San Antonio College Library

"Any effort to understand how law works has to take seriously its main players--judges. Like any performance, judging should be evaluated by reference to those who are its best exponents. Not surprisingly, the debate about what makes a 'great judge' is as heated and inconclusive as the debate about the purpose and nature of law itself. History shows that those who are generally considered to be candidates for a judicial hall of fame are game changers...

"This book does not deal with the institutions of Roman law. It is rather an attempt to describe the political, intellectual, and - if the expression be permitted - mechanical forces which were responsible for the growth of Roman law and for its lasting impact on our civilization. With this, the author hopes to have filled a gap that still exists in English and American literature. The book was not written for specialists, but for practical lawyers...

This program traces the history of the U.S. legal system from its origins in English common law; through the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and amendments; to current legislative and judicial processes. It defines such terms as habeas corpus, voir dire, and stare decisis and explores Supreme Court decisions.

"The Middle Ages are often viewed as a repository of tradition, yet what we think of as traditional marriage was far from the only available alternative to the single state in medieval Europe. Many people lived together in long-term, quasimarital heterosexual relationships, unable to marry if one was in holy orders or if the partners were of different religions. Social norms militated against the marriage of master to slave or between individuals...

"In a panoramic history of our criminal justice system from colonial times to today, one of our foremost legal thinkers shows how America fashioned a system of crime and punishment in its own image." "Lawrence M. Friedman argues that the evolution of criminal justice has reflected transformations in America's character. Thus the theocratic world of seventeenth-century Puritanism generated a peculiar equation between crime and sin. The extraordinary...

Based on a wide array of local-level Spanish and Nahuatl documentation and an intensive analysis of seventy-three lawsuits over property involving Indians resident in Tenochtitlan/Mexico City that were heard by the Real Audiencia between 1536 and 1700, this work clearly shows that legal documentation offers important clues to underlying cultural assumptions, attitudes and perceptions. While most colonial "Aztec" studies have focused on macro-level...