The Georgetown Law Journal Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... THE RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS The subject of the recall of judicial decisions will be considered not from a political but from a legal standpoint. B1oadly speaking, the recall of judicial decisions is as old as the statute law. When we examine the British statutes from their earliest date down to the present time, we find innumerable acts that have been passed solely to destroy or recall the effect of the decisions of the courts of that country. Examine the reports of decisions of any of the states of the Union, examine the reports of decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and you will find thousands of these decisions destroyed by subsequent statutory enactments. You will find in almost every state, reported cases that are worn out or shorn of their effect by common consent, without any statute or written declaration destroying them. Take for instance the feudal tenures that existed under the common law, take the tenancy in socage that existed in a great many parts of the country, take the doctrine of escheat as an incident of tenure; in many of the states you will find this doctrine and those tenures destroyed without any legislative act, and without any written declaration by the people expressing their disapproval. By common consent, these statutes and the decisions of the Courts upholding them have fallen into innocuous desuetude, and are no longer looked upon as law. In the case of Matthews v. Ward, 10 Gill & John. (Md.), p. 403, the Supreme Court of the State of Maryland held that the English doctrine of tenures was destroyed by the Revolution, and that the right of escheat no longer inured to the benefit of a private individual, the lord of the fee, but that it inured to the sovereign, and to the sovereign alone, ...