American efforts to prevent or punish family violence began in New England in the 1640s with the passage of the first laws against family violence. Interest in criminalizing family violence since then has been episodic. There have been periods of American history that included reforms against family violence, including significant efforts to criminalize it; there have been other periods of decriminalization of family violence, and still others when there were significant judicial innovations in the handling of family violence cases without any comparable interest in the subject of domestic abuse. A social atmosphere favorable to the criminalization of family violence results from many factors, the most important of which is that family violence must be defined and perceived not just as a threat to individual victims but also as a danger to the social order. However, among the many reasons for the lack of interest in criminalizing family violence, the most significant is the view that family violence is pr...

Criminal Approaches to Family Violence, 1640-1980

Les principaux resultats de cette recherche portent, d'une part, sur les mecanismes qui permettent l'adaptation et la reproduction, a tres long terme, de ce que j'ai appele un modele francais de jugement des pairs, d'autre part sur les relations entre droit et economie que fait apparaitre l'etude des pratiques liees a ce modele. Par " modele francais de jugement des pairs ", je designe l'association de quatre traits : il s'agit de juridictions inserees dans le systeme judiciaire officiel, mais dont les juges sont elus, consideres comme pairs des parties parce qu'ils menent le meme type d'activites economiques, et dont les procedures sont simplifiees. Ces traits se retrouvent, au moins en principe, dans les tribunaux de commerce francais ; ils sont consideres, a l'epoque, comme un modele possible (parmi d'autres) a l'etranger. Ils constituent aussi un modele, en France meme, pour de nouvelles institutions, notamment les conseils de prud'hommes, qui en viennent a fonctionner en systeme avec les tribunaux de commerce. La forte legitimite de ce modele dans la France du 19e siecle est enigmatique a plus d'un titre, puisqu'il presente une hybridation entre des traits associes en general aux justices " publiques " ou " privees ", rationalisees ou d'Ancien regime. De plus, alors que de nos jours, nombre d'economistes affirment que la common law est intrinsequement plus adaptee aux besoins de l'economie, l'adoption de tribunaux de pairs a la francaise etait alors serieusement discutee dans des regions tres dynamiques economiquement comme l'Angleterre ou l'Etat de New York. Cette recherche souligne qu'il est pour le moins exagere de parler, pour la periode actuelle, d'une toute nouvelle " imbrication de l'economique et du judiciaire ", qui aurait remplace une " mefiance traditionnelle du monde economique envers les juridictions ". Les situations en la matiere, lorsque la revolution industrielle battait son plain, etaient radicalement differentes non seulement entre niveaux du commerce, mais aussi entre pays. Les marchands francais etaient parmi ceux qui avaient le plus tot " decouvert le chemin des tribunaux ", comme ceux de New York (en tout cas les grands negociants parmi eux), mais a la difference - bien malgre eux - de ceux des grandes villes industrielles et portuaires anglaises. Mais l'essentiel n'etait pas l'existence, en soi, de tribunaux a part pour le commerce, ou encore de tribunaux ou des marchands etaient les juges. Ce qui fonde le modele francais de jugement des pairs, c'est, d'une part, le caractere generaliste de ces tribunaux, qui se veulent ceux de tout le " commerce ", malgre toutes les tensions qui existent en permanence entre la notion unitaire de commerce et celle plus fragmentee de " metiers ". C'est aussi, d'autre part, la notion de " fonctions gratuites ", un benevolat de service public qui fait entrer de plain pied des pairs elus dans l'Etat, avec des consequences tant pour la trajectoire ulterieure de ces pairs que pour l'Etat lui-meme. Le modele francais de jugement des pairs, issu du monde des corporations, a du s'adapter a leur disparition, ce qui a finalement place les tribunaux de commerce, a leur tour, dans une position de pivot, tout en redefinissant leur legitimite d'une maniere compatible avec la nouvelle conception de l'Etat. En pratique, loin de rendre une justice toujours conciliatrice, experte et fondee en equite, comme on le pense souvent, ces tribunaux fondent leur legitimite sur l'existence en leur sein de plusieurs filieres, plusieurs types de procedures bien distincts, que leurs juges considerent comme adaptes aux differents types d'affaires dont ils ont a traiter et qui leur permettent en particulier de gerer la masse du contentieux des impayes. Quant aux justices " plus privees " que j'ai rencontrees au cours de cette recherche, notamment les instances d'arbitrage des associations de branches ou des chambres de commerce d'Angleterre et des Etats-Unis, leur creation et leur maintien n'ont rien d'evident. En France, ces instances se sont meme retrouvees associees aux tribunaux de commerce dans un role d'auxiliaires plutot que concurrentes. Les faire vivre demande un travail institutionnel qui est reste hors de portee de la plupart de ceux qui l'ont entrepris au 19e siecle : elles ne sont pas le produit naturel de l'existence de " communautes " qui auraient interet a creer une " justice privee ".

https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00685544/document

Un modèle français de jugement des pairs. Les tribunaux de commerce, 1790-1880

Most scholarship on prosecutors in the United States is diagnostic, prescriptive, or both; the motivating questions are, What is the problem with prosecutors, and how do we fix it? Answering those questions has been difficult, in part because there are at least seven different problems with American prosecutors. Six of those problems are relatively familiar: the power of prosecutors, the discretion they exercise, the illegality in which they too often are found to have engaged, the punitive ideology that shapes many of their practices, their often-frustrating unaccountability, and organizational inertia within prosecutors’ offices. These problems intersect, so they are difficult to address separately. The seventh problem is discussed less often but may be the most basic: the ambiguity of the prosecutor's role. That problem needs to be understood as well if progress is to be made addressing the other six.

The Problems With Prosecutors

The unitary executive theory relies on “the Decision of 1789” in the first Congress to establish an originalist basis for a presidential removal power at will. However, these interpretations from Myers (1926) to Seila Law (2020) are incorrect. New historical evidence, plus many concrete misreadings of primary sources in the pro-unitary scholarship, raise doubts about the stare decisis deference that Justice Kagan afforded them in Collins v. Yellen.
The unitary theory’s strict separation-of-powers argument depends on presidential exclusivity and indefeasibility (i.e., Congress may not set limits or conditions). This Article shows that the first Congress rejected the unitary model, both in the passage of the departmental acts and in many statutes delegating removal to judges and juries, against the unitary model. 
This new interpretation turns on two new approaches to the First Congress’s debates; two sets of new historical materials (a Senator’s diary and the removal-by-judiciary statutes); and identifying major errors in how the unitary scholarship interpreted many speeches and letters. 
The first new interpretive approach is to focus on the only day of debate (Monday, June 22d) that separated the unitary “presidentialists” (who thought Article II established presidential removal) from the “congressionalists” (who thought Article I gave Congress the power to delegate removal). These speeches clarify the members’ positions and the size of each faction, revealing that only one third of the House supported unitary presidentialism, and a broad majority rejected it. 
A second new interpretive approach is to put this debate in the context of the urgent legislative agenda in the summer of ’89: tariff and revenue fights, foreign policy, drafting a Bill of Rights, creating a national judiciary, as well as establishing departments. This context suggests that the pivotal votes, if they were not congressionalists, were more likely impatient pragmatists than presidentialists. Then a study of the first Congress’s drafting practices reveals that explicit explanatory clauses and preambles were common, raising doubts about why Madison would replace a more explicit clause with an ambiguous one to establish a constitutional interpretation, rather than the other way around. The answer: He did not have the votes. 
The first set of overlooked documents was Senator William Maclay’s diary and other private notes from the Senate debates, revealing initial Senate opposition to presidential removal and then confusion and obfuscation. They also offer a valuable clue about why Madison retreated in mid-June: The Senate had just blocked Madison’s anti-British tariff policies just before Madison proposed softer language in the departmental bills. This context of House-vs.-Senate conflict explains why the ostensible “decision” was, in fact, strategic ambiguity, compromise, and retreat. Opponents immediately mocked Madison’s turn to ambiguity as a retreat and attacked his masculinity. One of Madison’s allies even conceded on the House floor that they shifted in order to “obtain the acquiescence” of the Senate. 
The second set of documents are a series of statutory clauses that delegated removal power to judges and juries, regardless of a president’s wishes, a contradiction of the unitary theory. Additionally, Madison proposed a “good behaviour” Comptroller. Other statutes and debates show little support for tenure “at the pleasure” of the president. 
This closer look at the evidence and at significant misreadings by the pro-unitary scholarship not only raise questions about stare decisis for Free Enterprise and Seila Law, but they also raise more general concerns about the practice of originalism.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID3912957_code625422.pdf?abstractid=3597496&mirid=1

The Decisions of 1789 Were Anti-Unitary: An Originalism Cautionary Tale

American efforts to prevent or punish family violence began in New England in the 1640s with the passage of the first laws against family violence. Interest in criminalizing family violence since then has been episodic. There have been periods of American history that included reforms against family violence, including significant efforts to criminalize it; there have been other periods of decriminalization of family violence, and still others when there were significant judicial innovations in the handling of family violence cases without any comparable interest in the subject of domestic abuse. A social atmosphere favorable to the criminalization of family violence results from many factors, the most important of which is that family violence must be defined and perceived not just as a threat to individual victims but also as a danger to the social order. However, among the many reasons for the lack of interest in criminalizing family violence, the most significant is the view that family violence is primarily a domestic matter. Many people think that family violence was discovered in the 1960s. It is true that the scale of effort on behalf of victims has been greater since that period than ever before. Yet there were earlier periods of reform

Allen Steinberg

Papers

“The Spirit of Litigation:” Private Prosecution and Criminal Justice in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia