Has there ever been a serious lawsuit seeking reparations for slavery? Slavery was an abomination, corrupting both the enslaved and the enslavers. Given that we have the Modern Slavery Act, has there ever been a serious lawsuit seeking reparations for slavery? If so, by whom and when? Jurisdiction, worldwide; but given its infamy, the United States in particular. edit At the end of the American Civil War, four hundred thousand acres was taken from the former slaver owners along the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, giving each free slave forty acres of land. This act of reparation was instituted during the then President Abraham Lincolns tenure but reversed by his successor, President Andrew Johnson after Lincolns assassination. Thus, there is precedent for such an action.
Yes. American descendents of African slaves filed several lawsuits in the early 2000s seeking &quot;monetary relief under both federal and state law for harms stemming from the enslavement of black people in America,&quot; i.e., reparations. Those cases were consolidated into a single case heard in Chicago, where the judge ruled there was no standing to bring the cases, given the many degrees of separation between the defendants' conduct in the 1800s and the 21st Century plaintiffs. The Seventh Circuit affirmed: If there were a legal wrong, it would not be a wrong to any living persons unless they were somehow the authorized representatives to bring suits on behalf of their enslaved ancestors. With some exceptions to be noted, the plaintiffs are suing to redress harms to third parties (their ancestors), without being authorized to sue on behalf of those parties. It is like a suit by a descendant of a Union soldier, killed in battle, against a Civil War era gun manufacturer still in business that sold guns to the Confederacy in violation of federal law. A federal court could not entertain the suit because the plaintiff would be unable to prove a harm to an interest of his (such as his bank account) that the law protects. In re African-Am. Slave Descendants Litig., 471 F.3d 754, 760–61 (7th Cir. 2006). The Seventh Circuit permitted one very small portion of the case to proceed, and the Supreme Court declined to review the case.
The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that states may not unilaterally secede. The state litigant in the case was Texas. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White
As a preliminary note, the mandate that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” can be interpreted two ways, (a) prohibiting punishments which are cruel as well as those which are unusual, or (b) prohibiting just those which are both cruel and unusual. The courts have not interpreted this to have meaning (b), even though "cruel and unusual" is a fixed phrase repeated in court rulings. In various cases where the "cruel and unusual" clause is invoked, e.g. Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 the courts consistently analyze the punishment in terms of being jointly "cruel and unusual", and never consider the possibility that a punishment might be cruel but usual, or unusual but not cruel. The prohibition derives from the pre-American "cruell and unusuall Punishments" provision of the English Declaration of Rights, analyzed in Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, which provides "[t]hat excessive Baile ought not to be required nor excessive Fines imposed nor cruell and unusuall Punishments inflicted". The court observes that cruel punishments can indeed be quite common, for example But the vicious punishments for treason decreed in the Bloody Assizes (drawing and quartering, burning of women felons, beheading, disembowling, etc.) were common in that period -- indeed, they were specifically authorized by law, and remained so for many years afterwards. The court concludes from its historical analysis that "unusual(l)" in the context of English common law really means "illegal", i.e. "contrary to Law and ancient practice," without "Precedents" or "express Law to warrant," "unusual," "illegal," or imposed by "Pretence to a discretionary Power."
I believe you are using rule of law when you mean due process. The former refers to equality before the law and the subjugation of executive government to the law while the latter refers accepted measures of justice and fairness in the administration of the law and, in the United States, to the supremacy of the judiciary over the legislature (the situation is reversed in the UK). Assuming that to be the case, the due process clause in the fifth amendment provides that "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ...". That is, actions against Huawei must only be taken as permitted by the law. The law that permits the President to institute the Huawei ban is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. As such, at face value, this is a legitimate exercise in executive power. Huawei has the right to challenge the ban in US courts, as such, they have been afforded due process.
Yes, such a scenario is plausible, and there are some cases where it has probably happened. But since juries do not normally give reasons for their votes, it is hard to establish when it has and when it has not happened, and I have seen no statistics on such occurrences. By the way, &quot;Jury Nullification&quot; is simply when one or more jury members vote in a particular way because of something other than the law and evidence as presented in the trial. Most often the term is used when a jury votes to acquit because they dislike or disapprove of the law involved. For example, in the 1850s a number of people accused of violating the US Fugitive Slave Law by harboring runaway slaves were acquitted, reputedly because juries who disliked the law (quite unpopular in many northern states) no matter what the evidence. Later, during Prohibition, some people charged with possessing or selling alcohol were acquitted, reputedly by juries who disapproved of Prohibition. In both cases, it is hard to get authoritative sources that specific cases were actual instances of jury nullification. Anyway, a juror need not &quot;ask&quot; for jury nullification, that juror just votes to acquit. A jury that votes to acquit (or convict) because of political or personal views about the accused might be said to be &quot;biased&quot; but I am not sure if that would be described as &quot;jury nullification&quot;.
Interesting question. I routinely write wills that authorize the executor to destroy property that has no significant economic or sentimental value, but I've never encountered a case where a testator or testatrix has directed that property be destroyed and I've never seen a reported case (or even a news report) in which that has happened. To the extent that an estate is solvent, there is no reason that a creditor could complain and if the destruction was done in a safe manner (as opposed to burning down a house or something like that without consulting the fire department) I'm not sure that there would be a public interest in doing so either. There are many religions that had a practice historically of burying someone with grave goods, so there are reasonable First Amendment freedom of religion arguments for allowing such a practice if it had a religious basis. And, if no interested party objected, I don't see how anyone could stop the executor from acting, unless the property to be destroyed was, for example, evidence of a crime, in which case it would be a crime to destroy it and the provision of the will would be void because it was a crime to carry it out. If an executor sought permission from a court to carry out this instruction, the court might require a public notice of the planned destruction to give notice to any third party who might claim an ownership interest in the property allegedly belonging to the decedent. On the other hand, usually, all interested parties in an estate can agree to act contrary to a will by unanimous consent, in which case no one would have standing to fight for the provision in court (unless it was considered a charitable bequest, in which case a state attorney general or an advocate appointed by the court with the "will" as the client could defend it). Given the strong public policies in the law disfavoring "waste" (i.e. useless destruction of property) such a provision could be held to be void as against public policy (similarly, bequests contingent upon marriage decisions are now void as against public policy).
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights isn't a penal code. It says very little about what should be a crime and only a little about what shouldn't be a crime or how those crimes should be punished. It is cribbed heavily from the constitutional rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution and the positive rights declared by FDR in connection with his New Deal agenda. It implies many positive entitlements and general principles that can't be achieved in the criminal justice system (Articles 1-2 and 13-30). Articles 3-12 pertaining most directly to criminal procedure are very modest expectations that many countries meet, and even more countries have enacted as law, even if the reality doesn't always live up to the law in the statute books. This is evident from their very brevity. Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. Article 8. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Article 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. Article 11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed. Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
The alternative is the same whether just one lower court or many lower courts ignore SCOTUS precedent. An aggrieved parts will appeal the lower court ruling, and the matter will work its way up the ladder until SCOTUS directly rules on this application of the law. This sort of happens all the time, when lower courts don't apply the ostensive "final ruling" because they find that there is some other overriding consideration ("that rule only applies to businesses employing more than 50 people"). Where the case to be remanded to lower courts for further proceedings consistent with SCOTUS opinion and still the lower courts refuse to comply, i.e open rebellion, SCOTUS could rule that non-compliance by lower courts constitutes contempt, and an order could be issued for the removal (in some form) of offending parties (we may presume, the justices of the lower court). The statute outlining court power allows on order of imprisonment for "disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command". Federal marshals would then arrest non-compliant judges, unless the marshals too are in open rebellion. If the judges in question were federal judges, the marshals would have to decide whether to obey the order of SCOTUS vs. the order of the district or circuit court. Since under the US Constitution states that "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish", it is objectively established that SCOTUS rulings are superior, so provided that the marshals elect to uphold their oath of office, they will enforce the SCOTUS ruling. However, citizen action becomes irrelevant once SCOTUS has made its ruling, and the matter has moved from legal determination of fact to enforcement of established fact.