Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 February 4

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February 4

What's the oldest and newest English/British law, common law or case that's still binding in some or all of the US?

What's the oldest that never was cause it was too late (July 4, 1776? I doubt America cares much about new British laws and cases anymore, do they just treat everything not later overruled by precedent, legislation, constitution or executive order as citable good law up to an exact date and irrelevant after or is there a fuzzy/transition zone? What happens if part of a British case is before the day and part after?) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:40, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

The oldest I guess would be the common law system itself? One notable aspect being the division between "law" and equity. The thing about the common law system is that case law doesn't "go away". It's always there as precedent, but, in the common law system, courts make law, so they can decide to break with precedent if they feel it justified. For the latter question, people decided to remove the ambiguity and provide an easy answer: reception statute. Except for the U.S. federal government, which isn't surprising because of how weak it was for some time. There might be some SCOTUS stuff about it.

Also a fun fact is that Louisiana has kept its French civil law system for state law. Which means to get admitted to the Louisiana bar you need an education in the civil law system, which is a bit of a barrier for lawyers from other states. Also cases ending up in the federal courts that touch on Louisiana law can wind up needing things decided on the basis of the civil law, which can be entertaining. And is why nominations to the U.S. Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, include judges with civil law experience. --47.147.118.55 (talk) 10:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Are there any Supreme Court cases decided by civil law? If so do 5 to 9 justices (different number range in other eras) ever overrule person(s) more well-versed in civil law than themselves, such as 5th Circuit judges with civil law experience who's decision was successfully appealed? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

That's a decent question! Just about any case heard by SCOTUS will have of course been tried before the appeals courts first, who will have explained their reasoning. And SCOTUS solicits amicus curiae briefs from interested parties to help inform it about a case. But ultimately they could overturn a lower court's ruling on a civil law issue. I'm afraid I'm not a law fellow and not familiar with cases where SCOTUS overruled lower courts on some point of Louisiana law. You'd have to do a case law search. Perhaps someone else could provide guidance here? --47.147.118.55 (talk) 06:38, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

A better cut-off date may be March 1, 1781, when the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union came into force, but note that most of the states were admitted to the Union and acquired statehood much later. It may require a state-by-state historical examination which statutes were in force in colonial times and when they were replaced by home-grown statutes.  --Lambiam 13:42, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

“Thou shalt not kill”? Blueboar (talk) 14:18, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I suspect that a US indictment or conviction for murder will refer to specific articles of US State or Federal statutes, coming into force after 1776, and not to the Book of Exodus or the Book of Deuteronomy.  --Lambiam 10:02, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, "thou shalt not kill", taken literally, would make war and executions illegal. If you interpret it as "thou shalt not murder", most every society outlaws murder regardless of their religion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:23, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

The question was specifically about British law that is still binding somewhare in the US, not about universal precepts that may have a long history. Otherwise, the Code of Hammurabi probably predates the codification of the Ten Commandments by some ten centuries.  --Lambiam 19:30, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Murder is notably in a number of common law jurisdictions one of the common law offenses, not defined anywhere in a statute. The criteria are simply based on legal precedent: what have people convicted of murder in the past done to be convicted? Note this is only about the definition of what "murder" is, not what punishment may apply. --47.147.118.55 (talk) 06:38, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

• If you are interested in this sort of thing, there is a book titled British Statutes in American Law, 1776-1836 which is available for free download at https://repository.law.umich.edu/books/27/ . Suffice it to say, it's complicated. Florida, for one, has a law stating, "The common and statute laws of England which are of a general and not a local nature, with the exception hereinafter mentioned, down to the 4th day of July, 1776, are declared to be of force in this state; provided, the said statutes and common law be not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and the acts of the Legislature of this state." [1] The book at [2] includes the statutes of the British Parliament from 1775 to 1777, but (a) I don't see the dates of enactment of each statute there, so I can't tell which ones were passed before or after July 4, 1776, and (b) many of the statutes there are of such specific application that they would clearly have been irrelevant to any American legislature or court. So if the question is, which is the most recent statute passed by the British Parliament which is still valid law anywhere in the U.S. (by its own right, and not by having been re-enacted by the U.S. Congress or a state legislature), or the most recent case in the British courts which is binding authority rather than just persuasive authority, that's going to be difficult to identify unless a legal scholar has already found them. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 22:18, 5 February 2023 (UTC)