Finals Study Break: Wednesday, Dec. 13

Come out this Wednesday for a study break during finals!  Grab coffee and tasty fresh-baked donuts outside the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center.

When: Wednesday, December 12, 11:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Where: Outside the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center (N30 - on the sub-plaza past Sullivan Cafe)

What: Coffee and donuts!

Good luck on finals, and best wishes for the holidays from the Law Library!

New Acquisition: Judge Diana Murphy's Papers

The papers of Judge Diana Murphy ’74—the first woman to serve as a federal district judge in Minnesota and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit—have been generously donated to the Law Library by her sons, John and Michael Murphy. Judge Murphy passed away in May at 84, having served as a federal judge for 38 years. She left an indelible legacy as an outstanding member of the federal judiciary and as a trailblazer and leader in the local and national legal communities. 

After completing undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, and raising a family at home, Diana Murphy returned to attend the Law School, where she was an editor of the Minnesota Law Review and graduated with honors. She began her legal career with the Minneapolis law firm of Lindquist & Vennum and later served as a Hennepin County judge. Murphy was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota in 1980, and to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1994.   

On the bench, Murphy was universally lauded for her fairness, her comprehensive understanding of the issues, and her untiring efforts on behalf of law and justice. As Professor Carol Chomsky has written: “Judge Murphy stood with ordinary people against the sometimes arbitrary hand of bureaucratic decision-making.” Her career was marked by important rulings, including Lewis v. Heartland Inns (2010), a Title VII civil rights case, in which Murphy authored a panel opinion that disallowed the use of gender stereotypes to deny promotion to a woman. In Nelson v. Correctional Medical Services (2009), Murphy wrote the en banc opinion finding that shackling inmates in the late stages of labor constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.” She was also involved in key cases relating to American Indian law throughout her career, including Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians v. Minnesota (1994) and Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land and Cattle Company (2007).

Murphy’s service in judicial and educational organizations was exemplary as well. She was chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 1999 to 2004 and chaired the 8th Circuit Gender Fairness Implementation Committee. She served on the board of directors of the Federal Judges Association, as its president from 1989 to 1991, and as chair of the American Judicature Society. She was active in the American Bar Association and served on the Minnesota Constitutional Study Commission and board of governors of the Minnesota State Bar Association. Beyond the bench, Judge Murphy served as chair of the board of regents of St. John’s University, trustee of the University of Saint Thomas, national president of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association, and trustee of the University of Minnesota Foundation. Murphy also received numerous honors during her career: she was named a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, received the Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, and was named Honoree of the Year by the National Association of Women Judges, among many others.

The papers that the Law Library has received constitute a full record of Murphy’s career on the 8th Circuit bench. The large collection includes case files, conference notes, annotations, memoranda, and other correspondence between judges; subject and other files related to Murphy’s judicial service—including her work on the Sentencing Commission—and documents reflecting a wide range of her civic service. 

“The Law Library is very grateful to be able to add Judge Murphy’s papers to its collections,” said Professor Joan Howland, associate dean for information and technology and director of the Library. “They offer a fascinating window into the working life and judicial thinking of a pioneering woman jurist during an important era in recent legal history. In addition to its value for studying Judge Murphy’s career, the collection represents a rich trove for the study of the federal judiciary, and will be of great benefit to future students and scholars.”

In spring 2019, the Library will mount an exhibit commemorating the career and legacy of Judge Murphy and highlighting achievements of women in the law, drawing from the new collection of papers and from the Library’s extensive archives and special collections.  

  - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Halloween, Oct 31: Rare Books Open House!

All are invited to the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center's special Halloween Open House on Wednesday, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.! 

Come out on Halloween to see spooky treasures from our collection (including witch trials and other sensational trials) - and pick up free snacks, drinks, and Halloween candy!

Come out in costume and get a picture on our Tumblr page!

When: Wednesday, Oct. 31st, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.
Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Center
What: Rare books, snacks, drinks, candy and costumes!


(The Center is in N30, sub plaza on the hallway past Sullivan Cafe and N20.)

Wednesday, Oct. 3: Rare Books Open House

All are invited to the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center's first rare books open house of the semester, next Wednesday, 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.! 

Come out and enjoy free snacks and drinks, and see treasures from the library's rare books and special collections.

Also: enter a contest to win a Supreme Court bobblehead! (The Center has a complete collection, and some will be on display.)

When: Wednesday, October 3rd, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.
Where: *Riesenfeld Rare Books Center
What: Rare books, bobbleheads, snacks and prizes!

(*The Center is in N30, sub plaza on the hallway past Sullivan Cafe and N20.)

Wednesday, Sept. 26: Fall Exhibit Open House

Come out to an open house in the Riesenfeld Center next Wednesday, September 26, for the Law Library's 2018 exhibit:

"A Foundation in the Law: Celebrating 40 Years at Walter F. Mondale Hall"

Open House: Wednesday, September 26, 2018
                         12 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
                         Riesenfeld Rare Books Center (N30, Sub-plaza)

                         Snacks and refreshments will be served.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Law School building, Walter F. Mondale Hall. Dedicated in the spring of 1978, the building and the vision behind it have provided the foundation for numerous achievements in the past four decades, enhancing the life of the Law School and its success.

The Library and Riesenfeld Center's current exhibit, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Walter F. Mondale Hall, highlights the development of plans for a new Law School building and its 2001 addition, and pays tribute in photographs to the Law School's great friend, Walter Mondale ('56), and his deep involvement in the life of the Law School for over six decades.

The exhibit was created by Ian Moret, Patrick Graybill and Ryan Greenwood.

The exhibit is open in the Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center through December 10. For more information or directions, please contact Ryan Greenwood (rgreenwo@umn.edu; 612-625-7323).

Monday, September 17: Constitution Day Donuts!

Come out and celebrate Constitution Day in the Law Library!

Stop by and grab donuts and coffee, as well as a crossword puzzle about the US Constitution for prizes.  And don't forget to take a selfie with James Madison!

When: Monday, September 17, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Where: The Library Lobby
What: Donuts, Coffee, and Prizes! 

Recent Rare Books Acquisitions: Criminal Law

Over the late spring and summer, the Riesenfeld Center has added notable titles to its collection, several of which fall in the area of criminal law. Our most important active collecting area related to criminal law is the Clarence Darrow collection, which not only includes the nationally preeminent trove of Darrow letters, but writings by and about the famous American trial lawyer, who championed criminal defendants facing great odds throughout his career. At the same time, other areas of the collection touch significantly on notable criminal trials, criminal law reform, and the philosophy of punishment. 

Among works of philosophy, we recently acquired the Essays (1824) of the English barrister and jurist Basil Montagu (1770-1851), a friend of William Wordsworth and James Mackintosh, who rejected the harshness of the death penalty in England, wrote to reform bankruptcy law, and advocated for his beliefs in a range of published works and as a member of several societies. Montagu's essays add to key reformer Jeremy Bentham's Traités de législation civile et pénale (1802), a recently-acquired first edition published first in French, which lays out Bentham's revolutionary utilitarian views on law and punishment. 

Another acquisition, a copy of the Report from the Select Committee on the Criminal Law of England, bound together with the Further Report (London, 1824), is among the very few copies listed in institutions. The parliamentary committee that authored the reports contributed importantly to the movement for 19th-century English criminal law reform, begun under the influence of Cesare Beccaria, Jeremy Bentham, and figures like Samuel Romilly and James Mackintosh in Parliament. In 1819-20, popular support for reform led to a more urgent awareness among lawmakers, and in 1823 the death penalty was made discretionary in cases not involving treason or murder for the first offense. In 1824, Parliament took up forgery, which became the focal point of death penalty reform efforts and of our reports. The committee treated in an analytic way what kind of crime forgery was, and its relation to fraud; and surveyed the history of forgery legislation in England. The work was the product of extensive legal expertise, and the reform of forgery law became a key precedent for 1830s reforms, which saw many of the over 200 capital offenses in England abolished by the end of the decade. 

A more recent work, the Hand Book of the Minnesota State Prison (1910), is a very rare edition of a handbook published to describe and tout Minnesota's new prison complex in Stillwater, then still under construction. The pamphlet outlines the prison's principles and objectives, organization, features, and finances, and is based generally on a utilitarian approach to the rehabilitation of its inmates. Arguing for the necessity of the new prison, it proclaims that the prison will be one of the most modern in the country, if not the world. Adding to the interest of the manual, and certainly meant as an additional advertisement, are two fold-out illustrations of the floor plan of the prison and an artist's bird's eye view of the prison and its grounds.

Even more recently, in the late 1940s and early 50s, the trials of the "Trenton Six" raised key issues of due process, in a murder trial that captured national attention and helped to catalyze the civil rights movement. Six young African-American men were convicted in 1948 of the murder of an elderly shop-keeper in Trenton, New Jersey, and sentenced to death. The men came to trial based on coerced confessions resulting from days of interrogation without access to attorneys, and were arrested without warrants in a wide sweep of the city. After a publicity campaign, the convictions were reversed on appeal in the New Jersey Supreme Court, for failing to specify what degree of murder the defendants were guilty of. After a new 13-week trial, four of the six defendants were acquitted, while circumstantial evidence resulted in convictions for the remaining two, one of whom died soon after, while the other was paroled in 1954. From these significant trials, we acquired a pamphlet published by the NAACP that formed part of the publicity effort to bring the case to a national audience; and a typed, signed censure by the judge in the first trial, which faults several of the defendants' attorneys for violating the New Jersey Bar's code of ethics. The censure sheds light on contemporary issues: the attorneys were reprimanded for speaking publicly about their clients' innocence and campaigning for it locally and nationally during the trial. Among other things, the judge also suggested that the attorneys, from New York, were raising money through their representation for other causes. The documents vividly bring the circumstances and sensation of the case to life, and encourage discussions about defendants' rights and the role of the media in trials, issues that are of continuing importance.

- Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections