Law=Justice? How quaint!
Famous law professor (and author of our Property textbook) Jesse Dukeminier (RIP, big guy), writing in the Gilbert's commercial outline on Property (hey, even law professors have to put food on the table), confirms what many of our professors have been hinting at all along: no one really believes in that justice bullcrap. It's just good PR.
Writing (on page 17, for those following along at home) about why courts favor prior possessors over subsequent possessors with regards to found property, Dukeminier notes:
"Prior possessors expect to prevail over subsequent possessors. By giving them their expectations, the law reinforces the popular belief that the law is just." [emphasis added]
So there you have it, the straight dope. Justice: it's not really something the law aspires to. It only aspires to appear just, merely to reinforce a "popular belief" that is useful for keeping the plebes in line (since if they believe it is just, they will yield to the law's dictates).
What Dukeminier wrote should surprise no one with a vague familiarity of the law, I suppose. But usually it's the kind of dirty little secret that no one talks about, like the great uncle who was sent away after he got a 12-year-old neighbor pregnant, was compulsorily lobotomized and sterilized (in no particular order), and tried to out CIA operatives from his jail cell. Not the kind of thing you'd write about in a book for young, idealistic law students, I'd venture.
Writing (on page 17, for those following along at home) about why courts favor prior possessors over subsequent possessors with regards to found property, Dukeminier notes:
"Prior possessors expect to prevail over subsequent possessors. By giving them their expectations, the law reinforces the popular belief that the law is just." [emphasis added]
So there you have it, the straight dope. Justice: it's not really something the law aspires to. It only aspires to appear just, merely to reinforce a "popular belief" that is useful for keeping the plebes in line (since if they believe it is just, they will yield to the law's dictates).
What Dukeminier wrote should surprise no one with a vague familiarity of the law, I suppose. But usually it's the kind of dirty little secret that no one talks about, like the great uncle who was sent away after he got a 12-year-old neighbor pregnant, was compulsorily lobotomized and sterilized (in no particular order), and tried to out CIA operatives from his jail cell. Not the kind of thing you'd write about in a book for young, idealistic law students, I'd venture.
Labels: Legal Culture
posted by Anonymous at 8:52 PM
1 Comments:
Thank goodness that your 1L education has worked: you've dropped that gooey, sentimental "justice talk" and realized that the law is red in tooth and claw.
Post a Comment
<< Home