Minimum Competence

On this day in legal history, August 11, 1792, the Supreme Court delivered its first reported decision in Georgia v. Brailsford . It arose from a debt dispute between the state of Georgia and a British creditor, and it is renowned for being one of the first cases in which the Supreme Court exercised its original jurisdiction as well as being the first reported decision. In this case, the court all...

On this day in legal history, August 10, 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, becoming the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Her work has had a lasting impact on U.S. law, particularly in the areas of gender equality and civil rights.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg's tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court was marked by significant decisions that shaped American law. In...

On this day in legal history, Richard M. Nixon resigned the office of the presidency, effective at noon. We covered that in yesterday’s episode, so we won’t go in to detail here. Instead, let’s talk about Charles Manson. On this day in legal history, the Manson Family murdered actress Sharon Tate and four others in Los Angeles, California. The Manson Family murders not only shocked the nation but...

On this day in legal history, President Richard Milhouse Nixon announced his resignation of the office of the presidency, effective the following day at noon.  On August 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon addressed the American public from the Oval Office to announce his resignation, marking the end of the infamous Watergate scandal. This scandal began with a break-in at the Democratic National Comm...

On this day in legal history, August 7, 1789, Congress passed an act known as the 9th Act of the First Congress, which established the Lighthouse Service. This marked a crucial commitment to maritime navigation safety in the United States and was a key piece of legislation designed for the establishment and support of lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and public piers. Remarkably, this was the first no...

On this day in legal history, August 4, 1735, a significant victory for the free press was achieved in the United States. Publisher John Peter Zenger was acquitted of libel charges against New York's colonial governor, William Cosby, in a case that became a landmark moment for American liberty. The New-York Weekly Journal, printed by Zenger, had consistently criticized Governor Cosby, leading to v...

On this day in legal history, we have a dark one. On August 3, 1934, the German Parliament combined the offices of President and Chancellor, raising Adolf Hitler as the supreme leader of Germany.   President Paul von Hindenburg, a key figure in German politics, died at the age of 87 on August 2, 1934, marking a dark turning point in German history. Hindenburg had been a decorated military officer...

On this day in legal history, August 2, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia.  The process of adopting the Declaration of Independence began with the appointment of a committee of five, including notable figures like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, on June 10, 1776. Jefferson drafted the statement, and after revisions, it was presented to Congress,...

On this day in legal history, August 1, 1833 the British Empire abolished slavery with the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act. Put differently, despite huge shortcomings to the act and its enforcement, the empire probably responsible for the most death and destruction worldwide got the message regarding the atrocities of slavery about 3 decades prior to the United States, which is pretty damning...

On this day in legal history, July 31, 1919 the Constitution of the German Reich was signed in Weimar, Germany.  The Constitution of the German Reich, commonly referred to as the Weimar Constitution , was the governing document for Germany during the Weimar Republic era from 1919 to 1933. It was drafted following the end of World War I by the lawyer and liberal politician Hugo Preuss, who played a...

On this day in legal history, July 28th, 1868, Secretary of State William H. Seward declared the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, granting citizenship to former slaves and protecting due process of law and equal protection of laws in the States.. The journey to the ratification of the 14th Amendment was a difficult one. Many southern states, recently defeated in the...

On this day in legal history, July 27th, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to recommend impeachment for President Richard Nixon.  The events surrounding President Richard M. Nixon's impeachment proceedings date back to June 17, 1972, with the instigation of the Watergate scandal. A group of burglars were arrested at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, located withi...

On this day in legal history, July 26th, in 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act , a comprehensive civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It covers five main areas, including employment, public services, public accommodations and commercial facilities and telecommunications. The act mandates that employers, public service...

In this day in history, July 25th, the National Security Act of 1947 was passed. The act linked the military and national security organizations and set the tone for the relationship between the two that persists to this day.  The National Security Act of 1947, a cornerstone in the reorganization of the United States' foreign policy and military institutions, led to the establishment of significan...

On this day in history, July 24th, 1929, the Kellogg-Briand Pact took effect. It was ambitious, as pacts go, because get this – it was an international agreement outlawing war as an implement of foreign policy. In addition to everything else, in typical Nazi fashion, the Third Reich just brazenly ignored the agreement.  The Kellogg-Briand Pact , also known as the Pact of Paris, was an internationa...

On this day in history, July 21, the North Atlantic Treaty, of NATO fame, was ratified in the Senate. In the wake of World War II, the United States emerged as an unrivaled superpower, boasting a robust military, thriving economy, and moral ascendancy. Despite a history of isolationism, encouraged since the time of George Washington, shifts in policy started to emerge. On March 12, 1947, President...

On this day in history, July 20, 1990, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan retired.  William Joseph Brennan Jr., an influential American jurist, served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1956 until 1990, making him the seventh-longest serving justice in history. To add some color to that run, he was appointed by President Eisenhower and his successor was appoi...

On this day in history, July 19 1911, the first state law in the US allowing for censorship of movies was passed in Pennsylvania.  The Pennsylvania State Board of Censors, established on July 19, 1911, under P.L. 1067 by Governor John Kinley Tener, was the first such organization in the United States and was renowned for its stringency. The Board's main responsibility was to review all films befor...

On this day in history, July 18 1956, the Narcotic Control Act was passed.  The Narcotic Control Act of 1956 and similar legislation have faced significant criticism for their punitive approach to drug offenses. Critics argue that this model of severe mandatory sentences, particularly for nonviolent drug offenses, exacerbates issues related to over-incarceration without effectively addressing the...

On this day in history, July 17, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the second Confiscation Act. The act allowed for the confiscation of property of confederate sympathizers. The Confiscation Act of 1862 was a significant piece of legislation passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War, at least rhetorically if not practically. The act aimed to target the property of Confederate s...

On this day in history, July 14 1798, Congress passed the Sedition Act.  The Sedition Act of 1798 was a controversial law that criminalized the propagation of false or defamatory statements against the federal government. It was primarily deployed as a tool by the Adams administration to control dissenting speech, especially from the Jeffersonian press that took issue with the ideologies of the Fe...

On this day in history, in 1787, the Congress of the Confederation, the body operating under the Articles of Confederation and precursor to the United States Congress, passed the Northwest Ordinance.  The Northwest Ordinance, officially titled "An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio," was an act passed by the Confederation Congress of th...

On this day in history, in 1909, the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, which gave Congress the power to collect income taxes.  Passed in 1909, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1913. This came after a series of economically destabilizing events, including a period of economic disparity between eastern industries and farmers in the south and west post-Civil War.  The first federal i...

On this day in history, in 1921, William Howard Taft was sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after having served a term as president ten years prior. Taft remains the only person to have been both president and a Supreme Court Justice, much less Chief Justice. William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1857. He graduated from Yale University and Cincinnati Law School, then...

On this day in history, in 1991, Boris Yelstin was elected Russia’s first popularly elected president.  Boris Yeltsin, a Soviet and Russian politician, served as the first president of Russia from 1991 to 1999. Initially a member of the Communist Party, he later distanced himself from the party and aligned himself with liberalism and Russian nationalism. Yeltsin was born in Butka, Ural Oblast, and...