Delaware Campus Library Blogs

Murder victim Elizabeth Dunning, from an illustration in the San Francisco Call

One evening in August 1898 in Dover, Delaware, the family of ex-congressman John B. Penington sat together on the porch of their house on the Dover Green. Mr. and Mrs. Penington, their son, two adult daughters and their grandchildren were relaxing after dinner. Two neighbors stopped by to say hello. One of the daughters, Elizabeth Dunning, had received a box of chocolates in the mail earlier that day, and she passed the candy around for her family and friends to enjoy. Later that night, everyone who had eaten the candy got sick. Elizabeth Dunning and her sister, Ida Deane, had eaten more candy than the others. Within a few days, both women were dead. Food poisoning was originally suspected, but tests on the candy proved it had been laced with arsenic.

The candy had been sent with no return address but a San Francisco postmark. Included in the box was a handkerchief and a note that read “With love to yourself and baby, love, Mrs. C.” When informed of his wife Elizabeth’s death, her husband John P. Dunning, immediately suspected his mistress, Cordelia Botkin.

Photo from “The Staff Correspondent”

Born in Delaware, John P. Dunning studied to be an attorney, but the staid life of a provincial Dover lawyer wasn’t for him. He became a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, traveling the world to cover stories of war and natural disaster. In 1889 he was sent to Samoa to cover the growing tension there between Germany and the United States. Dunning arrived in time to witness the destruction of the fleets sent by the two countries in a terrible cyclone. His story was sent by the AP to newspapers around the world, including the New York Times.  His coverage of the cyclone and courage in rescuing victims of the disaster made him a well-known reporter.

Dunning and his wife Elizabeth had a daughter and moved to San Francisco, where Dunning worked for the Associated Press. At some point, Elizabeth and John separated, Elizabeth and her daughter moving back to Dover to live with her parents. Dunning stayed in San Francisco, where he began an affair with Cordelia Botkin. Botkin was also married and separated from her husband.

Cordelia Botkin, illustration from the San Francisco Call

At the outbreak of the Spanish American War in 1898, Dunning was sent by the Associated Press to Cuba to cover the war, where he covered the exploits of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Before he left, he told Cordelia that after the war he’d be going home to his wife in Delaware. Not long afterward, his wife and her sister were dead.

Cordelia Botkin was soon arrested and charged with the murder of Elizabeth Dunning. Her trial was a huge sensation, with front page coverage in newspapers all over the country. The case had everything needed for a sensational story: adultery, prominent people, the clash between small town values and big city sophistication, and a murder committed by the latest technology, poison by mail.

Cordelia Botkin steadfastly maintained her innocence and hired some of the finest lawyers in San Francisco, but she was found guilty of murder in December 1898. In 1901 her conviction was overturned (People v. Botkin, 132 Cal. 231, 64 P. 286 (1901)) because of improper jury instructions. She was tried and convicted again in 1904 and sentenced to life in prison. She appealed again but this time her conviction was upheld People v. Botkin, 9 Cal. App. 244, 98 P. 861 (1908). She died in San Quentin prison in 1910. John Dunning preceded her in death, dying in Philadelphia in 1907 at the age of 44.

Sources:

John R. Alstadt, Jr. With Love to Yourself and Baby. Dorrance, 2001.

Charles Sanford Diehl. The Staff Correspondent. Clegg Co., 1931.

Thomas S. Duke. Celebrated Criminal Cases of America. J.H. Barry, 1910.

The San Francisco Call‘s extensive coverage of the trial is available at the California Digital Newspaper Collection.

April is National Poetry Month. The law and poetry have more in common than you might think, maybe because lawyers have to be good writers. A few Widener faculty have published articles about poetry and the law. Mary Kate Kearney of the Harrisburg campus has written The Propriety of Poetry in Judicial Opinions, about the use of poetry by judges in their opinions. Another Harrisburg faculty member, Randy Lee, has written an article about Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen’s Hope and the Lawyer as Poet Advocate.

On the Delaware campus, Alan Garfield once published a humorous poem about Sherwood v. Walker, the famous contract case about a cow. For some reason, Sherwood v. Walker seems to spark the muse in many lawyers because there are a lot of poems inspired by that case. And even a song:

Rehoboth Beach boardwalk 1931. Someone might be disrobing behind a beach chair.

This is going to be my last post on weird laws of Delaware. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed researching them. Today I’m going to look at a number of weird laws on disparate subjects that all have one thing in common. See if you can figure out what it is.

In Rehoboth Beach, Delaware:

No person shall change clothes in his or her vehicle.

status: mostly true [It’s only illegal if your car is in a public place. Feel free to change in your garage.]

§ 198-14. Disrobing in public. No person shall disrobe under the boardwalk, on the beach or in any vehicle while such vehicle is parked upon any public street or way or other public place in plain view of the public.

One may not whisper in church.

status: mostly true [It’s only illegal if you are disrupting or disturbing the congregation. If the congregation wants to have an all whispered service they can go ahead.]

§ 198-23. Disturbing religious worship and lawful assemblies. A. No person shall disrupt or disturb any congregation or assembly met for religious worship by noise, talking or whispering, or by rude or indecent behavior, or by profane language within their place of worship, or within 300 feet of the place of worship.

No person shall pretend to sleep on a bench on the boardwalk.

status: true [This is a perfectly normal law for a beach town, except for the “pretending” to sleep clause. I guess the local judges got tired of people using the “I wasn’t really asleep” defense.]

§ 198-30. Sleeping on boardwalk. No person shall sleep, lie or occupy as a sleeping quarter, or under the guise of pretending to sleep on the boardwalk, any bench located on the boardwalk in any pavilion located at the end of any street or on any bench located on any street.

Changing into or out of a bathing suit in a public restroom is prohibited.

status: true

§ 198-15. Changing clothes in comfort station prohibited. No person shall change his clothing from bathing suit to street clothes or otherwise within the comfort stations maintained by the City.

Six-year-old girls may not run around without being fully clothed.

status: true [But this is a deliberately obtuse reading of the law. Obviously 60 year old women are equally prohibited from topless bathing.]

§ 198-13. Topless bathing suits prohibited. No female over the age of five years shall wear a topless bathing suit or otherwise fail to cover her breasts with less than a full opaque covering of any portion thereof below the upper portion of the nipple.

Alcohol may not be served in nightclubs if dancing is occurring on the premises at the same time.

status: true [Actually nightclubs that allow dancing may not serve alcohol at all, no matter when the dancing is occurring.]

§ 134-13. Alcoholic beverages prohibited. No person shall sell, give, dispense, provide or keep or cause to be sold, given, dispensed, provided or kept any alcoholic beverage on the premises of any dance hall establishment.

In Lewes, Delaware:

It is illegal to wear pants that are “firm fitting” around the waist

status: not true [This is one of the most commonly cited weird Delaware laws on the internet. It is definitely not in the current Lewes code of ordinances. It is possible it used to be a law but I can't check because we don’t have older city ordinance for Lewes in our library.]

Did you figure out what they all have in common? They are all local laws, municipal ordinances that have been passed by a town or city in Delaware. Many of the laws cited on weird laws websites are often local laws. Laws passed to deal with local problems do often seem strange when taken out of their local context. For instance, many of the laws from Rehoboth Beach were probably passed to deal with the problems of a beach town, by trying to discourage nightclubs, stop day trippers from changing out of their bathing suits on residential streets, and keep drunk college students from sleeping on the boardwalk. Many beach towns have similar laws.

Legal research classes don’t spend much, if any time teaching how to research local laws, but these laws can greatly affect your clients’ everyday lives, so it’s worthwhile taking the time to learn how to find them. The internet has made researching local laws easier than it used to be. Many cities and towns have their municipal codes available on their website. There are also two companies that specialize in creating municipal codes, Municipal Code Company and General Code and many local codes can be found free on their websites. For more information on researching local laws, I’d recommend reading this excellent article by Mary Whisner of the University of Washington.

Photo credit: Delaware Public Archives. Board of Agriculture Glass Negative Collection.
http://cdm15323.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/p15323coll6,6621

For more information on local laws see: Mary Whisner. Enact Locally. 102 Law Library Journal 497 (2010)

Boy howdy is there ever an app for that…this all started because I read about an app developed by New York Law School’s Mendik Library.  I looked them up in the iTunes App Store and happened to click the “related” option and down the rabbit hole I went.  For an even more detailed list of apps see the libguides prepared by UCLA & University of Akron.

Handy Apps for Law Students

Fastcase - a free legal research application.  It contains cases and statutes from all 50 states.  There are 3 ways to search: by citation, keyword, or browse the statute collections.  It can be downloaded for free from the iTunes App Store and can be used on the iPhone & the iPad.  There is also an Android version.

LawStack – it is described as a “law library in your pocket.”  With this app you get the US Constitution (as amended 5/5/92), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure,    Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy  Procedure (effective as of Dec. 1, 2011).  You can also add the DE Code, New York Code, & CFR.  This is a free app available for download at the iTunes App Store.

CaseBriefs – it includes these features which are aimed at law students: student briefs, course outlines, & law school exam preparation materials.  It is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

U.S. Code – the entire U.S. Code for your iOS device, where you will be able to access all the federal statutes without using the internet.  Available for free from the iTunes App Store.

iStudiez Pro – award-winning app that helps you (the busy student) organize your life.  It offers many ways to organize your schedule and is available for purchase from the iTunes App Store for $2.99.  There is an    iStudiez Lite which is free but is not as feature rich.

Law School Dojo – this app will help take some of the boredom out of studying.  “It offers hundreds of multiple choice questions to learn legal doctrine,     vocabulary, and procedure, along with random legal trivia.” Available to download for free from the iTunes App Store (there are additional versions e.g. quizzes on torts, Civil Procedure, etc but these are not free).

OpenRegs – with this app you will be able to take the Federal Register with you no matter where you go.  It is free and available for download from the iTunes App Store.

LexisNexis Law School Q&A Series -  this app is available to download for free from the iTunes App Store, each in app purchase is $14.99.  It is the Q&A exam prep series as an interactive app.  It includes 27 subject areas (available as in app purchases): Civ Pro, Evidence, Torts, Constitutional Law, Crim Pro, Constitutional Law etc.

The Delaware General Corporation Law of 1899, with ancient mystical notations

I’m kind of late in noticing this but I just found this article. In 2010, satirical newspaper The Onion published 20,000 Sacrificed In Annual Blood Offering To Corporate America, which includes this reference to the Delaware General Corporation Law: “A joyful noise filled the hall as the priest pulled the first virgin’s heart from her chest and recited the ancient, mystical section 102(a)(3) of the Delaware General Corporation Law.”

Like much of the Onion it’s only mildly amusing, but whoever wrote that actually read the Delaware General Corporation Law. Section 102(a)(3) is “The nature of the business or purposes to be conducted or promoted. It shall be sufficient to state, either alone or with other businesses or purposes, that the purpose of the corporation is to engage in any lawful act or activity for which corporations may be organized under the General Corporation Law of Delaware, and by such statement all lawful acts and activities shall be within the purposes of the corporation, except for express limitations, if any;”

If you were going to intone a section of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which one would you pick? I think I’d go with section 397 “Whoever prints or publishes this chapter without the authority of the Secretary of State of this State, shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned not more than 3 months, or both.”

Horse and jockey at Delaware Park in the 1940s, not on a Sunday.

It’s time for another look at the weird laws of Delaware. This time I’m taking a look at what you can and cannot do on Sunday in Delaware. You may have seen this cited on the internet as a weird Delaware law:

Delaware prohibits horse racing of any kind on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Status: True

Yes it’s true, Title 28, section 906 of the Delaware Code reads, “There shall be no horse racing of any kind on Good Friday or Easter Sunday.” You might think that this is just an old law that was accidentally left on the books, but it was only passed in 1973 (59 Del. Laws 1973, ch. 25, § 1), and is actually a liberalization of the state’s earlier law which banned horse racing every Sunday.

Horse racing was just one of the many activities that used to be banned in Delaware on Sundays. Laws reserving Sunday as the Sabbath and a day of rest were brought to the American colonies from England and existed in all of the original colonies. They were commonly called “blue laws.” Interestingly, no one seems to agree on why, it may have been because they were originally printed on blue paper, or possibly, because the Puritans and their strong religious scruples were often called “blue” as in “bluenose.”

Delaware’s early Sunday laws were strict but typical of their time. The 1852 Delaware Code prohibited the performance of “any worldly employment, labor, or business, on the Sabbath day (works of necessity and charity excepted)…” Delaware law also prohibited leisure activities such as “fishing, fowling, horse-racing, cock-fighting, or hunting game” on Sundays, as well as assembling to “game, play or dance.” (Revised Statutes of the State of Delaware chap. 131, sec. 4 (1852))

A 1939 petition to the Governor of Delaware, asking him to support a referendum allowing movies to be shown in Wilmington on Sundays.

By 1953 the Delaware Code no longer banned all work on Sundays, but still banned horse racing, along with auctions, dances, theatrical performances and motion pictures, at least in unincorporated areas. Incorporated areas were permitted to make their own rules, but these activities could not be held before noon or between 6 PM and 8 PM. Also banned on Sunday was barbering (24 Del.C. (1953) § 415) but, curiously, not ladies hairdressing, which eventually led to a Delaware Supreme Court case which held that the law was “… an unjust and unreasonable attempt to discriminate against this class of persons [barbers]; that its effect is not to benefit the interests of the public; and that it constitutes an arbitrary interference with private business.” Rogers v. State, 57 Del. 334, 339, 199 A.2d 895, 897 (1964)

Sunday closing laws as a whole were never found unconstitutional and have been upheld by the United States Supreme Court. (McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961), Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Mkt. Inc., 366 U.S. 617 (1961), Two Guys v. McGinley, 366 U.S. 582 (1961), Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961)) Many states in the U.S. still have restrictions on Sunday activities.

Currently in Delaware besides the ban on horse racing on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, liquor can only be sold on Sundays between 12:00 noon and 8:00 p.m. (4 Del. Code § 709) (with some exceptions for small wineries, distilleries and breweries), hunting is prohibited on Sunday (except fox hunting with dogs) (7 Del. Code § 712), taking shellfish for commercial purposes (with some exceptions) is prohibited (7 Del. Code § 1904), “adult establishments” must be closed, (24 Del. Code § 1625), and you can’t use drifting gill nets until after 4 p.m. on Sunday (7 Del. Code § 923). Luckily for me it’s not illegal to write blog posts on Sundays.

Photo credits:

Delaware Public Archives. Delaware in World War II Collection. http://cdm15323.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/p15323coll6,10024

For more information on blue laws see:

Neil J. Dilloff, Never on Sunday: the Blue Laws Controversy, 39 Md. L. Rev. 679 (1980)

Lesley Lawrence-Hammer, Red, White, but Mostly Blue: The Validity of Modern Sunday Closing Laws Under the Establishment Clause, 60 Vand. L. Rev. 1273  (2007)

This year’s Philadelphia Live Arts Festival includes a production of a work in progress, Arguendo. Produced by New York theater company, Elevator Repair Service, the play dramatizes the oral arguments in Barnes v. Glen Theatre 501 U.S. 560, a 1991 Supreme Court case about whether a state ban on public nudity violated the freedom of expression of exotic dancers at two strip clubs. There’s a good article about an earlier New York production of the play in The Paris Review. Arguendo will be performed Sunday, September 16 at 1:00 PM at the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia.

Supreme Court photo from Wikimedia Commons

New Castle Courthouse Museum

A new play based on the 1848 trial of Delaware abolitionists Thomas Garrett and John Hunn will be performed at the New Castle County Courthouse Museum, the scene of the original trial. In 1848 the two men were tried for violating federal law by helping the Hawkins family escape from slavery in Maryland. They were found guilty and heavily fined.

The interactive play is one of a series written by local playwright Colin Adams-Toomey There will be three performances of the play, August  18th, 19th and 21st. See the News Journal for more information.

I love looking at historic photos. If you’d like to look at a collection of historic photos of Delaware attorneys and other legal subjects gathered from all over the internet, I’ve started a Pinterest page on Delaware legal history. These are mostly photos from the Delaware Public Archives which has a great online photo collection. There are also some from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Louis McLane, Delaware lawyer, politician, and member of Andrew Jackson's Cabinet

In which I bring together two of my favorite topics, local history and local theater

I saw a fun production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson this past weekend at Wilmington’s City Theater Company. I’d recommend catching it if you can take a break from finals. It has everything: rock and roll, men in tight pants, dancing, fake blood, obscenities, and the entertaining but historically and politically incorrect story of Andrew Jackson.

There’s only one thing missing from this fine production and that is Delaware’s own member of Jackson’s cabinet, Louis McLane! He was left out of the play, probably “in the interest of narrative economy” as the play says. Also probably because he really wasn’t very funny.

Louis McLane was born in 1784 in Delaware. His father, Allen McLane, was a Revolutionary War hero and Collector of the Customs for the District of Delaware, which basically means he was chief tax collector at the port of Wilmington. Wilmington was a major port at the time so he made good money. At 15 Louis became a Navy midshipman and went to sea, but after one voyage he resigned, possibly because he was terribly seasick.

After he left the Navy, Louis went to school at the Newark Academy and then read law with James A. Bayard. While studying to be a lawyer he fought a duel with a fellow law clerk and was shot in the groin. He later had 13 children so it couldn’t have been too serious. He volunteered for an Artillery Company during the War of 1812 but never saw any action.

Louis McLane lived in this house at 606 Market St in Wilmington. It has been remodeled so many times there is probably little left of the original house.

McLane started a law practice and went into politics. He was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1817, where he served for 10 years and became Chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee. He left the House when he was elected to the Senate in 1827.

McLane belonged to the Federalist Party, one of the original political parties which had pretty much died out in the rest of the country but was still popular in Delaware, which has always been a bit slow to change. McLane became a friend of Martin Van Buren and admirer of Andrew Jackson and led his wing of the Delaware Federalists into Jackson’s party. In return for his support McLane hoped for a cabinet position or to be named to the Supreme Court. He was disappointed however to be made Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain. This may sound like a great position but it didn’t pay all that well and involved a lot of expense as he had to bring his whole family over to Britain in a boat and they still didn’t have steamships so it wasn’t a fun crossing. Then you had to live in London, one of the world’s most expensive cities and entertain lavishly, so it wasn’t a profitable job.

Luckily for McLane, Andrew Jackson got mad at his entire cabinet because their wives were rude to somebody and decided to replace them. McLane was made Secretary of the Treasury which would have been great, except for one big problem. The Bank of the United States. I have never understood the whole Bank of the United States thing, but the important point is that Andrew Jackson was against the Bank of the United States and McLane was for it. McLane refused to withdraw the federal treasury money from the Bank so Jackson replaced him and made him Secretary of State instead. McLane didn’t have much better luck as Secretary of State. He was trying to resolve the French Spoliation claims (which involved the French owing us money and not paying it back) when Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s Vice President and McLane’s old friend, went behind his back and solved the problem himself. McLane was so mad he resigned from the Cabinet and never spoke to Van Buren again.

McLane retired from politics, left Delaware and moved to Baltimore where he became president of the Morris Canal & Banking Company and later the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He made a further brief foray into national politics when he was named Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain again by James K. Polk. But he never got to be a Supreme Court Justice. Louis McLane died in Baltimore in 1857. From what I’ve read about McLane it’s hard to tell whether he would have been relieved to not be portrayed as a prancing aristocrat in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson or angry that he was left out. One way or the other he probably would have challenged somebody to a duel.

Photo credits:  Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LMcLane.jpg and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:606_Market_Wilm_DE.jpg

A much less silly and more scholarly version of Louis McLane’s life can be found in: John A. Munroe. Louis McLane: Federalist and Jacksonian. Rutgers University Press, 1973.