@JustinLSimard

Assistant Professor, @MSULaw. I study slavery, commerce, and the legal profession.

Joined July 2020
  • Tweets16
  • Following49
  • Followers169
2Media
NEW: @deray @HendersonKaya @DeAraBalenger & @pharaohrapture chat crime decrease with shortage of police officers, the small group of conservative doctors behind restrictive abortion policies, and more. DeRay interviews @JustinLSimard about @CitingSlavery bit.ly/3D8FrdI
1
3
5
10,173
Thanks to my colleague @DorothyERoberts for highlighting this NPR article -- which draws on research by @PennLaw/@PennHistory JD/PhD grad @JustinLSimard (now @MSULaw). Kudos to the @CitingSlavery Project.
Dorothy Roberts@DorothyERoberts16 Jun 2023
Slavery still shapes law (and social policy, science, medicine, etc) today. This study found that almost 20% of all published US court decisions cite a slavery case or a case that cites one. Where do you think the “insane delusion rule” comes from? npr.org/2023/06/14/118183479…

Slave cases are still cited as good law across the U.S. This team aims to change that

Michigan State law professor Justin Simard says 18% of all published American cases are within two steps of a slave case. His team has spent years documenting them, hoping to force a legal reckoning.

npr.org
1
6
1
17
2,880
Judges and lawyers commonly cite to cases involving slavery for good legal precedent, but in 80% of the cases identified by the Citing Slavery Project’s researchers, there is no mention of the original case involving slavery, per @JustinLSimard. msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/h…

How the legal system continues to treat once-enslaved people as property

When Michigan State University’s Justin Simard was conducting research for his dissertation, he came across a case predating the Civil War related to slavery that was cited as precedent in 2012.

msutoday.msu.edu
1
9
18
1,761
Cases involving enslaved people are still being cited as precedent: 18% of all published U.S. legal cases are within two steps of a slave case, @JustinLSimard says. His team @CitingSlavery is pushing for change, starting with footnotes. Read/listen: npr.org/2023/06/14/118183479…

Slave cases are still cited as good law across the U.S. This team aims to change that

Michigan State law professor Justin Simard says 18% of all published American cases are within two steps of a slave case. His team has spent years documenting them, hoping to force a legal reckoning.

npr.org
1
4
1
6
1,415
Although this case may seem like an outlier, a reliance on the law of slavery in modern judicial opinions is surprisingly common. My research has turned up more than 300 examples of courts citing slave cases as good law in the last 35 years.
The Associated Press
@AP10 Mar 2023
A Virginia judge ruled in a preliminary opinion that frozen human embryos can legally be considered property, or “chattel,” basing his decision in part on a 19th century slavery law. “It’s repulsive and it’s morally repugnant,” a lawyer said of the ruling. apnews.com/article/embryos-s…

Judge uses a slavery law to rule frozen embryos are property

A Virginia judge has ruled that frozen embryos can legally be considered property, based partly on a 19th century law governing the treatment of slaves.

apnews.com
1
16
1
34
6,169
more replies
At the @CitingSlavery Project, we're working to make the ongoing legacy of the law of slavery visible. Visit citingslavery.org to see the cases a team of @MSULaw student editors and I have collected.
1
3
6
439
Anna Maxwell, a first-year law student, just finished collecting more than 1,000 Virginia slave cases (including the ones cited in this opinion). They will be uploaded to our site soon. In total, these cases have been cited more than 12,000 times.
3
9
379
Load more