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This book offers a close look at the development of legal thought during the era of prohibition and documents the impact of prohibition on law as an intellectual discipline. Kenneth M. Murchison examines changes in federal criminal law doctrines from 1918 to 1933 in light of recent historical scholarship on prohibition and its impact on American society. He identifies these federal doctrinal developments as an important but ignored legacy of prohibition and describes how these changes continue to effect contemporary law.
In this detailed examination, Murchison considers a portion of the Supreme Court’s work prior to the New Deal crisis, a period insufficiently considered until now. Among the developments he discusses are those relating to the defense of entrapment, the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure, the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition against double jeopardy, property forfeitures, and the jury trial guarantees for criminal proceedings. His analysis reveals a court less rigid, less consistently divided along modern ideological lines, and more tolerant of governmental authority than traditional wisdom would suggest. Thus, Murchison offers a framework for a revisionist view of the Supreme Court’s activities during this period.
Exploring an important connection between the Eighteenth Amendment, the Volstead Act, and the development of federal criminal law, this book documents what was arguably the nation’s first criminal law revolution at the federal level. Explaining the modern origins of doctrines that still inform federal criminal law, Murchison also provides a case study of how legal doctrine responds to changing social conditions. Federal Criminal Law Doctrines will add immeasurably to the work of historians and legal scholars alike.

The passage of the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in California in 2008 stunned gay rights activists across the country. Although facing a well-funded campaign in support of the ballot measure, LGBT activists had good reasons for optimism, including the size and strength of their campaign. Since 1974, the LGBT movement has fought 146 anti-gay ballot initiatives sponsored by the religious right and has developed innovative strategies to oppose these measures. In Gay Rights at the Ballot Box, Amy L. Stone examines how the tactics of LGBT activists have evolved and unravels the complex relationship between ballot measure campaigns and the broader goals of the LGBT movement.

The first comprehensive history of anti-gay ballot measures, both those merely attempted and those successfully put before voters, this book draws on archival research and interviews with more than one hundred LGBT activists to provide a detailed account of the campaigns to stop such ballot measures from passing into law. As Stone shows through in-depth case studies, although LGBT activists lost the vast majority of these fights, they also won significant statewide victories in Oregon in 1992 and Arizona in 2006, and local successes, including ones in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1998 and 2002.

Stone analyzes how LGBT activists constantly refined their campaign tactics in response to both victories and defeats. She also stresses that such campaigns have played both a complementary and contradictory role within the LGBT movement. Specific anti-ballot campaigns and the broader movement do often strengthen each other. However, ballot measure campaigns sometimes distract activists from the movement’s more general goals, and activists at the movement level can pressure local campaigns to take on more than they can handle. With gay rights coming under increasing assault from the religious right, this book is a vital resource for LGBT activists and others working to block their efforts.

Since the US Constitution came into force in 1789, it has been amended just twenty-seven times, with ten of those amendments coming in the first two years following ratification. By contrast, state constitutions have been completely rewritten on a regular basis, and the current documents have been amended on average 150 times. This is because federal amendments are difficult, so politicians rarely focus on enacting them. Rather, they work to secure favorable congressional statutes or Supreme Court decisions. By contrast, the relative ease of state amendment processes makes them a realistic and regular vehicle for seeking change.

With State Constitutional Politics, John Dinan looks at the various occasions in American history when state constitutional amendments have served as instruments of governance. Among other things, amendments have constrained state officials in the way they levy taxes and spend money; enacted policies unattainable through legislation on issues ranging from minimum wage to the regulation of marijuana; and updated understandings of rights, including religious liberty, equal protection, and the right to bear arms. In addition to comprehensively chronicling the ways amendments shape politics in the states, Dinan also assesses the consequences of undertaking changes in governance through amendments rather than legislation or litigation. For various reasons, including the greater stability and legitimacy of changes achieved through the amendment process, he argues that it might be a more desirable way of achieving change.