Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 10 P5 docx

The However, the laws have their critics, who charge that sentences are often disproportion-ate to the crimes committed and that INCARCER-ATION of three strikes inmates for 25 years to l

Trang 1

Yale University with an engineering degree in

1954 and earned a law degree from the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh in 1957 After his admission

to the Pennsylvania bar in 1958, he joined the Pittsburgh law firm of Kirkpatrick, Lockhart, Johnson, and Hutchinson

In 1969 PresidentRICHARD M.NIXONappointed Thornburgh U.S attorney for western Pennsyl-vania He served as U.S attorney until 1975, when President GERALD FORD designated him assistant attorney general of the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT As head of the department’s criminal division, Thornburgh was instrumental in setting up the public integrity section that investigated alleged improprieties by department personnel

After leaving office in 1977, Thornburgh returned to the Kirkpatrick law firm in Pittsburgh, but he was intent on beginning a political career In 1978 he was elected governor

of Pennsylvania, an office he held until 1987 In his early days as governor, Thornburgh was thrust into the national limelight The nuclear accident at the Three Mile IslandNUCLEAR POWER plant in the spring of 1979 set off a wave of panic in Pennsylvania Thornburgh was credited with bringing calm to the state Thornburgh also consolidated Pennsylvania’s state-owned postsecondary schools into the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, and left office with a budget surplus of $350 million

In July 1988 President RONALD REAGAN appointed Thornburgh U.S attorney general, succeeding Edwin Meese Meese had become a controversial figure in the Reagan administration

He had stressed social issues such as ABORTION andPORNOGRAPHYand had pushed for an end to AFFIRMATIVE ACTION Meese also had come under scrutiny for possible criminal conflict-of-interest charges He resigned only after an INDEPENDENT COUNSELdeclined to file criminal charges

Taking office under these circumstances, Thornburgh sought to restore integrity and cre-dibility to the department During the last months

of the Reagan administration, he moved to revitalize management of the department, refo-cus its energies on prosecuting crimes involving guns or drugs, and aggressively pursue white-collar criminals

His early months in office convinced Pre-sident GEORGE H W BUSH to reappoint Thorn-burgh attorney general His tenure in the Bush administration drew criticism from some con-servative groups for his prosecution of environ-mental crimes and for his strong enforcement

of CIVIL RIGHTS protection for DISABLED PERSONS Within the department, his management style provoked criticism Career department officials called him aloof and alleged that he employed political partisanship in the administration of justice

Thornburgh resigned as attorney general in July 1991 to run for the U.S Senate in a special election Harris Wofford, his Democratic oppo-nent, had been appointed senator to fill the Pennsylvania seat until the special election At the beginning of his campaign, Thornburgh enjoyed a 40-point lead in the opinion polls Wofford, however, argued that the country needed a nationalHEALTH INSURANCEsystem and reminded voters of the economy, which was

in recession Thornburgh’s lead crumbled Wofford easily defeated him, earning 55 percent

of the vote to Thornburgh’s 45 percent

In 1992 President Bush appointed Thorn-burgh undersecretary general of the UNITED NATIONS, a position he held until 1993 Thorn-burgh then rejoined the Kirkpatrick law firm’s Washington, D.C., office and served as a legal commentator on several television network news and talk shows An honorary special agent of the FBI, Thornburgh was appointed to the FBI Science and Technology Advisory Board in 2005 and chaired a National Academy of Public Administration panel examining the FBI’s actions after theSEPTEMBER11, 2001,TERRORIST ATTACKS

As the father of a mentally disabled child, Thornburgh and his wife were recognized in

2003 by the American Association of Persons with Disabilities, which presented the couple the Henry B Betts Award The Thornburghs used the funds from this award to found the Thornburgh Family Lecture Series in Disability Law and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law Also in 2003, Thornburgh’s autobiography, Where the Evidence Leads, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press

FURTHER READINGS Ford, Daniel 1986 Meltdown New York: Simon & Schuster Thornburgh, Dick 2007 Puerto Rico’s Future: A Time to Decide Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies.

——— 2003 Where the Evidence Leads: An Autobiography Pittsburgh: Univ of Pittsburgh Press.

CROSS REFERENCES Affirmative Action; Meese, Edwin, III; Nixon, Richard Milhous.

THIS COLLECTIVE

AMNESIA THAT

SEEMS TO AFFECT

THEWHITEHOUSE

STAFF WOULD

CONCERN ME IFI

WERE THE PRESIDENT

—R ICHARD

T HORNBURGH

Trang 2

or menace others.

Statutes in a number of jurisdictions

pro-hibit the use of threats and UNLAWFUL

COMMU-NICATIONS by any person Some of the more

common types of threats forbidden by law are

those made with an intent to obtain a pecuniary

advantage or to compel a person to act against

his or her will In all states, it is an offense to

threaten to (1) use a deadly weapon on another

person; (2) injure another’s person or property;

or (3) injure another’s reputation

It is a federal offense to threaten to harm

the president or to use the mail to transmit

threatening communications These laws must

be balanced againstFIRST AMENDMENTrights

Unlawful communications include, among

other things, the use of threats to prevent

another from engaging in a lawful occupation

and writing libelous letters or letters that tend

to provoke a breach of the peace The use of

intimidation for purposes of collecting an unpaid

debt has been held to constitute an unlawful

communication but might be prosecuted as

EXTORTION

A mere threat that does not cause any harm

is generally not actionable When combined

with apparently imminent bodily harm,

how-ever, a threat is an assault for which the offender

might be subject to civil or criminal liability

In most jurisdictions, a plaintiff can recover

damages for the intentional infliction of severe

mental or emotional suffering caused by threats

or unlawful communications

In those jurisdictions that have statutes

prohibiting unlawful communications, such as

letters that tend to provoke a breach of the

peace, a violation of the statute gives rise to a

civil action for damages

THREE STRIKES LAWS

Criminal statutes that mandate increased

sen-tences for repeat offenders, usually after three

serious crimes

Beginning in the early 1990s, states began to

enact mandatory sentencing laws for repeat

criminal offenders These statutes came to be

known as“three strikes laws,” because they were

invoked when offenders committed their third

offense By 2009, 26 states and the federal

government had enacted three strikes laws The

However, the laws have their critics, who charge that sentences are often disproportion-ate to the crimes committed and that INCARCER-ATION of three strikes inmates for 25 years to life would drive up correctional costs Never-theless, the U.S SUPREME COURT has upheld three strikes laws and has rejected the argu-ment that they amount to CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

The state of Washington passed the first three strikes law in 1993 Anyone convicted of three separate violent felonies must be sen-tenced to life in prison with no chance for PAROLE The state of California followed in 1994,

by enacting a three strikes law that mandates

a sentence of 25 years to life for a third felony conviction Unlike Washington, the California law counts nonviolent felonies, such asBURGLARY and theft, as “strike” offenses The popularity

of the three strikes law in California has been pronounced In 2008, 41,284 prisoners were serving time under the new law Of those inmates, 3,629 had committed nonviolent felo-nies This population makes up about 25 percent

of California’s prison population California’s law has drawn the most attention in the debate over three strikes statutes

The California law originally gave judges

no discretion in setting prison terms for three strikes offenders However, the California Supreme Court ruled in 1996, that judges, in the interest of justice, could ignore prior convictions in determining whether an offender qualified for a three strikes sentence Prosecu-tors have the greatest discretion; they may decide whether to count certain crimes as strikes when they file their criminal complaint

Critics have charged that this system introduces the worst of both worlds: mandatory sentences for those charged under the law and unequal application of the law The disparity in prose-cutorial use of the Californian law has meant that the law is rarely used in San Francisco but

is used heavily in other parts of the state

The three strikes sentencing of offenders who have committed a number of violent crimes has rarely drawn much criticism Con-cerns about the fairness and proportionality

of the law have been raised when an offender

is sent to prison for 25 years for shoplifting

or some other minor property crime Critics note that a 25-year sentence for a third strike

Trang 3

shoplifting offense is the same sentence meted out to those who commit MURDER Long sentences for relatively minor offenses, they contend, amounts to cruel and unusual punish-ment, which is barred by theEIGHTH AMENDMENT

By the late 1990s a number of appeals had been raised in state and federal courts based on the disproportionality argument

The case of Leandro Andrade became a focal point in the argument over the constitutionality

of California’s three strikes law Andrade was

convicted of two counts of petty theft for shoplifting a total of nine videotapes from two Kmart stores The value of the tapes stolen amounted to $153.54 Under California law, a petty theft charge is usually a misdemeanor with

a penalty of up to six months in county jail and a fine of up to $1,000 However, thePROSECUTORhad the discretion to elevate the charges to felony level offenses Andrade, who was a heroin addict, had a string of burglary, theft, and drug convictions on his criminal record The prosecutor charged him

Have Three-Strikes Laws Worked

to Reduce Recidivism?

stiffer sentences for repeat

offen-ders, but they do not impose

You’re Out” (TSAYO) laws TSAYO laws

mandate that a heavy sentence be

imposed on persons who are convicted

of a third felony The minimum prison

sentence required by such laws is

typi-cally between 25 years and life The

federal government and 24 states passed

TSAYO legislation between 1992 and

2009

TSAYO legislation is designed to

protect society from dangerous

indivi-duals who show a pattern of lawlessness,

incapacitate repeat felony offenders by

keeping them behind bars, and deter

others from committing similar criminal

offenses National criminal justice

statis-tics show that the number of violent

crimes has dropped sharply over the last

eight years TSAYO legislation is not

without its critics, however Beginning in

1998, and continuing into the 2000s,

studies have called into doubt the

effectiveness of three-strikes laws

Con-stitutional challenges have been leveled

against TSAYO laws at both the state and

federal levels, but courts and legislatures

have resisted overturning them

In 1994 Congress passed the Violent

Crime Control and Law Enforcement

September 13, 1994, 108 Stat 1796) This

act imposes a mandatory sentence of life

defen-dants who are convicted of a serious violent federal felony when they have two or more prior serious violent felonies

or one or more serious violent felony convictions and one or more serious drug offense convictions The first two convic-tions may be for state or federal offenses, but the third conviction must be for a federal offense before the VCCLEA three-strikes provision applies

MANSLAUGHTER, ASSAULT with intent to commit murder orRAPE, aggravatedSEXUAL ABUSE,KIDNAPPING, aircraftPIRACY,ROBBERY, CARJACKING,EXTORTION,ARSON, and firearms use or possession, among others (18 U.S

C.A 3559) Offenses committed at the state level need not be deemed a felony by the state to trigger the VCCLEA three-strikes provision as long as the state offense is “seriously violent,” meaning the offense is similar to those specified by

defined by the VCCLEA as knowingly or intentionally manufacturing, distributing, dispensing, or possessing with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense

offenses committed at the state level are

they would be punishable by the federal controlled substances laws

The impetus behind TSAYO laws came from a string of highly publicized cases in which a crime victim was viciously attacked by a repeat offender

on parole One of the most publicized cases was that of 12-year-old Polly Klaas from California In 1993 she was kid-napped, molested, and murdered by Richard Allen Davis, a sex offender with

a long history of criminal convictions

number of national television programs

to attack the criminal justice system’s lenient treatment of repeat felony offen-ders and to advocate the enactment of three-strikes laws Relatives of other victims, concerned citizens, prosecutors, and politicians followed suit

The Washington State Legislature was the first to respond, passing TSAYO

9.94A.392 et seq.) The law mandates life

in prison after conviction on any three of about 40 felonies, ranging from murder

to robbery and vehicular assault Defen-dants convicted under this law are not eligible for parole, nor may their sen-tence be suspended or shortened Cali-fornia and 11 other states passed similar laws in 1994 Nine more states were added to the list a year later By 2000, 24 states had adopted TSAYO laws of their own; no other states have passed TSAYO since that date Georgia took matters a step further, enacting a“Two Strikes and

Trang 4

with two counts of felony theft and a jury

convicted Andrade on both counts

These separate convictions, along with a

prior first-degree burglary conviction, triggered

the three strikes law Because the two thefts were

treated as separate incidents, the three strikes law

was applied to both charges leading to two

consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison

Andrade could not apply for parole until he

served 50 years in prison, at which time he would

be 87 years old The California courts upheld this

sentence as proportionate The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Andrade’s sentence was unconstitutional because it was grossly disproportionate Although the California law was unconstitutional as applied, the Ninth Circuit refused to hold that the three strikes law was generally unconstitutional

The Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, overturned the Ninth Circuit decision and upheld the constitutionality of the three strikes law as applied to Andrade (Lockyer v Andrade,

You’re Out” law (Ga Code Ann S

17-10-6.1[b]) Felons convicted only twice

of the state’s most serious crimes are

sentenced to life in prison without parole

Known as“the seven deadly sins,” these

crimes are murder, armed robbery, rape,

kidnapping, aggravated SODOMY,

aggra-vatedCHILD MOLESTATION, and aggravated

sexualBATTERY

Despite their popularity in the early

1990s, TSAYO began to be attacked by

researchers in the late 1990s In 1998,

several studies were released that

ques-tioned the effectiveness of such laws

Four studies were largely responsible for

driving the debate: one by the Rand

Institute, one by the National Institute of

Justice, one by the Justice Policy

Insti-tute, and one by the Campaign for

Effective Crime Policy, a nonpartisan

group comprised of wardens,

prosecu-tors, and law enforcement officials

The studies revealed two kinds of

results In most states, little had changed

Washington had convicted 66 people

under its TSAYO law Arkansas had 12

Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina,

Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New Jersey

had no more than six Wisconsin had

invoked its law only once, while no one in

Utah, Virginia, Montana, Tennessee, New

Mexico, or Colorado had ever been

prosecuted for a third-strike offense

In-stead, the states that let their TSAYO laws

lay idle were still seeking harsh

punish-ments for dangerous recidivists, but under

repeat-offender statutes that had been on

the books for decades In other words, for

these states the TSAYO laws represented a

symbolic measure that neither improved

nor diminished a prosecutor’s ability to keep dangerous recidivists off the streets

Similarly, the studies showed that only 35 offenders had been convicted of a third strike at the federal level through 1997

The results were vastly different in California and Georgia California had imprisoned more than 4,800 criminals for

25 years to life on third strikes; the state also identified more than 40,000 second-strike offenders who would await such a sentence were they subsequently con-victed for any one of roughly 500 crimes

Georgia had sent approximately 1,000 defendants to prison for life without parole under its two strikes law and identified another 1,000 offenders eligible for that fate were they to subsequently commit one of the“seven deadly sins.”

These studies did more than arm opponents of TSAYO laws with evidence

of disparate results They suggested that the laws had been enforced more often against minority offenders than against white offenders In California only, 1,237 of the more than 4,800 defendants sentenced for a third strike were white;

2,138 were African American, 1,262 were Latino, and 201 were classified as

“other.” The studies further indicated

mostly being punished for nonviolent third strikes Statistics demonstrated that more than twice as many defendants’

third-strike offenses were for drug pos-session or petty theft as for murder, rape,

or kidnapping Some of these nonviolent third strikes included seemingly innocu-ous offenses, such as shoplifting, stealing packages of steak, and drinking alcohol

at a liquor store without paying for it

been dissuaded by these results Prosecu-tors say that these laws remain a vital tool for them to hang over the heads of first-and second-time offenders They contend that seemingly “harmless” third-strike offenses are often isolated from the first and second strikes that place theDEFENDANT

in a less sympathetic context For example,

an individual who was prosecuted for a third strike after he stole a bottle of vitamins had eight prior convictions, one

of which was for robbery Another individ-ual who was prosecuted for bigamy under California’s TSAYO law had prior convic-tions for armed robbery Prosecutors also point to statistics reflecting a dramatic decline in violent crime in California since the TSAYO law went into effect A 2009 study estimated that three million fewer serious crimes had been committed in the

15 years since the law had been enacted However, critics argued that other factors were at work besides the three-strikes law

to explain the drop in crime

Opponents of TSAYO laws have argued that TSAYO laws increase prison populations and raise the costs of INCAR-CERATION By 2008, more than 41,000 prisoners were serving mandatory 25-year terms in California prisons Of these inmates, approximately 3,600 were serv-ing time for non-violent crimes The annual cost of incarcerating all of these prisoners is about $500 million How-ever, proponents of the law point out that projected large increases in the Californian prison population because

of the TSAYO have not occurred

Although these figures have caused concern among even the staunchest

Trang 5

538 U.S 63, 123 S Ct 1166, 155 L Ed 2d 144 [2003]) The court held that federal courts must give due deference to state court sentencing decisions In a prior ruling the court had stated that legislatures must be given “broad discretion to fashion a sentence that fits within the scope of the proportionality principle.” The

“precise” contours of this principle were “un-clear,” which meant thatSTATE COURTShad more latitude to uphold sentences such as Andrade’s

The court further held that Andrade’s sentence was not grossly disproportionate

JusticeDAVID SOUTER, in a dissenting opinion, sided with the Ninth Circuit’s views A prior Supreme Court decision had voided a life sentence given to a repeat offender for commit-ting a theft valued at $150 Justice Souter argued that Andrade’s criminal background, coupled with the petty thefts, was strikingly similar Though Andrade would be eligible for parole at

Have Three-Strikes Laws Worked

to Reduce Recidivism?

(Continued)

proponents of three-strikes legislation, as

of late 2009 no TSAYO law had been

repealed at the state or federal level Even

legislative proposals to study the law’s

impact had been rejected in California,

being vetoed first by a Republican governor

and then by a Democratic one In 2004,

California voters by a narrow majority

defeated Proposition 66, which sought to

limit the application of the third-strikes

law to violent crimes In 2009 the state

government’s dire budget crisis led to

renewed calls to repeal the law as a

cost-cutting measure However, commentators

questioned whether the law would ever be

repealed by voters, due to the emotions that

surround crime and violent criminals

The U.S Court of Appeals for the

Ninth Circuit became the first state or

federal court to strike down a TSAYO

law in Andrade v Attorney General of

State of California (270 F.3d 743 [9th

Cir 2001]) The defendant in that case,

Leandro Andrade, received a prison

sentence of 50 years to life for petty theft

of $154 worth of children’s videotapes

from two Kmart stores Petty theft is a

misdemeanor in California, punishable

by no more than six months in jail

However, California law provides that

petty theft by a person with a prior

conviction for a property crime is a

“wobbler” offense, meaning the crime

can be prosecuted as either a

misde-meanor or a felony Andrade had no

prior violent offenses, but because he had

previously committed three burglaries in one day, his two instances of shoplifting were prosecuted as felonies, and the trial court imposed an indeterminate life sentence with no possibility of parole until after he had served 50 years of his

when he started serving his sentence

“The punishment raised an inference

of gross disproportionality when com-pared to defendant’s crime,” the Ninth Circuit wrote Even in light of the defen-dant’s six prior nonviolent felony and misdemeanor convictions, the sentence was substantially more severe than sen-tences for most violent crimes in California and was unusual even when compared to applications of TSAYO laws applied to violent felons in other states, the Ninth Circuit concluded The Ninth Circuit also

COURT, in upholding the defendant’s sen-tence, failed to give proper consideration to the U.S Supreme Court’s decision in Solem

v Helm (463 U.S 277, 103 S Ct 3001, 77 L

Ed 2d 637[1983]), a case holding that a life sentence under a South Dakota recidivist law for writing a bad check amounted to CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

The state of California appealed, and the U.S Supreme Court reversed in a 5-4 decision (Lockyer v Andrade, 538 U.S

63, 123 S Ct 1166, 155 L Ed 2d 144 [2003]) Writing for the majority, Justice SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR noted that the Ninth Circuit overturned the California

Supreme Court’s decision pursuant to a HABEAS CORPUSpetition However, O’Con-nor wrote, 28 U.S.C.A § 2254(d)(1) only gives federal courts authority to overturn state court decisions in habeas proceed-ings if the state court decision was contrary to or an unreasonable applica-tion of clearly established federal law

Solem and Lockyer were similar cases, she emphasized that a decision may only be deemed “contrary to clearly established precedent” if the state court applied a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in the Supreme Court’s cases or confronts facts that are materially indis-tinguishable from a Supreme Court deci-sion and the state court nevertheless arrives at a different result This did not happen here, O’Connor said The defen-dant in Solem was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, while the defendant in Lockyer became eligible for parole after serving 50 years of his sentence This fact made the two cases materially different, O’Connor said, and justified the California Supreme Court’s decision upholding Andrade’s sentence

FURTHER READINGS Walsh, Jennifer E 2007 Three Strikes Laws Westport, Conn.: Greenwood.

CROSS REFERENCES Cruel and Unusual Punishment; Determinate Sentence; Recidivism; Parole.

Trang 6

also troubled by the state’s use of the two minor

theft charges, just weeks apart, as the second

and third strikes In his view,“Andrade did not

somehow become twice as dangerous to society

when he stole the second handful of

video-tapes.” A 25-year sentence would have been

reasonable but 50 years was disproportionate

In 2004 California voters defeated

Proposi-tion 66, which would have limited the

applica-tion of the three strikes law to violent felonies

The defeat came despite the rising costs of

incarceration By 2009 it cost $31,000 per year to

house an inmate and the total cost of

incarcer-ating three-strike prisoners had risen to $500

million Inmates over the age of 55 cost over

$50,000 per year to incarcerate Critics of the

law believe rising costs will eventually lead the

state to change or repeal the three strikes law

FURTHER READINGS

Bass, Jack, and Marilyn W Thompson 1998 Ol’ Strom: An

Unauthorized Biography of Strom Thurmond Atlanta:

Longstreet.

Butterfield, Fox 1995 All God’s Children New York: Knopf.

Cohodas, Nadine 1994 Strom Thurmond & the Politics of

Southern Change Atlanta: Mercer Univ Press.

“Strom Thurmond.” 2003 CNN.com: Special Report.

Available online at

www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/spe-cial.strom.thurmond (accessed December 16, 2003).

vTILDEN, SAMUEL JONES

Samuel Jones Tilden was a New York lawyer,

political reformer, governor, and Democratic

candidate for president in the famous disputed

election of 1876 Tilden’s acceptance of his defeat

in the election may have prevented civil unrest

Tilden was born on February 9, 1814, in

New Lebanon, New York He attended Yale

University and studied law at New York

University before being admitted to the New

York bar in 1841 Although Tilden suffered

frequent illnesses during his life, he soon

became a successful corporate attorney,

repre-senting powerful railroad and business entities

In the 1840s Tilden became active in New YorkDEMOCRATIC PARTYpolitics He served in the New York Assembly in 1846 and was a member

of the state constitutional conventions in 1846 and 1847 Opposed to SLAVERY, he actively sup-ported the Union during the U.S.CIVIL WAR

In 1848, primarily due to his firendship with MARTIN VAN BUREN, he joined the Free-Soil faction of the New York Democratic Party, also known as the “Barnburners.” In 1855, Tilden was chosen as the anti-slavery faction’s candi-date for Attorney General of New York

In 1868 Tilden began his rise to political prominence He presided over the New York

Samuel Jones Tilden 1814–1886

❖

1814 Born, New Lebanon, N.Y.

1812–14 War of 1812

◆

1841 Admitted to New York bar

1846 Served in New York Assembly

1846–47 Member of N.Y constitutional conventions

◆

1861–65 U.S Civil War

◆

1868 Served

as chair, New York State Democratic Committee

◆

1874 Elected governor of New York

◆◆

1876 Democratic nominee for president 1877

Republican Rutherford Hayes won presidency

in disputed election

❖

1886 Died, Yonkers, N.Y.

Trang 9

State Democratic Committee and led a reform movement that collected evidence and prose-cuted the notorious Tweed Ring, the corrupt Democratic political machine that controlled and defrauded New York City Tilden’s reforms led to his election as governor of New York in

1874 He continued to enhance his reputation

as reformer when he exposed the Canal Ring, a CONSPIRACY of politicians and contractors who had defrauded the state of money intended to pay for the construction of canals

In 1876, as a result of his accomplishments

in New York, Tilden won the Democratic nomination for president and ran against the Republican candidateRUTHERFORD B.HAYES The campaign was close and heated Tilden won a majority of the popular votes, and preliminary returns showed that he had 184 of the 185 electoral votes needed to win Hayes had 165 electoral votes The electoral votes for Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, however, were

in dispute, and the status of one of Oregon’s three electors also was in question Republicans quickly calculated that if Hayes received every one of the disputed votes, he would win the presidency by a vote of 185 to 184

Congress was charged under the Constitution with resolving the electoral claims It created an electoral commission, composed of five members from theHOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, four from the SENATE, and five justices from theSUPREME COURT The legislative membership was evenly divided between Democratic and Republican members

The commission voted to award all the disputed votes to Hayes Tilden, who had shown no leadership during this crisis and had made no effort to marshal support, acquiesced, fearing that any further efforts to fight the result would lead to violence Southern Democrats also went along with the commission’s result in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and the end of RECONSTRUCTION Hayes removed the troops by the end of April 1877

After his defeat, Tilden retained influence in the Democratic party He was considered for the party’s presidential nomination in 1880 and

1884, but he declined the opportunity on both occasions

Tilden died on August 4, 1886, in Yonkers, New York A wealthy man, Tilden left the bulk

of his estate in trust for the establishment of a free public library for New York City This bequest eventually was used to help build the New York City Library in Manhattan

FURTHER READINGS Morris, Roy, Jr 2003 Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 New York: Simon & Schuster.

Rehnquist, William H 2004 The Disputed Election of 1876 New York: Alfred A Knopf.

TIME Time is legally recognized as being divided into years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds The time kept by a municipality is known as“civic time.” A local government may not use a system of time different from that adopted by its state legislature During daylight saving time, the customary time system is advanced one hour to take advantage of the longer periods of daylight during the summer months In 2007 daylight time was changed to begin in the United States on the second Sunday

in March and to end on the first Sunday in November These dates were established by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub

L no 109-58, 119 Stat 594 (2005)

Time Zones

In the past, the states followed various standards

of time until the railroads of the nation cooperated in establishing a standard time zone system, which was then adopted by federal statutes Under the standard time zone system, the continental United States is divided into four different zones The time in each zone is based upon the mean solar time at a specified degree of longitude west from Greenwich, England The Royal Observatory in Greenwich began transmitting time telegraphically in

1852, and by 1855 most of Britain used Green-wich time GreenGreen-wich Mean Time (GMT) subsequently evolved as an important and well-recognized time reference for the world Eastern Standard Time is based on the mean solar time at 75longitude west; Central Standard Time, on 90 longitude west; Mountain Stan-dard Time, on 105 longitude west; and Pacific Standard Time on 120 longitude west

Calculations

A year is the period during which the earth revolves around the sun A calendar year is 365 days, except for every fourth year, which is 366 days The year is divided into twelve months A week ordinarily means seven consecutive days, either beginning with no particular day, or from

a Sunday through the following Saturday A day

NEWYORK[CANNOT]

REMAIN THE CENTER

OF COMMERCE AND

CAPITAL FOR THIS

CONTINENT,UNLESS

IT HAS AN

INDEPENDENT BAR

AND AN HONEST

JUDICIARY

—S AMUEL J T ILDEN

Trang 10

however, a day refers to the period from sunrise

to sunset

In calculating a specified number of days, it

is customary to exclude the first and include the

last As a consequence, when a lease provides

that it shall continue for a specified period

from a particular day, that day is excluded in

computing the term This rule is applied in

calculating the time for matters of practice and

procedure The rule governs, for example, the

period in which a lawsuit may be commenced,

so that the day the CAUSE OF ACTION accrues is

excluded for statute-of-limitations purposes

Other

The general rule is that when the last day of a

period within which an act is to be performed

falls on a Sunday or a holiday, that day is excluded

from the computation The act may rightfully be

done on the following business day This rule has

been applied in figuring the deadline for

conducting a meeting of corporate shareholders;

ordinance for a MUNICIPAL CORPORATION; for recording a mortgage; and for redeeming prop-erty from a sale foreclosing a mortgage Time is also often used informally in legal terms related to imprisonment or jail (“to do time”)

TIME DRAFT

A written order to pay a certain sum in money that is payable at a particular future date

Time drafts, sometimes called time bills or time loans, are frequently used by merchants to finance the transportation of goods Time drafts can also be used as a means of legally ensuring that conditions needed to trigger a payment are met Hence, in order to receive payment, the payee is motivated into completing other elements of the draft that are mandated to initiate the payment

CROSS REFERENCES Commercial Paper.

WESTERN HEMISPHERE TRADING COMPANY

Troy/Deckerville, Michigan USA

Draft No.:

Date: / / Reference:

Advising Bank:

For Value Received,

At _ ( _) Days after the Sight of this Bill of Exchange

Pay against this Bill of Exchange to the Order of Ourselves

the Sum of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and 00/100 U.S Dollars (US$ xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xx)

effective payment to be made in U.S Dollars only without deduction for and free of any tax, import levy or duty, present or future, of any

nature under the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof or therein.

Drawn under Issuing Bank, Xxxxx, Xxxxx, Documentary Credit LC No.:

Dated : / / TO: ISSUING BANK WESTERN HEMISPHERE TRADING COMPANY

Street Address

City

Country by:

(Authorized Signature)

Time Draft

South Pacific Ocean

Ocean

North A

Arctic Ocean

United States of America

U.S.A

Canada

Mexico

Brazil

Argentina

Chile

Bolivia

Peru

Ecuador

Colombia Guyana Suriname French Guiana (Fr.)

The Bahamas

Cuba Dominican Republic

Panama

Costa Rica Trinidad and Tobago

Jam Haiti Puerto Rico (US)

Greenl

Belize

Barbados

Dominica

Banks Island

Victoria Island Baffin Island

Ellesmere Island

Island of Newfoundlan

Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) (ad

Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)

120˚ 60˚

60˚

A sample time draft ILLUSTRATION BY GGS CREATIVE RESOURCES REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF GALE,

A PART OF CENGAGE LEARNING.

Định dạng
Số trang	10
Dung lượng	400,97 KB