This introductory text explores the historical origins of the main legal institutions that came to characterize the Anglo-American legal tradition, and to distinguish it from European legal systems. The book contains both text and extracts from historical sources and literature. The book is published in color, and contains over 200 illustrations, many in color, including medieval illuminated manuscripts, paintings, books and manuscripts, caricatures, and photographs.
Two great themes dominate the book: (1) the origins, development, and pervasive influence of the jury system and judge/jury relations across eight centuries of Anglo-American civil and criminal justice; and (2) the law/equity division, from the emergence of the Court of Chancery in the fourteenth century down through equity's conquest of common law in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The chapters on criminal justice explore the history of pretrial investigation, policing, trial, and sentencing, as well as the movement in modern times to nonjury resolution through plea bargaining. Considerable attention is devoted to distinctively American developments, such as the elective bench, and the influence of race relations on the law of criminal procedure.
Other major subjects of this book include the development of the legal profession, from the serjeants, barristers, and attorneys of medieval times down to the transnational megafirms of twenty-first century practice; the literature of the law, especially law reports and treatises, from the Year Books and Bracton down to the American state reports and today's electronic services; and legal education, from the founding of the Inns of Court to the emergence and growth of university law schools in the United States.
History of the Common Law offers:
dynamic teaching materials that include primary sources, scholarship, summaries, notes, and questions
judiciously selected and edited sources
over 200 illustrations—many in full color
Living Law units that connect legal-historical developments to modern law
an illustrated timeline that highlights key dates
Vivid writing, engaging source materials, and lavish illustrations breathe life into nearly 1,000 years of Anglo-American legal history.
Table of Contents includes:
Part I: Medieval Foundations of the Common Law Chapter 1. Criminal Procedure and the Origins of the Jury System Chapter 2. Civil Justice Chapter 3. Shaping the Legal Professions: Bar, Bench, and Books
Part II: The Second English Legal System Chapter 4. The Transformation of the Jury and the Reconstruction of Criminal and Civil Justice Chapter 5. The Rise of Chancery
Chapter 6. The Maturation and Reform of Chancery, and the Fusion of Law and Equity
Part III: Reshaping the Jury Chapter 7. Controlling, Reviewing, and Suppressing Juries in England Chapter 8. Judge/Jury Relations in America
Part IV: Criminal Justice Chapter 9. Rebuilding Criminal Procedure: The Marian Pretrial and the Altercation Trial Chapter 10. The Growth of Defensive Safeguard
Chapter 11. American Criminal Justice
Part V: American Initiatives in the Common Law Chapter 12. Legal Literature Chapter 13. The Reception and Recasting of English Law Chapter 14. Legal Education
Chapter 15. The Legal Profession
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