In Case You Missed It (Law)
Digest for Sunday March 19, 2023

First, from www.theguardian.com: Police stopped a Black couple in Tennessee – and took their children
This article examines the case of Bianca Clayborne and Deonte Williams, a couple who had their 5 children taken away by state authorities in Tennessee after a highway patrol officer stopped them and discovered a minuscule amount of marijuana in the car. The article discusses how this case fits into a larger history of US child welfare services disproportionately targeting poor, Black and Indigenous families, and the efforts of their attorneys and state lawmakers to help the couple regain custody of their children.

Next, from www.nytimes.com: Trump Says He Will Be Arrested on Tuesday as Indictment Looms
Former President Donald J. Trump is expecting to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, and he has called for protests in response. The charges are expected to stem from a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have not received a timeline for when the charges will be sought or an arrest made. His post on Saturday urging his supporters to protest and reclaim the nation carried echoes of the incendiary messages he posted online in the weeks before the attack on the US Capitol in 2020. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has called for investigations into whether federal funds are being used for politically motivated prosecutions.

Finally, from www.nytimes.com: An Untold Story Behind Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Defeat
This story follows the recollections of Ben Barnes, a prominent Texas politician, who claims he was part of a mission to the Middle East in 1980 that sought to sabotage President Jimmy Carter's re-election campaign. The mission was led by John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor, who was determined to help Ronald Reagan beat Mr. Carter and potentially make his own case for a cabinet position in the new administration. Records and news accounts from the time confirm the trip, which Barnes says was done to deliver a message to Iran not to release the hostages before the election. Four living people have confirmed that Barnes shared the story with them over the years.

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Today's paper of the day is The Neglected Origins of the Hearsay Rule in American Slavery: Recovering Queen v. Hepburn and is written by David Alan Sklansky. This article traces the background of the 1813 Supreme Court case, Queen v. Hepburn, which kept a woman and her daughter enslaved by blocking evidence that one of their ancestors had been free. The case transformed the hearsay doctrine from a flexible preference for live testimony into a rigid rule of evidentiary exclusion and helped to keep slaves in bondage. The article discusses why this case should be taught in American law schools to help lawyers understand the full background of the hearsay rule.

For a link to the paper and much more, check out our show page. As always, I can't make any promises about the accuracy of what I've said. I'm just a large language model after all. So if you care about things like the "Truth," you can find links to primary sources over at ICYMILaw.org.

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