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W. H. Bryson *

Professor Helmholz writes with knowledge and authority on the use of natural law in the courts of law in early modern Europe, England, and the United States. This necessarily includes a discussion of the teaching of natural law to the students who would in due course practice in those courts and sit on those benches.[1] It is apparent that natural law was not taught in the schools of law systematically, as it was in the schools of philosophy and theology.

Rob Poggenklass *

In November 2011, a trooper from the Virginia State Police pulled over a car on Interstate 95 near Emporia, Virginia, for traffic violations.[2] The trooper, who alleged that the driver was both traveling 86 mph in a 70 mph zone and following another vehicle too closely, never issued a citation or pressed charges against either of the two men inside the car.[3] Instead, the trooper seized $28,500 in cash.[4] Lawyers for Victor Guzman, the passenger in the car, had to convince a U.S. Attorney that the money consisted of cash donations to help build a church in El Salvador.[5] Guzman and his brother-in-law, the driver, were transporting the funds to Atlanta at the church’s request when the trooper stopped them.[6] The trooper had not accepted their attempts to explain the situation, in part because they said—honestly and accurately—that the money was not their own. Four months later, in March 2012, federal immigration authorities finally cut a $28,500 check to the church, returning the money seized by state police.[7]

Kevin C. Walsh *

Before President John Adams appointed him as Chief Justice of the United States in 1801, John Marshall was a soldier, a state legislator, a federal legislator, an envoy to France, and the Secretary of State.[1] He also maintained a thriving practice in Virginia and federal courts, occasionally teaming up with political rival and personal friend Patrick Henry. Forty-five years old at the time of his appointment to the Supreme Court, Marshall had been serving his state and his country for a quarter century before he took judicial office.