Source: https://commons.law.famu.edu/hawkins-research-1/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 10:16:46+00:00

Document:
This hypothetical project is designed to show the reader how a typical research project might have proceeded at the original FAMU College of Law, using the resources, then, available to the law students. Through the use of a research question, this display showcases portions of the Virgil Darnell Hawkins Collection, pointing out how the law changes over time, and highlighting the radical changes that have taken place, in some areas of the law, from the time students labored in the stacks to the time of the digital age.
During the time that Virgil Hawkins was fighting for the right to attend law school at the University of Florida, the research process was quite different than it is today. Computers and the Internet had not been invented, and legal researchers had to rely on print resources to find the information they needed. To demonstrate how law students of this era would have performed the process of finding the law they needed, this exercise will use materials from the Virgil Hawkins Collection to answer a legal question.
The question that this exercise will attempt to answer is whether someone who assisted a woman, in obtaining an abortion, could be charged with a crime in the state of Florida in the early 1960's.
This document represents an historical research project, from start to finish, as it would have been accomplished during the time Virgil Hawkins was fighting to gain entry into the University of Florida law school. The student would have used print resources to resolve this legal question regarding abortion, a topic about which the law has changed significantly since the time this research would have been performed.
The first step in any research process is to create a research strategy and organize your plan. The first step in most legal research is the use of secondary sources in order to gain an overview of a legal issue and to find cases and statutes that discuss the topic. A possible source about the state of the law in Florida on the topic of abortion was Florida Law and Practice.
This compendium of Florida law is based on State and Federal decisions arising from Florida Statutes. It is an up to the minute encyclopedia of Florida law and procedure, edited by an exceptionally well qualified and experienced group of Florida lawyers and teachers, who have helped make Florida Law. The text is keyed to Florida publications, practice books and Florida digests.
This document contains limited excerpts from Volume One that apply to the research problem.
The first step in most legal research is to start with secondary sources to gain an overview of a legal issue and to find cases and statutes that discuss the topic. Secondary sources are statements or texts written about the law. A source that was available in the FAMU law library and could have been used to find information about the state of the law in Florida on the topic of abortion was Florida Law and Practice. To find information in Florida Law and Practice, the student would have used the title’s index and looked up the search term ‘abortion’ to see if there was information available.
The edition of the Florida Law and Practice used for this demonstration was Harrison Company, Florida Law and Practice (1955).
After finding the entry for abortion in the index, the student would then have gone to the volume and page indicated by the index to read the information provided. Studying the information contained in the entries, the student would have taken notes about statutes and cases that would be used to craft a legal analysis. The statutes on point that are listed by the treatise's entry are Florida Statutes § 782.10 and Florida Statutes § 797.01. The entry also names Eggart v. State as a case that discusses when an individual could be charged with a crime for assisting a woman to seek an abortion. 40 Fla. 527, 25 So. 144 (1898).
In order to be certain the law that forms the basis of a legal argument or theory is current, it is crucial to update your research. Different resources use different methods, but a common method for treatises is the pocket part, an insert at the back of a book that contains information from after the date the book was published. Consequently, after reading the relevant entries in the main text of the treatise, the student would have looked at the pocket part to determine if there were any new cases or statutory changes that applied.
The Attorney General of Florida, pursuant to the legislative mandate expressed in the Act approved May 25, 1939, Laws 1939, c. 19140, has prepared a "revision, compilation and consolidation of all the General Statutes of Florida in force, of a permanent nature" which, by Act approved June 6, 1941, Laws 1941, c. 20719, except as otherwise provided therein, was "adopted and enacted as statute law" under the title of Florida Statutes 1941.
The next likely step would have been to look up the statutes and the case that were listed in Florida Law and Practice to find additional information.To find both the statute and corresponding annotations, the student would have used the Florida Statutes Annotated. Since they found the citations for the statute in Florida Law and Practice, there is no need to use the index and the student would go directly to the volume of the set that contained the statute and annotations. At the time, F.S. § 782.10 held that intentionally causing a woman to miscarry would carry the charge of manslaughter. Under F.S. § 797.01, it was illegal for anyone to provide substances or conduct procedures to cause a woman to miscarry and anyone found to have done so would face seven years in jail or a fine of $1000.
The scans of the statutes are from the 1944 edition of the Florida Statutes Annotated, which, using the Bluebook rules, would have been cited, Fla. Stat. Ann. § 782.10 (1944) and Fla. Stat. Ann § 797.01 (1944) respectively.
Some states have official and unofficial case reporter systems. Florida Reports was the official case reporter series that reported the decisions of the Florida Supreme Court from 1846 through 1948 in 160 volumes. When an official reporter exists court rules often require citation to both the official and unofficial reporter.
Some states have official and unofficial case reporter systems. When an official reporter exists court rules often require citation to both the official and unofficial reporter. The Southern Reporter is the unofficial, regional, reporter series that reports the decisions of the Supreme Courts in Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi.
The student would also use case law to learn about Florida’s treatment of abortion laws. To read Eggart v. State, using the citation provided by Florida Law and Practice, the student would have gone to volume 25 of the Southern Reporter and opened it to page 527. From the case, they would learn the history of Florida’s antiabortion statute and how it could be used to convict, of manslaughter, anyone who set out to cause a woman to miscarry. The first page of the Eggart case is to the left; the entire case can be found by scrolling down to the bottom of the “Historical Print Research Project No. 1: Abortion” site and clicking on the document. The citation is Eggart v. State, 40 Fla. 527, 25 So. 144 (1898).
As a lawyer or law student, any time you cite a case in support of a legal argument, you must check whether its authority has changed as a result of more recent decisions. Before the advent of the Internet, this process was typically done using a print tool called a citator. The principle citator at the time of the original FAMU law school was Shepard’s Citations, an indexing resource developed by Frank Shepard during the 19th century. Citators allow you to determine if your case is still good law and it acts as a research tool to find other cases and materials that cited your case. The Shepard’s Florida Citations, of the time, is no longer available in the Virgil Hawkins Collection, so this demonstration has used a more current edition as an example.
The basic steps involved in “Shepardizing” a case with a print citator are 1.) obtain the correct citation for your case, 2.) identify the correct Shepard’s set and gather all necessary volumes as identified on the cover of the most current soft bound supplement, 3.) check each volume for reference to your case, 4.) identify and review these cases for negative treatment of your case, 5.) read all cases that indicate negative treatment of your case, 6.) repeat for all applicable Shepard’s volumes.
To ensure the student was relying on good case law, they would use Shepard’s Florida Citations to determine whether Eggart v. State had received any negative treatment by subsequent courts. For example, the case would be reviewed to determine if it had been overruled, superseded, deemed unconstitutional or received any other treatment that would negate or lessen its precedential value. According to the Shepard’s entry, at the time, the case was discussed and followed several times and remained good law.
After analyzing statutes and case law information on abortion in Florida, the student could conclude and state that offering to help a woman obtain an abortion was illegal in the 1960’s and, if a miscarriage subsequently occurred due to aid provided, the person who helped obtain the abortion could be convicted of 3rd degree manslaughter.
In 1973, the Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade established that women had the right to seek an abortion and that states had to balance their ability to regulate health against a woman’s health care decision power and the potentiality of human life. 410 U.S. 113 (1973). Roe v. Wade superseded Florida’s cases and statutes against abortion and allowed women the choice to seek an abortion. Roe v. Wade has been re-visited over the years confirming, along with Eggart, the importance of always updating your research.
The first page of the holding in Roe v. Wade is to the left; the entire case can be found via the link below.
A pregnant single woman brought a class action suit challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which proscribed procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life. The Court held that a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
This 1898 case addressed the crime of unlawfully administering drugs and other noxious things with the intent to procure a miscarriage.

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