Judicial Ethics

My role in this symposium is a modest one: it is to clear thering for the feature fight of the program between Dean Brownand Professor Hartman. I am to sweep away some of the rubbishin the ring that often gets in the way of a clean battle on issues ofethics. I think the most serious rubbish that needs to be sweptaway is the widely prevailing notion that ethics is something offin the clouds, or off in some never-never land of Utopia, somethinguncertain and subjective, whereas the law is something that isvery definite, clear, hard, here and now. Of course, if that weretrue, there would be no point in trying to apply ethical doctrinesto actual cases

Book Review: Legal Philosophy from Plato to Hegel

Huntington Cairns has provided lawyers, judges, and laymen with a long-needed guide to the thinking of professional philosophers on the perennial problems of the law. I think it safe to say that no better in- troduction to the subject has ever been written. Indeed, the book is so good that one\u27s chief criticism must be that there is not more of it. Thir- teen major philosophers are included-if we accept as valid our author\u27s characterization of two literary lawyers (Cicero and Bacon) as major philosophers. A good many important philosophical figures are omitted. No attempt is-made to convey the philosophical thinking of jurists. The problem of integrating or interrelating the thirteen chosen philosophical perspectives on law is expressly put aside. What we have, then, is an ex- cellent collection of essays expounding the thoughts of thirteen philosophers on legal issues. It would be captious to criticize these essays because they do not attempt to be something else

The Indian Bureau\u27s Drive for Increased Police Powers, April 3, 1952

This legal opinion dated April 3, 1952, by Attorney Felix S. Cohen, rebuts the reasoning and support the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs has given United States (US) Senate Bill 2543 and US House Resolution, which which, he writes, would make Indians subject to arrest without warrant if they violate Indian Bureau regulations. Cohen goes about this by examining each of what he refers to as twenty-one excuses and justifications offered by the Indian Bureau in support of this legislation and counters them with legal precedent and existing laws. In closing, Cohen notes that legislation of this type was passed in 1858, and it took until May 18, 1934 to get that legislation repealed.https://commons.und.edu/burdick-papers/1415/thumbnail.jp

Letter from Felix Cohen to Joseph O\u27Mahoney Regarding Possible Impacts of House Amendments to US House Resolution 5400, March 4, 1946

This letter, dated March 4, 1946, from Felix S. Cohen, Acting Solicitor of the United States (US) Department of the Interior, Office of the Solicitor, to US Senator from Wyoming Joseph C. O\u27Mahoney, reports on a conference arranged earlier the same day by O\u27Mahoney between Cohen, representatives of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, and Ralph H. Case, legal counsel for the Three Affiliated Tribes, held for the purpose of exploring the possible impacts of a US House of Representatives amendment to the pending US War Department\u27s Civil Appropiation Bill, also known as US House Resolution (HR) 5400, affecting the Garrison Dam project. Cohen notes that the proposed resolution as currently written would supercede the proviso, commonly known at the O\u27Mahoney Amendment, included in the First Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1946 passed earlier that year, stipulating that no part of the appropriation for construction of Garrison Dam could be expended on actual construction until suitable lands had been identified to replace the land to be inundated on the Fort Berthold Reservation, a change that would put the Tribes in a very difficult position for a number of reasons, on which he elaborates. He then describes some possible ways for the tribes and their allies to prevent the loss of the protections afforded by the O\u27Mahoney Amendment. See also: An Act Making Appropriations to Supply Deficiencies in Certain Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1946, and for Prior Fiscal Years, to Provide Supplemental Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1946, and for Other Purposes An Act Making Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1947, for Civil Functions Administered by the War Department, and for Other Purposeshttps://commons.und.edu/langer-papers/2023/thumbnail.jp