University of Maryland School of Law Legal
History Seminar: Baltimore's Maritime Cases in the U. S. Supreme Court Garrett Power, Frederick Leiner, Edward C. Papenfuse
This e-publication of a portion of the dockets, minutes, case files,
and the record of attornies admitted to practice, of the U. S.
Supreme Court was compiled from National Archives
microfilm produced in the 1960s. It provides on-line access to
the
records of the Court relating to its Admiralty jurisdiction,
specifically the surviving records relating to cases assigned in a
seminar at the University of Maryland School of Law entitled Legal
History Seminar: Baltimore's Maritime Cases in the U. S. Supreme Court.
According to John Thomas Scharf, during the era of the War of 1812,
Baltimore was a "nest of pirates". One of the objectives of the seminar
is to focus on the legal consequences of privateering financed by Baltimore as it came
to the attention of the U. S. Supreme Court in appeals from the Federal
Circuit courts, and to assess the consequences of what Donald A. Petrie
called The Prize Game, Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999).
This e-publication consists of the images from six reels of film
purchased from the National Archives for the use of the seminar:
1) the engrossed (polished) minutes of the U. S. Supreme Court from
1789- contained on National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
microfilm publication M215.
2) the dockets of the U. S. Supreme Court
from contained on National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publication M216
3) a sample of the surviving transcripts of case files submitted on
appeal to the Supreme Court for the year 1815 contained on National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publication, M214.
4) the record of attornies admitted to practice before the Supreme
Court contained on National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA) microfilm publication M217
Participants in the seminar are provided the original printed report of
their assigned case as found in Cranch, Wheaton, or Peters.
In addtion to reviewing and 'shepardizing' the case on-line with Lexis
and/or Westlaw, participants in the seminar are required to find the
original minutes, docket entry, and the dates of admission to
practice to the U. S. Supreme Court of the lawyers arguing their
assigned case. The surviving lower court case files for the
assigned cases are not provided in this e-publication (they are
compiled separately) but how to go about finding them, if they have
survived, is demonstrated in the example of "The Hiram":
Briefly stated, this is a case brought by the consigners/owners of a
cargo of flour shipped from Baltimore in the fall of 1812 to Lisbon,
Portugal to help feed the British Army. It was brought
against the American privateer Thorn, which captured it on its way to Lisbon. The Theron claimed it as a prize after discovering that the Hiram
was a vessel operating under a safe conduct license from the British
which was against American law in the time of war, and made the Hiram
subject to capture as a prize of war. The owners of the cargo
claimed they knew nothing of the license and sought to have their goods
(the flour) returned. The court decided to uphold the lower court
decision that even if the owners of the cargo were unaware of the
license, it was the illegal action of the ship owner in obtaining the
license that made the ship and cargo liable for capture by the American
privateer, and that all the proceeds belong to the captors (the Thorn, its
owners, captain, and crew). Note that without recourse to the
minutes from the Massachusetts Federal Circuit Court, you would not
know that the lower court opinion that was affirmed by the Supreme
Court was written by Justice Story.
Finding the minutes of the case is relatively easy because the printed
report of the case is presented in the context of the term in which the
case was decided, in this instance, February Term, 1816. The minutes of the trial of the Hiram are to be found as the last entry on the last day of term, March 22, 1816,
an entry followed by a rule regarding further proof required by the
Court, and the appointment of Henry Wheaton as court reporter.
Finding the docket entry for a case is more difficult as the
dockets are in chronological order from the day the case was first
brought to the Court's attention. For example the Hiram's docket entry is found on folio 805 for February Term 1815,
meaning that the case was entered on the Supreme Court docket then and,
as indicated in the docket, decided on March 22, 1816. Note that
the docket contains a stamped number '752' added much later which
refers to how the Supreme Court had filed the case papers from
the lower court and the order in which the National Archives filmed
those papers.
Because it takes a year or two on average, in the era of the assigned
cases, from the entry on the docket to the resolution of the case
by the Court, the hunt for the dockets in the assigned cases usually
begins one or two terms before the year of decision in the case as
reflected in the minutes and the printed reports.
Finding when the attornies in the Hiram case
were first admitted to practice before the Supreme Court from this
e-publication is partially answered by the alphabetical index at the
beginning of National Archives microfilm publication M217. For the Hiram, the lawyers who argued the case before the Supreme Court were William Pinkney, admitted February 8, 1806, and Samuel Dexter,
who does not appear on the index to the rolls, but is well known from
his friendship with Justice Story and appeared as opposing counsel in
privateering cases with William Pinkney until his death from scarlet fever in Athens, New York, in May of 1816, following his win in the Hiram case.
The participants in the seminar are required to create a detailed
abstract of content and timeline of the minutes, the docket, and
printed report that includes the names of all the judges/justices
who heard the case, the litigants involved in the case, and the lawyers
who argued the case, including those who appeared before the
Supreme Court and their dates of admission to practice before the court.
In addition to the Minutes of the Supreme Court, the seminar is
provided on line access to an e-publication of the minutes of the
Maryland Federal Circuit Court:
Particpants in the seminar who were assigned cases on appeal from the
Maryland Federal Circuit Court are to incorporate the Maryland Federal
Circuit Court minutes for their case into their abstracts of
contnent/timelines and assessments of the participants.
In all, each member of the seminar is expected to produce in writing:
1) An Abstract of Content and Annotated Timeline of an assigned case
2) An Annotated List of all the participants in an assigned case, noting their role in the case
e-publication prepared and introduced by Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse, State Archivist, retired 2014/09/06 corrections, comments and suggestions are welcome; address them to admiraltycases@gmail.com