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The Green Bag
the criminal law, it has to a very limited extent affected only the actual enactments concerning it with which in the first instance the bar is more largely, if not exclusively, concerned." See Criminal Law, Penology. Due Process of Law. See Fourteenth Amend ment. Equal Protection of the Laws. See Race Distinctions. Evidence. "Confessions." By Nicholas J. Hoban. 75 Central Law Journal 347 (Nov. 8.) "It is generally considered that a confession voluntarily made is entitled to the greatest weight. ' Habemus optimum testimonium rei.' A prisoner's confession involving no question of law is sufficient grounds to warrant a convic tion, although there is no corroborating proof of his having committed the offense charged. This view, however, is very seriously doubted by text writers as not being what the English courts would hold, if the question was directly presented to them, but it clearly is not the American rule. It is well settled in this country, that there must be some corroborating evidence to the con fession in order to establish the prisoner's guilt; but if the commission of the offense be estab lished, it is unnecessary to have any corroborating evidence of the prisoner's criminal agency." Extradition. "A Report of a Recent Extradi tion Case: Re Macaluso." By Prof. Charles Cheney Hyde. 7 Illinois Law Review 237 (Nov.). A brief account of proceedings before United States Commissioner Foote in Chicago a year ago, resulting in the prompt surrender of the culprit to the Italian government. Federal Jurisdiction. "Limitations on Fed eral Courts in Administering State Law." By Needham C. Collier. 75 Central Law Journal 330 (Nov. 1). Fifteenth Amendment. See Race Distinc tions. Fourteenth Amendment. "Judicial Con struction of the Fourteenth Amendment." By Francis J. Swayze. 26 Harvard Law Review 1 (Nov.). A full and valuable discussion of the entire subject. As for the outlook for the future: — "Questions as varied as the multitude of human affairs will arise. We must continue to define, as we have for forty years, by a process of inclusion and exclusion. Whether that process shall be conducted by the slower and more considerate process of the courts where both sides are heard and the court feels obliged to vindicate its con clusions by reason, or by the sometimes hastier but not always in the end more expeditious processes of an electorate or a legislative body which may substitute its will for reason, is a question of political expediency. A lawyer naturally prefers the existing method, hitherto
the boast of our American system, but must recognize that under a different system the vague provision of the Great Charter has frequently served a useful purpose in protecting personal liberty and private property. Whatever sys tem is followed, language must continue to be defined when it becomes necessary to apply it to concrete cases. "The practical result depends not so much upon the language of the written instrument or the statutory enactment, as upon the spirit in which the language is defined and the law administered." See Government. General Jurisprudence. "What is the Law? I." By Joseph W. Bingham. 11 Michigan Law Review 1 (Nov.). "I have stated that the field of law is part of the field of the science of government. I de limit it further by saying that it includes only the organization of the institutions and agencies of authoritative government, their concrete operations and effects, and the causal facts which bring about those operations. These things constitute external sequences of phe nomena which correspond to the working field of the scientist. Knowledge of such concrete governmental phenomena obtained by observa tion, report, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the other implements of scientific investiga tion, may be generalized into rules and prin ciples. A technical vocabulary and sterotyped methods of phrasing may be developed with ac companying definitions. When thorough knowl edge so obtained has been fully organized we shall have that which may with propriety be called a science of law." The treatment here followed offers a striking example of close analytical examination and will repay careful reading. Government. "Constitutional Law in 1910 -11: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1910." By Eugene Wambaugh. American Political Science Review, v. 6, p. 513 (Nov.). Professor Wambaugh points out that the year 1910-11 was much more important, from the standpoint of federal constitutional law, than the previous year; the noteworthy constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court were much more numerous. He here notices the Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska Bank deposit guaranty cases (Noble State Bank v. Haskell, etc.,), the Standard Oil case, the federal corporation tax case (Flint v. Stone Tracy Co.), and the Gompers contempt case (Gompers v. Bucks Stove and Range Co.). Other cases were: German Alliance In surance Co., v. Hale, in which an Alabama statute, prohibiting combinations of insurance underwriters, was upheld; West v. Kansas Natu ral Gas Co., holding that an Oklahoma statute designed to keep natural gas from being piped out of the state was an interference with inter state commerce; Coyle v. Smith, involving the
