred have tended to be related to non-IP aspects of the cases.
I believe that you have misinterpreted the case, not least because the Hudgins v I.R.S case involves this only peripherally. The original case Diviaio v Kelly was dealing with a request for the number of photographs taken of the plaintiff and if these had been disseminated outside the CIA. This is in no way shape or form a request for records (the records were found to be legitimately exempt). I see no problem in your FOI request. In fact, I can foresee the response: These, http://www.maine.gov/legis/ros/meconlaw.htm, are the laws we use to justify these actions. In a common law jurisdiction, a person (including the government) does not have to prove they are abiding by the law. The onus is on you to prove they aren't; they do not have to help you make your case.
I have encountered this problem in Pennsylvania. The PA Code requires a District Attorney to approve all private criminal complaints. If the DA declines to prosecute, then an affiant can petition the Court of Common Pleas to review the decision. However the affiant bears the burden of convincing the court that the DA abused his descretion in declining to prosecute, which is a pretty high hurdle. In the United States the only other legal appeal I am aware of is through federal courts under broad federal laws like 18 USC 242 or 42 USC 1983.
Let's back up. It's premature to say that SB 8 &quot;avoids the constitutional restrictions on banning abortions&quot;. The constitutionality of SB 8 has not been resolved; the Supreme Court said so explicitly (page 2). In fact there is good reason to think that is unconstitutional under existing interpretation of the Constitution per Roe v. Wade and the like. (Whether the court will actually follow existing interpretation is another question, of course.) But the courts do not determine the constitutionality of laws just because someone asks them; they only do so when it needs to be decided to resolve a particular case. For instance, if a person is charged with a crime, they can challenge the constitutionality of the law under which they are charged, and courts will address that question unless the case is resolved some other way. There are also ways that a person who wants to violate the law can pre-emptively sue the government to prevent them from enforcing the law, if they can show such enforcement is likely to affect them. The issue in SB 8 is that since it wouldn't be the government enforcing the law, it's unclear who an abortion provider can pre-emptively sue. In Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, they tried to sue the State of Texas, its courts, and a private party who they thought might be likely to sue them. The SCOTUS majority found that none of those defendants were relevant. However, if and when an abortion provider actually does get sued, there'll be a clear case which has proper parties and is ripe, and courts then will have to consider whether SB 8 is constitutional or not. So if your hypothetical gun control statute were treated similarly, the law might avoid pre-emptive challenges, with a chilling effect on gun sales. But sooner or later, someone would probably violate the law (maybe deliberately as a test case), and the courts would consider whether it was constitutional or not. Under prevailing interpretations of the Second Amendment, they'd probably find that it wasn't. A key difference, of course, is that abortions are much more time-sensitive than gun purchases; being temporarily blocked from having an abortion is much more consequential in most cases than being temporarily blocked from buying a gun. The other subtext is that, although SCOTUS said their decision in Whole Woman's Health is not based on the constitutionality of SB 8, it's widely suspected that several of the justices are not all that keen on the constitutional right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade, and might look to overturn Roe when it comes up. As such, they may not be very motivated to look for procedural avenues to block SB 8 in the short term, since they might be inclined to uphold it in the long term. The dissenters in Whole Woman's Health certainly thought those avenues were available. But in the case of your hypothetical gun control bill, if a majority of justices were pretty convinced that the law was unconstitutional, they might try harder to come up with grounds to block it pre-emptively.
My understanding is that &quot;the record&quot; only refers to the official record of the proceeding, e.g. the transcripts that would be kept on file and used as the basis for formal decisions. Such records are usually prepared after the fact by a court reporter based on their shorthand notes or audio recordings, so this indicates that the reporter should simply leave out the statement in question when creating those records, perhaps replacing it with a marking saying &quot;(stricken)&quot; or something of the sort. &quot;Stricken from the record&quot; doesn't indicate that the statement is to be kept secret or scrubbed from all history in some Orwellian fashion, merely that it should not be considered in any legal decision-making process (e.g. a judge's ruling). The decision should be made as if the statement had never been uttered. Anyone else in the courtroom -- lawyers, journalists, members of the public -- is free to remember it, write it down, publish it, shout it from the rooftops, or etch it into stone tablets, if they wish. No penalties exist for doing so. I also don't think there is any requirement to delete it from the court reporter's preliminary notes or audio recordings; again, only from the final official transcript. (There could be other situations where it is forbidden to record or divulge what was said: secret grand jury proceedings, material under seal, gag orders, etc. But those would all require some sort of regulation or order outside the usual meaning of the phrase &quot;strike from the record&quot;.)
One place to look is the incest statute, 18-6602, which says: Persons being within the degrees of consanguinity within which marriages are declared by law to be incestuous and void, who intermarry with each other, or who commit fornication or adultery with each other, are punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for a term not to exceed life. The relevant statute pertaining to consanguinity and marriage (32.205) states: Marriages between parents and children, ancestors and descendants of every degree, and between brothers and sisters of the half (1/2) as well as the whole blood, and between uncles and nieces, or aunts and nephews, are incestuous, and void from the beginning, whether the relationship is legitimate or illegitimate. A literal reading of the law with attention to the bold part tells you that the prohibition of marriage between brothers and sisters of full or half blood does not preclude marriage between blood-unrelated sibling. It does, however, not grant the same right to aunts and nephews etc. (including those by adoption), which could engender competing claims about legislative intent. It would then be relevant to look at the Washington analog of this statute, RCW 26.04.020, which prohibits marriage: (1)(b) When the spouses are nearer of kin to each other than second cousins, whether of the whole or half blood computing by the rules of the civil law. (2) It is unlawful for any person to marry his or her sibling, child, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew. Here, the blood-relation rule applies to (second) cousins and is absolute for aunts and sibling. It would seem that various legislatures had different intents, in forming these statutes. In Oregon, ORS 106.020 prohibits marriage When the parties thereto are first cousins or any nearer of kin to each other, whether of the whole or half blood, whether by blood or adoption, computing by the rules of the civil law, except that when the parties are first cousins by adoption only, the marriage is not prohibited or void In this case, the Oregon law explicitly equates blood and adoption, and then could cast doubt on the concept of "whole or half blood" as actually referring to blood relationship (although, Oregon is not Idaho, or Washington). Given the literal reading of the Idaho statutes (and without there being any clarifying case pertaining to relationship by adoption), it may take a court order to compel the county clerk to obey the law, especially if the clerk is dispensing life choice recommendations. That is especially so if the law is not clearly established. Montana likewise restricts (40-1-401) a marriage between an ancestor and a descendant or between a brother and a sister, whether the relationship is by the half or the whole blood, or between first cousins That statute also says Parties to a marriage prohibited under this section who cohabit after removal of the impediment are lawfully married as of the date of the removal of the impediment. However, there is no obvious way to get legally unadopted, especially when the parties are adults. An additional wrinkle is that in Idaho under 32-209, valid marriages entered into elsewhere are valid in that state unless they violate the public policy of this state. Marriages that violate the public policy of this state include, but are not limited to, same-sex marriages, and marriages entered into under the laws of another state or country with the intent to evade the prohibitions of the marriage laws of this state. But it is established law that same-sex marriages are legal. The bold section is clearly unconstitutional; the question then is whether if you took this to SCOTUS, they would strike down the entire statute (a number of states still have such language on their statute books, e.g. Montana still declares that marriage is between a man and a woman). At any rate, a lawyer is probably mandatory.
It is like an affidavit of sort, sworn out without the jurat and not before a notary. The swearing out of a complaint or rebutting evidence in all Federal civil matters (some states allow for the same) must contain an affidavit or an "unsworn declaration" that swears out the facts to be true and accurate, even though not notarized, and is based on fact and not supposition. It is subject to the same penalties of perjury if one lies as if you swear on a bible and testify in court or on a "sworn" affidavit. Affidavits need not be sworn before God, or on a bible. You have a right to just "affirm" that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth....and not "so help me God". Many courts don't use a bible at all anymore. 28 U.S.C. 1746 relates to these "Unsworn Declarations Under Penalty Of Perjury" It is not b/c you don't believe in God that you'd use this...you always have the option of swearing out even a declared affidavit or testifying without swearing on a bible if you're an atheist. They just leave out the "before God" part. Affidavits are the norm, however, in Federal Courts that have an expedited docket this is typically used when it could take a while to get a notary and the evidence is due. (In some states lawyers are automatically notaries but in others they aren't). The ability to swear out a complaint or contest a deposition without having to wait on a notary can be the difference between making your deadline or not. It's commonly used when records custodians are called to certify the authenticity of documents produced pursuant to subpoena or other formal request. Under F.R.Civ.P 56 declarations usually are not within the type of evidentiary categories that can be used at the summary judgment phase. If it's a small misstatement you would probably be faced with a fine. If it's a total lie, outright, you'd be looking at jail time (say a records custodian removed evidence and swore out it was the complete business record in a fraud case). 18 U.S. Code § 1621 discusses perjury generally (in federal actions).