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THE CHARGE | BLOG
The Charge is a blog that talks about the intersection of history and law. Please feel free to read, leave nice comments about how much you love it, share with your friends, colleagues, and people you don't even like who might appreciate it.
Eats, Shoots and Leaves - SCOTUS Edition
A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. "Why?" asks the confused...
Victoria L. Nadel
Mar 18, 202410 min read
Pressed to Death
Freedom of the press is essential to democracy – it is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and it is a...
Victoria L. Nadel
Mar 11, 20246 min read
Supreme Thoughts of Commerce - Early Republic Edition
The Constitution, famously, did not mention slavery. But it did acknowledge “the peculiar institution” not only in apportionment of...
Victoria L. Nadel
Feb 26, 20247 min read
If This Be Treason
In a fiery speech, the only kind he knew how to make, Patrick Henry railed against the Stamp Act in 1765 declaring that Caesar had his...
Victoria L. Nadel
Feb 19, 20246 min read
Exhausted
There were a lot of questions posed in oral argument last week in Trump v. Anderson. In this well-prepared and well-argued case, a lot of...
Victoria L. Nadel
Feb 12, 20249 min read
The Persistent Problem of Unreliable Witnesses
Recent notions of police misconduct conjure up the faces of those killed by police. Modern technology has allowed or these crimes by cops...
Victoria L. Nadel
Feb 5, 20245 min read
Early Courtship
As Benjamin Franklin and his Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery was polishing up its petition to the first Congress...
Victoria L. Nadel
Jan 29, 20246 min read
You Have No Right To Remain Silent
The three men who sat in the seat on the Supreme Court of the United States prior to its current embarrassment were giants – true giants...
Victoria L. Nadel
Jan 22, 20246 min read
Immune from Prosecution? No.
In a recent oral argument, an attorney averred that in order to be prosecuted criminally for acts done while president of the United...
Victoria L. Nadel
Jan 15, 20246 min read
Ballot Box Burden
First - a little background before introducing the case observing its golden anniversary this week. Criminal syndicalism advocates for...
Victoria L. Nadel
Jan 8, 20245 min read
Opinionated
Going back 100 years, it is interesting to note the outsized influence of Massachusetts on the national stage at that time – the...
Victoria L. Nadel
Jan 1, 20245 min read
The Night Before Christmas (1865)
In early April, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. As a technical matter, the war raged on for more than a year,...
Victoria L. Nadel
Dec 25, 20235 min read
Spilling the Tea
It was 250 years ago that colonists from Massachusetts dressed in disguise, boarded the Dartmouth, and dumped East India Tea into Boston...
Victoria L. Nadel
Dec 18, 20235 min read
Unreasonable Searches
John Adams said the kernel of what would become art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and ultimately the Fourth Amendment to...
Victoria L. Nadel
Dec 11, 20235 min read
Passing Justice
She has been off the Court for well over a decade and suffering from dementia, yet it seems fitting to mark the death of Justice Sandra...
Victoria L. Nadel
Dec 4, 20236 min read
Succession
Before there was a 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution, there were no set rules to follow in the event that a vice president...
Victoria L. Nadel
Nov 27, 20234 min read
Obiter Dictum Run Amok
Commonwealth v. Dickerson, 372 Mass. 783, 797 (1977) was a felony murder case in an armed robbery of a liquor store that went awry. At...
Victoria L. Nadel
Nov 20, 202310 min read
For the Love of Money
Martin Scorsese’s haunting true crime film, Killers of the Flower Moon, named for the book of the same title by David Grann, depicts the...
Victoria L. Nadel
Nov 13, 20238 min read
Faith and Consequences
There are, today as ever, those who seek to inhibit education. As throughout the history of people, there are those who wish to restrict...
Victoria L. Nadel
Nov 6, 20234 min read
Scare Tactics
It’s the time of year when things go bump in the night. Ghosts, goblins, ghouls, skeletons, zombies, mummies and, of course, witches...
Victoria L. Nadel
Oct 30, 20236 min read
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