Category: Legal Research

I was stopped at an traffic light this afternoon when two police officers on motorcycles entered the intersection from my left with their lights flashing. They stopped briefly and then proceeded through the intersection. At first, I thought that some dignitaries may be paying a visit to Silicon Valley and these officers were serving as a police escort. However, there was no train of black Suburbans following behind.

Instead, I witnessed a stream of “regular” cars, and finally noticed a funeral placard affixed to the windshield of one of the vehicle. While the funeral procession was driving through the intersection with the green light, there was no problem. However, once the light changed, the procession continued through the intersection at the same speed, nearly causing an accident.

The traffic laws regarding funeral processions in California is governed by California Vehicle Code Section 2817.

Any person who disregards any traffic signal or direction given by a peace officer authorized pursuant to subdivision (d) of Section 70 of the Penal Code to escort funeral processions, if the peace officer is in a peace officer’s uniform, and is in the process of escorting a funeral procession, shall be guilty of an infraction and subject to the penalties provided in subdivision (a) of Section 42001.

California doesn’t explicitly grant funeral processions the right-of-way, but the California DMV website states:

Do not block or hinder a funeral procession. Vehicles taking part in a funeral procession have the right-of-way, and if you interfere, obstruct, or interrupt the funeral procession, you are subject to a citation (CVC §2817). A funeral procession is led by a traffic officer. All vehicles taking part in the procession have windshield markers to identify them and have their headlights on.

For the procession I witnessed, the practical issues are (1) the funeral placard is not that easy to see at first, (2) headlights are not as meaningful a distinction in the era of daytime running lights, and (3) after the police officers had departed from the intersection, drivers arriving later to the intersection may not have been aware that a funeral procession was passing through.

So, when the traffic light turned red for the funeral procession, a couple cars darted into the intersection from their left. Fortunately, they stopped before there was a collision.

The Arkansas Judiciary website offers Arkansas Supreme Court Published Opinions. This collection includes unofficial copies of published opinions starting from the Spring Term of 1837. I am fascinated by court opinions, not so much from a legal perspective but a historical perspective.

In Daniel v. Guy, 19 Ark. 121 (1857), the plaintiffs sued the defendant for trespass for false imprisonment. At issue was whether the plaintiffs were free or the slaves of defendant William Daniel.

For context, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided Daniel v. Guy just four years before Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter and sparked the American Civil War. So, this opinion pre-dates the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation.

The court proceeds to discuss the various legal presumptions in effect including the presumption of freedom for persons that appear to belong to the white race. Other important signals include whether the persons was previously held as a slave. In terms of expert witnesses, the court provided this summary:

Dr. Newton—Had read Physiology. There are five races—the negro is the lowest in intellect. Some physiologists are of the opinion that in the head of the mulatto, there is some negro hair, and some white hair, and that the negro hair never runs out. It would not run out before it passed the second generation. It may in the third generation have waves. The color, hair, feet, nose, and form of the skull and bones furnish means of distinguishing negro blood or descent. The hair never becomes straight until after the third descent from the negro, from neither the father or mother’s side. The flat nose also remains observable for several descents.

In 2171, I wonder what decisions by our present-day state and federal courts will appear as antiquated as this one.

Daniel v. Guy, 19 Ark. 121 (1857).

Reuters: Supreme Court overrules Obama nominee in race bias case. Conservative critics seized on the decision, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, to demonstrate that Sotomayor was “out of sync” with mainstream legal thinking.

I’m not sure how the Sotomayor decision was out of sync with “mainstream” legal thinking. Her decision may have been out of sync with conservative legal thinking. Mainstream? Nah. After all, Ricci v. DeStefano was a 5-4 decision, meaning 44% of the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Sotomayor. If you want to find someone that is really out of sync with mainstream legal thinking, take a look at Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding, an 8-1 decision. If 89% of the justices on the US Supreme Court think one way, I think that line of thinking constitutes mainstream legal thinking. In a case that gave new meaning to Perverted Justice, Justice Thomas curiously was not troubled (in a Constitutional sense) with school administrators strip searching a teenage girl.