Scott V. Emerson's Rights Case

Unfortunately for the Scotts the circuit ruled in favor of Mrs. Emerson. The Scotts however were allowed to refile their suit and in 1850,in a third trial, Scott is declared a free man on the basis of having lived in non-slavery territories of Wisconsin and Illinois. Mrs. Emerson however filed an appeal and the Missouri Supreme Court returned Scott to slavery. After filing suit once more and losing the case, this time against John Sanford, Irene’s brother who was presumably Scotts new owner, Scott’s lawyers appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court in 1856.The Supreme Court’s decision would “affect not only him, but all black people in the United States.”#

The court’s decision in the case of Scott v. Harris heavily affected police pursuit policy. Harris who was the citizen motorist was driving almost twenty miles over the speed limit when Deputy Scott began a vehicular pursuit. Due to his reckless driving, the officer sought to end the high-speed chase that endangers the lives of innocent bystanders. However, Deputy Scott was untrained in Precision Intervention Technique (PTI), so he interfered with vehicles speed by ramming the back of Harris’ car which caused him to lose control, going off of the road resulting in an accident. During the case the question of whether the deputy used excessive force because his action could constitute deadly force. Harris believed that his Fourth Amendment rights

“In 1847, Dred Scott first went to trial to sue for his freedom, (Dred Scott’s fight for freedom).” “While the immediate issue in this case was Dred Scott’s status, the court also had the opportunity to rule on the question of slavery in the territories, (Appleby et all, 446-447).” One of the main issues of this case was that the justices were trying to settle a political problem rather than being completely fair in their decisions. Dred lost the first trial but was granted a second trial. The next year the Missouri Supreme Court decided that the case should be retried, (Dred Scott’s fight for freedom). In 1850, the Circuit Court of St. Louis County

　　　　Slavery was at the root of the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott sued his master to obtain freedom for himself and his family. His argument was that he had lived in a territory where slavery was illegal; therefore he should be considered a free man. Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia around 1800. Scott and his family were slaves owned by Peter Blow and his family. He moved to St. Louis with them in 1830 and was sold to John Emerson, a military doctor. They went to Illinois and the Wisconsin territory where the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery. Dred Scott married and had two

During the 1970’s, Connecticut was a very prosperous state with growing numbers of minorities. Many of these minorities would tend to live in the same neighborhoods which would lead to other races, like whites, leaving an area and moving to a new area away from these minorities. We learned about white flight in The Children in Room E4, but this has been relevant for many decades. These whites may have not moved out of state, but just away from the minority neighborhoods to places like the suburbs. This tended to cause property values to decrease in the minority neighborhoods, making it cheaper for more minorities to move in, but also harder for the minorities to move to areas where white people may be living like the suburbs. With decreased property values beginning to happen, the property taxes were also beginning to decrease. This is what led to the development of the case Horton v. Meskill. Also during this time, the United States was barely a decade old from all of the segregation it had experienced during the 1960’s. the segregation had an influence on why whites were moving away from the minorities, which was causing these public school property tax funding’s to be low. Even though segregation de jure was outlawed at this time, there were still people living by segregation de facto. The people did not realize this at this time in the 1970’s, but it eventually built up momentum and became relevant in the Connecticut court case Sheff v. O’Neill.

To what extent did Dred Scott decision was examined from an incorrect view of the judicial role and viewed as morally incorrect? Due to Chief Justice Taney’s unacceptable error of not reviewing the case through law, the decision led the nation split into two and eventually caused in American Civil War. In this investigation, Chief Justice Taney, who held the majority of votes, actions and behaviors prior of the case will be evaluated for its impact upon a simple freedom case. This investigation will also focus on three questions that Justice Taney claimed after reviewing the case and how it was or was not constitutional. Research will be done in books about Dred Scott’s background and what he has done throughout his life, a reference

Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom. He said that because he was a slave taken to a free state, even though he was brought back to a slave state, made him free. The court ruled that a free or enslaved African American was not a U.S. citizen and they could not sue in federal court. Also, they ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Abolitionists were not happy at the court’s decision.

Missouri state court declared Scott to be a free man in 1850. During the time that the

In April of 1846, Dred and Harriet Scott filed a suit for "freedom" against Irene Emerson in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, obviously under the jurisdiction of Missouri law. The established legal principle of Missouri at this time regarding slavery was "once free, always free". In other words, to the Missouri courts, what Scott was doing was perfectly acceptable due to the precedent of the Missouri case Rachael v. Walker (1837), which basically stated that if a slave was taken by his or her master to a free state that slave was then "entitled to freedom by virtue of residence in the free state or territory" [Oxford, 761]. On account of this alone, Scott and his wife would have been freed when the case came to trial in 1847, however there was a problem of hearsay evidence in the case and the judge declared it a mistrial. It was not until three years later in 1850 that the court was able to correct the problem and unfalteringly sided with the Scott's and ordered them freed, citing that once he had been in free territory, he was indirectly freed and remained freed. By this time Mrs. Emerson had married, moved to New England with her new husband, and left these affairs and ownership of the Scotts to her brother, John F. A. Sanford. After Scott was declared free by the courts, Sanford sought an appeal from the Missouri Supreme Court. In 1852 in, Scott v. Emerson, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the decision by the lower court seeing this case now not as the

family of Missouri. Emerson soon died in 1846 making Scott sue for his freedom. He soon lost the case in a state

The decision from the first case was reached in just one day, rather expeditiously for a case, which took fourteen months to get to trial; yet there were valid reason. For Example, the judge ruled, “the testimony could not prove that Irene Emerson owned Dred Scott.” (Lukes, 21) This shows that the burden of proof was on Dred Scott to prove his ownership, in order to have a ruling on his freedom. This also shows how one tiny oversight by one side can affect the outcome of a case. In addition, the record indicated, “The said defendant is not guilty in manner and form as the plaintiff hath in his declaration complained against her.” (Lukes 22) This shows that because of Scott’s attorney’s error in argument, the court had to rule in favor of Mrs. Emerson. This also shows that in a strange twist of fate, in effect, allowed Mrs. Emerson to keep her slaves because no one had proven they were her slaves. In conclusion, Dred Scott had lost in the first court appearance, but the case was far from over. 182

In 1846, a slave living in Missouri named Dred Scott, sued for his freedom on the basis that he had lived for a total of seven years in territories that were closed to slavery. Scott's owner had been an army doctor named John Emerson. Emerson's position had required him to move several times in a relatively short amount of time. During his time with Emerson, Scott had lived in the state of Illinois, which was

During the trial period, Mr. Scott and his family were in the custody of the St. Louis county sheriff department. The Scotts were rented out and the money earned was held in escrow for the winner in the case. Mr. Scott was financially backed by the family of his first owner, and in fact Charles E Labeaume, the brother in law of Peter Blow, had been renting the family and helped Mr. Scott sue for his freedom in the Federal Court.

In 1853, Dred Scott filed against his new owner John Stanford. This time he went before the Federal Court. Dred Scott claimed that the case belonged in federal court on the grounds of diversity jurisdiction – Article III of the U.S. Constitution. He argued that since he was a resident of Missouri and john Stanford was a resident of New York the issue of illegal enslavement was not within the jurisdiction of either state. The Court allowed the case but in the end ruled in favor of Stanford and Dred Scott appealed to the US Supreme Court.

On June 4th, 1990, Terry Brice Horton vs. California was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held 7-2 that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit warrantless seizure of evidence, which is granted due to the plain view doctrine. The discovery of the evidence does not have to be inadvertent, although that is a characteristic of most legitimate plain view seizures.