Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 3 P33 pdf

contemporary social upheavals. Critical crimi-
nology relies on economic explanations of
behavior and argues that economic and social
inequalities cause criminal behavior. It focuses
less on the study of individual criminals, and
advances the belief that existing crime cannot be
eliminated within the capitalist system. It also
asserts, like the conflict school, that law has an
inherent bias in favor of the upper or
RULING
class, and that the state and its legal system exist
to advance the interests of the ruling class.
Critical criminologists argue that corporate,
political, and environmental crime are under-
reported and inadequately addressed in the
current criminal justice system.
Feminist criminology emphasizes the sub-
ordinate position of women in society. Accord-
ing to feminist criminologists, women remain
in a position of inferiority that has not been
fully rectified by changes in the law during the
late twentieth century. Feminist criminology
also explores the ways in which women’s
criminal behavior is related to their objectifica-
tion as commodities in the sex industry.
Others using the social-structural approach
have studied gangs, juvenile delinquency, and
the relationship between family structure and
criminal behavior.
Social-Process Criminology Social-process cri-
minology theories attempt to explain how people

become criminals. These theories developed
through recognition of the fact that not all
people who are exposed to the same social-
structural conditions become criminals. They
focus on criminal behavior as learned behavior.
Edwin H. Sutherland (1883–1950), a U.S.
sociologist and criminologist who first pre-
sented his ideas in the 1920s and 1930s,
advanced the theory of differential association
to explain criminal behavior. He emphasized
that criminal behavior is learned in interaction
with others, usually in small groups, and that
criminals learn to favor criminal behavior over
noncriminal behavior through association with
both forms of behavior in different degrees. As
Sutherland wrote, “When persons become
criminal, they do so because of contacts with
criminal patterns and also because of isolation
from anticriminal patterns.” Although his
theory has been greatly influential, Sutherland
himself admitted that it did not satisfactorily
explain all criminal behavior. Later theorists
have modified his approach in an attempt to
correct its shortcomings.
Control theory, developed in the 1960s and
1970s, attempts to explain ways to train people
to engage in law-abiding behavior. Although
there are different appro aches within control
theory, they share the view that humans require
nurturing in order to develop attachments or

bonds to people and that personal bonds are key
in producing internal controls such as con-
science and guilt and external controls such as
shame. According to this view, crime is the
result of insufficient attachment and commit-
ment to others.
Walter C. Reckless developed one version of
control theory, called containment. He argued
that a combination of internal psychological
containments and external social containments
prevents people from deviating from social
norms. In simple communities, social pressure
to conform to community standards, usually
enforced by social ostracism, was sufficient to
control behavior. As societies became more
complex, internal containments played a more
crucial role in determining whether people
behaved according to public laws. Furthermore,
containment theorists have found that internal
containments require a positive self-image. All
too often, a sense of alienation from society and
its norms forms in modern individuals, who, as
a result, do not develop internal containment
mechanisms.
Sociologist Travis Hirschi has developed
his own control theory that attemp ts to explain
conforming, or lawful, rather than deviant, or
unlawful, behavior. He stresses the importance
of the individual’s bond to society in determin-
ing conforming behavior. His research has

found that socioeconomic class has little to do
with determining delinquent behavior, and that
young people who are not very attached to their
parents or to school are more likely to be
delinquent than those who are strongly at-
tached. He also found that youths who have a
strongly positive view of their own accomplish-
ments are more likely to view society’s laws as
valid constraints on their behavior.
Political Criminology
Political crim inology is similar to the other
camps in this area. It involves study into the
forces that determine how, why, and with what
consequences societies chose to address
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
308 CRIMINOLOGY
criminals and crime in general. Those who are
involved with political criminology focus on the
causes of crime, the nature of crime , the so cial
and political meanings that attach to crime, and
crime-control policies, includ ing the study of
the bases upon which crime and punishment is
committed and the choices made by the
principles in criminal justice.
Although the theories of political criminol-
ogy and conflict criminology overlap to some
extent, political criminologists deny that the
terms are interchangeable. The primary focus
points in the new movement of political
criminology similarly overlap with other theo-

ries, including the concerns and ramifications of
street crime and the distribution of power in
crime-control strategies. This movement has
largely been a loose, academic effort.
Other Issues
Criminologists also study a host of other issues
related to crime and the law. These include
studies of the
VICTIMS OF CRIME, focusing upon
their relations to the criminal, and their ro l e as
potential causal agents in crime; juvenile
delinquency and its correction; and the media
and their relation to crime, including the
influence of pornography. Much research relat-
ed to criminology has focused on the biological
basis of criminal behavior. In fact, a field of
study called biocriminology, which attempts to
explore the biological basis of criminal behav-
ior, has emerged. Resear ch in this area has
focused on chromosomal abnormalities, hor-
monal and brain chemical imbalances, diet,
neurological conditions, drugs, and alcohol as
variables that contribute to criminal behavior.
The true effect of criminology upon prac-
tices in the criminal justice system is still subject
to question. Although a number of commenta-
tors have noted that studies in criminology have
led to significant changes among criminal laws
in the various states, other critics have suggested
that studies in criminology have not directly led

to a reduction of crime.
In McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 107 S.
Ct. 1756, 95 L. Ed. 2d 262 (1987), an individual
who had been sentenced to death for a
MURDER
in Georgia demonstrated to the U.S. Supreme
Court that a criminologist’s study showed that
the race of individuals in that state impacted
whether the
DEFENDANT was sentenced to life or
to death. The study demonstrated that a black
defendant who had killed a white victim was
four times more likely to be sentenced to death
than was a defendant who had killed a black
victim. The defendant claimed that the study
demonstrated that the state of Georgia had
violated his rights under the
EQUAL PROTECTION
Clause of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, as well as
under the Eighth Amendment’s protection
against
CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT.
The high court disagreed. Although the
majority did question the validity of the study’s
findings, it held that the study did not establish
that officials in Georgia had acted with
discriminatory purpose, and that it did not
establish that racial bias had affected the
officials’ decisions with respect to the death
sentence. Accordingly, the death sentence

violated neither the Fourteenth Amendment
nor the
EIGHTH AMENDMENT.
Criminology has had more of an effect when
states and the federal government consider new
criminal laws and sentencing provisions. Crim-
inologists’ theories are also often debated in the
context of the death penalty and
CRIME CONTROL
ACTS
among legislators and policymakers. In this
light, criminology is perhaps not at the forefront
of the development of the criminal justice
system, but it most certainly works in the
background in the determination of criminal
justice policies.
FURTHER READINGS
Carrington, Kerry, and Russell Hogg, eds. 2002. Critical
Criminology: Issues, Debates, Challenges. Kent, U.K.:
Willan.
Cullen, Francis T., and Velmer S. Burton, Jr. 2007. Criminolog-
ical Theory: Content and Consequences. 4th ed. Thousand
Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
Reid, Sue T. 2008. Crime and Criminology. 12th ed. New
York: Oxford Univ. Press.
White, Rob. 2001. “Criminology for Sale: Institutional
Change and Intellectual Field.” Current Issues in
Criminal Justice 13 (November).
CROSS REFERENCES
Critical Legal Studies; Forensic Science; Marx, Karl

Heinrich.
CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES
An intellectual movement whose members argue
that law is neither neutral nor value free but is in
fact inseparable from politics.
Critical legal studies (CLS) is a sometimes
revolutionary movement that challenges and
seeks to overturn accepted norms and standards
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES 309
in legal theory and practice. CLS seeks to
fundamentally alter jurisprudence, exposing it
as not a rational system of accumulated wisdom
but an ideology that supports and makes
possible an unjust political system. CLS scholars
attempt to debunk the law’s pretensions to
determinacy, neutrality, and objectivity. The
law, in CLS scholarship, is a tool used by the
establishment to maintain its power and
domination over an unequal
STATUS QUO. Openly
a movement of leftist politics, CLS seeks to
subvert the philosophical and political authority
of what it sees as an unjust social system. CLS
advances a theoretical and practical project of
reconstruction of the law and of society itself.
CLS is also a membership organization that
seeks to advance its own cause and that of its
members.
CLS was officially started in the spring of

1977 at a conference at the University of
Wisconsin in Madison. However, the roots of
the organization extend back to
LEGAL REALISM,a
movement in U.S . legal scholarship that flour-
ished in the 1920s and 1930s. Oliver Wendell
Holmes is credited with being the grandfather
of CLS with his various observations in The
Common Law (1881). The legal realists rebelled
against the accepted legal theories of the day,
including most of the accepted wisdom of
nineteenth-century legal thought. Like CLS,
legal realism emphasized that judicial decisions
depend largely on the predilections and social
situation of the judge. Thus, the legal realists
urged that much more attention be paid to the
social context of the law. The legal realists
eventually influenced the development of the
NEW DEAL under President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
in the 1930s, and many served in positions
where they affected government policy.
In the 1960s many of the founding mem-
bers of CLS participated in social activism
connected to the
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and
the
VIETNAM WAR. Many future CLS scholars
entered law school in those years or shortly
thereafter, and they quickly became unhappy
with what they saw as a lack of philosophical

depth and rigor in the teaching and theory of
law. Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a leading CLS
theorist, has described the law faculty of those
days as “a priesthood that had lost their faith
and kept their jobs.” These young students
began to apply the ideas, theories, and philo-
sophies of postmodernity (intellectual move-
ments of the last half of the twentieth century)
to the study of law, borrowing from fields as
diverse as social theory, political philosophy,
economics, and literary theory. Since then, CLS
has steadily grown in influence. By 1989 more
than 700 articles and books had been published
expounding the ideas of this movement. Besides
Unger, noted CLS theorists include Robert W.
Gordon, Morton J. Horwitz, Duncan Kennedy,
and
CATHARINE A. MACKINNON.
CLS has been largely a U.S. movement,
though it has borrowed heavily from European
philosophers, including nineteenth-century
German social theorists such as
KARL MARX,
Friedrich Engels, and
MAX WEBER; Max Horkhei-
mer and Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt
school of German social philosophy; the Italian
Marxist Antonio Gramsci; and poststructuralist
French thinkers such as Michel Foucault and
Jacques Derrida, representing, respectively, the

fields of history and literary theory.
Several subcategories exist within the CLS
movement: feminist legal criticism, which
examines the role of gender in the law; critical
race theory (CRT), which is concerned with the
role of race in the law; postmodernism, a
critique of the law influenced by developments
in literary theory; and a subcategory that
emphasizes political economy and the economic
context of legal decisions and issues. Scholars
disagree about the extent to which CLS is a
coherent intellectual movement. Some see it
simply as a political position adopted by a
disparate group of legal theorists who have
fundamentally different, even contradictory,
views. Others emphasize that CLS theorists
share a number of important ideas and
approaches that together co nstitute a new
approach to legal scholarship.
First among the basic ideas that CLS
scholars tend to share is the notion that law is
politics—in other words, that law and politics
are indistinguishable from one anothe r. Liber-
alism, according to CLS theorists, has tradition-
ally viewed the law as an objective, rational
process of precise decision-making and politics
as a realm of imprecise, often irrational
opinions and competing interests. According
to CLS theorists, however, the law is not
separate from the political realm and its

disputes. Legal reasoning, rather than being a
strong fortress of objective rationality, is a
fragile structure fraught with contradictory
and arbitrary categorizations that are endlessly
redefined and reworked.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
310 CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES
In this view, the law is only an elaborate
political ideology, which, like other political
ideologies, exists to support the in terests of the
party or class that forms it. The legal system,
according to CLS, supports the status quo,
perpetuating the established power relations of
society. The law does have logic and structure,
but these grow out of the power relationships
of society. CLS therefore sees the law as a
collection of beliefs and prejudices that covers
the injustices of society with a mask of
legitimacy. Law is an instrument for oppression
used by the wealthy and the powerful to
maintain their place in the hierarchy.
As part of its project, CLS exposes what it
sees as the flaws in various aspects of liberal
legal theory and practice. It argues, for example,
that judicial objectivity is impossible because
political neutrality or philosophical objectivity
cannot exist. CLS thus strips the judiciary of its
supposedly disinterested role in society. As
Allan C. Hutchinson, a CLS theorist, wrote:
“The judicial emperor, clothed and coifed in

appropriately legitimate and voguish garb by the
scholarly rag trade, chooses and acts to protect
and preserve the propertied interest of vested
white and male power.” In this way, CLS
seeks to “delegitimate” and “demystify” the
law—that is, it seeks to undermine the law’s
acceptance and to remove the cloak of mystery
and awe surrounding its functioning.
CLS theorists also share the related view that
the law is indeterminate. They have shown that
using standard legal arguments, it is possible to
reach sharply contrasting conclusions in indi-
vidual cases. The conclusions reached in any
case will have more to do with the social context
in which they are argued and decided than with
any overarching scheme of legal reasoning.
Moreover, CLS scholars argue that the esoteric
and convoluted nature of legal reasoning
actually screens the law’s indeterminacy. They
have used the ideas of deconstruction to
explore the ways in which legal texts are open
to multiple interpretations. (Deconstruction is a
movement in literary theory that is connected to
the work of French philosopher Derrida and
that emphasizes the fundamental indeterminacy
of language.)
Consistent with their position on the
political left, CLS scholars have a common
dissatisfaction with the established legal and
political order and particularly for the l iberalism

that they see as the dominant political ideology.
CLS demonstrates how liberalism describes the
world according to categories that exist as
dualities: subjective-objective, male-female,
public-private, self-other, individual-community,
and so forth. These dualities are sometimes called
paired opposites by CLS theorists.CLS then breaks
down the dualities and shows how they create an
ideology that furthers the interests of the
RULING
class. CLS theorists also decry the individualism
that liberal society fosters, and they call for a
renewed emphasis on communal rather than
individual values. They particularly object to
capitalism as an economic system, and they see
liberalism as capitalism’s greatest apologist.
Feminist Legal Criticism
Catharine A. MacKinnon is a leading figure in
radical feminist criticism (sometimes called
fem-crit). Throughout her career, MacKinnon
has attempted to show the ways in which the
established legal system reflects the sexism of
the society that created it. The law, according to
MacKinnon, is only one extension of a male-
dominated society that is characterized by
inequality between the genders and by the
sexual objectification of women. As the product
of a male-oriented view of the world and a
male-dominated state, the law systematically
victimizes and discriminates against women.

“The law,” MacKinnon wrote, “sees and treats
women the way men see and treat women.” It
ensures male control over female sexuality. The
feminist project to counter this negative aspect
of the legal tradition, MacKinnon wrote, is “to
uncover and claim as valid the experience of
women, the major content of which is the
devalidation of women’s experience.”
One topic that Mac Kinnon has examine d in
detail is the legal doctrine regarding
RAPE. Citing
the difficulty that women have proving legally
that they have been raped, MacKinnon inter-
prets rape doctrine as the product of male
ideology. She argues that rape and the laws
surrounding it, which are often ineffective in
securing convictions of male rapists, are used by
men to keep women in a positio n of submission
and inferiority. The law’s standards of objectiv-
ity and neutrality, according to MacKinnon,
actually hide a male bias that makes it very
difficult for a woman to win a rape case in the
legal system. The state thus perpetuates rape in a
way that promotes the dominance of men.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES 311
MacKinnon also uses rape as an example of
the way in which the conventional liberal
distinction between public and private spheres
actually enhances male powe r. For women,

according to MacKinnon, the private sphere
cannot be separated from the public. The
private sphere as it is usually understood—that
is, the home—is actually a place where the
law defines men’s right to dominate women
through domestic abuse, marital rape, and
exploitive work conditions. The law, according
to MacKinnon, overlooks such injustices, and
legal doctrines regarding the private sphere of
the home perpetuate rather than resolve them.
Critical Race Theory (CRT)
CRT began in the mid-1970s when many
intellectuals perceived that the
CIVIL RIGHTS
movement of the 1960s had ended and that in
fact many of its gains were being turned back.
As a result, they began to develop new theories
and concepts that would allow them to under-
stand the causes and implications of these new
developments. Like CLS, CRT gathers disparate
scholars and theorists under a common head-
ing. However, CRT is a less formally organized
school of thought than CLS. Leading critical
race theorists include Derrick Albert Bell Jr.,
Alan D. Freeman, and Patricia J. Williams. The
first annotated bibliography of CRT writings,
published in 1993, listed more than 200 books
and articles.
Critical race theorists share a number of
themes. Like CLS, CRT finds major faults in

liberalism and particular features of liberal
jurisprudence that bear on race, including
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, neutrality, and “color blind-
ness.” Many CRT writers, for example, dispute
that the Constitution is or ever can be “color-
blind.” They also assert that supposed break-
throughs in the area of racial rights by the
Supreme Court serve only to validate an unjust
political system by creating the illusion that
racial inequalities are being ended when in fact
they are not. CRT scholars generally seek a
greater understanding of the social origins of
race and racism, and, like CLS theorists, they
employ social theory and science in that cause.
Many in the CRT movement examine how the
structure of legal thought or culture influences
its content, usually in a way that maintains the
status quo. Some in the movement make a case
for cultural separatism or nationalism for
people of color, arguing that preserving the
diversity and separateness of different racial
groups will benefit everyone. CRT also attempts
to understand the cyclical nature of U.S. race
relations—characterized by periods of racial
progress and relative harmony followed by
periods of racial retrenchment and discord.
CRT writers also make frequent use of historical
and social theories regarding colonialism and
SLAVERY.
Many CRT writers employ unconventional

narrative methods—sometimes called legal
storytelling—in their legal writing, including
fiction, myth, parable, anecdote, and autobiog-
raphy. These approaches often demonstrate the
way in which the majoritarian mind-set (in this
case, the outlook of the white majority, includ-
ing its prejudices and presuppositions) impedes
the cause of racial reform. Bell, for example,
published in a legal journal a science fiction
story with implications for race relations in the
United States. In it, an extraterrestrial race
comes to earth and offers to solve the United
States’ economic and environmental problems
in exchange for possession of all black U.S.
citizens. In describing what happens after this
event, the story shows how a majority group
(here, white U.S. citizens) must always put some
other group on the bottom of the socioeco-
nomic ladder as a scapegoat for the country’s
social ills.
CLS and Its Alternative View of the
Law and Society
Consistent with their leftist heritage, CLS
theorists call for radical changes in the law
and in the structure of society itself. Unger has
called this radical project “institutional recon-
struction.” Many in the CLS movement want to
overturn the hierarchical structures of domina-
tion in modern society, and many of them have
focused on the law as a tool in achieving this

goal. The law, CLS claims, has played a key role
in maintaining that hierarchy by impeding
efforts at social change. In general, CLS argues
that there is no natural or inevitable form of
social organization, and there is by no means
agreement between CLS scholars as to what
form society and its laws should take. CLS thus
avoids the kind of blueprint for social revolu-
tion that radical leftist movements such as
Marxism-Leninism supplied in the past. In-
stead, leading CLS devotees envision a potential
emancipation of individuals from the structures
of power that restrict and victimize them. For
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
312 CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES
these reasons, the political philosophy of many
in the CLS movement has been described as
utopian, a characterization that many do not
completely deny.
Unger provides the most well-known exam-
ple of the utopian tendencies in CLS. In his
writings, he has attempted to outline a “cultural-
revolutionary practice” that will lead to nothing
less than “the systematic remaking of all direct
personal connections … through their progres-
sive emancipation from a background plan of
social division and hierarchy.” Unger envisions a
future in which the categories that currently
divide and separate people—including sexual,
racial, political, and class categories—are broken

down, allowing people to share more values and
to create a more harmonious society. He calls for
an “empowered democracy” with a government
and economy that are largely decentralized. In
terms of the economy, he proposes that capital
be controlled by the government, which would
establish a “rotating capital fund” that would
pass to “teams of workers or technicians” who
would decide how to use it. Many conditions of
the economy, such as income disparity between
individuals, would be addressed by “central
agencies of government.”
Such innovations would require major
changes in the law, particularly as regards an
understanding of rights, including property rights.
In his call for a radical restructuring of rights,
Unger proposes creating four categories: immu-
nity rights, which protect the individual from the
state, organizations, and other individuals; desta-
bilization rights, which make it possible to
dismantle institutions and practices that create
social hierarchy and division; market rights, which
constitute claims to social capital and replace
conventional property rights; and solidarity rights,
which are “the legal entitlements of communal
life.” Despite his criticism of liberalism, Unger
calls his philosophy “superliberalism”:
It pushes the liberal premises about state and
society, about freedom from dependence and
governance of social relations by the will, to

the point at which they merge into a larger
ambition: the building of a social world less
alien to a self that can always violate the
generative rules of its own mental or social
constructs and put other rules and other
constructs in their place.
Unger therefore seeks to reform the law and
society in such a way as to liberate and empower
every individual.
CLS has many critics. Some see it as lacking
coherence, fraught with the very contradictions
that it identifies in liberalism. Others accuse the
movement of being nihilistic, of destroying the
foundations of legal reasoning without putting
anything in its place or without even making
positive recommendations for change. They
find CLS prescriptions for the future to be too
vague and utopian for practical application.
Another widespread complaint is that the
writings of CLS scholars are unnecessarily
obscure, opaque, and turgid.
Despite these criticisms, CLS has greatly
influenced the study and theory of the law. After
some early battles to gain acceptance in the
1970s and 1980s, it earned an accepted position
in law schools across the United States.
However, some legal scholars, both inside and
outside the CLS movement, argue that as many
of the original CLS adherents age and reach
positions of power in established law schools,

their original radical impetus will fade and
moderate. Others argue that the call for justice
and equality will always require an untempered
radicalism that will be fueled by CLS. Whatever
the outcome, CLS has permanently changed the
landscape of legal theory.
FURTHER READINGS
Boyle, James. 1992. Critical Legal Studies. New York: New
York Univ. Press.
Delgado, Richard. 1993. “Critical Race Theory: An Anno-
tated Bibliography.” Virginia Law Review 79, no. 2
(March).
Hutchinson, Allan C., ed. 1989. Critical Legal Studies.
Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Oetken, J. Paul. 1991. “Form and Substance in Critical Legal
Studies.” Yale Law Journal 100.
Tushnet, Mark. 1991. “Critical Legal Studies: A Political
History.” The Yale Law Journal 110, no. 5.
Unger, Roberto M. 1986. The Critical Legal Studies
Movement. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
CROSS REFERENCE
Legal Education.
v
CRITTENDEN, JOHN JORDAN
John Jordan Crittenden served as attorney
general of the United States in 1841 under
President
WILLIAM H. HARRISON, and again in 1850
under President
MILLARD FILLMORE. He is also

known for his efforts to keep Kentucky in the
Union during the
CIVIL WAR.
Crittenden was born September 10, 1787,
near Versailles, Woodford County, Kentucky.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
CRITTENDEN, JOHN JORDAN 313
His father was a Revolutionary War soldier and
an early Kentucky settler. Crittenden was
schooled near his home in Jessamine County,
Kentucky. He showed a great aptitude for
learning and was encouraged to pursue a career
in the law. He attended William and Mary
College, and gr aduated in 1807. His first law
practice was established in Logan County,
Kentucky.
After two years as a struggling country
lawyer, Crittenden was appointed attorney
general for the Illinois Territory by Governor
Vinian Edwards, of Kentucky, in 1809. His first
experience as a public servant was cut short by
the
WAR OF 1812. Crittenden returned to
Kentucky and enlisted as a volunteer; he served
for three years and experienced firsthand the
tragedy of war.
In 1816 Crittenden was elected to a term in
the Kentucky state legislature. The following
year, he was elected to a seat in the U.S. Senate,
but he did not complete the term. Finding local

politics more to his liking, he resigned in 1819
and return ed to Fra nkfort, Kentucky, to reclaim
his old seat in the statehouse.
Though he had little affection for national
politics, Crittenden did support fellow Kentuck-
ian
HENRY CLAY in his unsuccessful 1824 bid for
the presidency. Crittenden respected Clay’s
views on a number of issues, and they became
political allies and lifelong friends. It was
because of his association with Clay that
Crittenden lost his next job. In 1827 Crittenden
was appointed U.S.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY for
Kentucky by President
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.He
held the post until 1829, when he was removed
by President Andrew Jackson—after Crittenden
and Clay had voiced their opposition to the
financial policies of the Jackson administration.
In 1835 Crittenden decided to give politics
another chance. Again, he sought and won a
seat in the U.S. Senate. Crittenden was begin-
ning his second Senate term when he was
offered the position of attorney general by
President Harrison. He accepted.
Crittenden had been an ardent Harrison
supporter and had campaigned for him in 1840.
When Harrison died of pneumonia shortly after
his inauguration and was succeeded by

VICE
PRESIDENT JOHN TYLER
, Crittenden was unable to
support the new president. Along with other
Whigs in the cabinet, Crittenden resigned in
▼▼
▼▼
John Jordan Crittenden 1787–1863
17751775
18251825
18501850
18751875
18001800
◆◆◆◆◆◆
❖
❖
1775–83
American Revolution
1787 Born,
Woodford County, Ky.
1807 Graduated
from William and
Mary College
1809 Appointed attorney general
of the Illinois Territory
1812–14 Served as volunteer
soldier in the War of 1812
1816 Elected to the
Ky. state legislature
1827–29 Served

as U.S. district
attorney for Ky.
1817–19
Served
in U.S.
Senate
1835–41
Served
in U.S.
Senate
1841 Appointed U.S. attorney
general by President Harrison
1842–48 Served in U.S. Senate
1850 Appointed U.S. attorney
general by President Fillmore
1855–61
Served in
U.S. Senate
1861–63 Served in U.S.
House of Representatives
1863 Died,
Frankfort, Kentucky
1861–65
U.S. Civil War
1848
Elected
governor
of Ky.
John J. Crittenden.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
314 CRITTENDEN, JOHN JORDAN
September 1841. In 1842 Crittenden found
himself back in the U.S. Senate, appointed to fill
the seat left vacant by the retirement of Clay. He
finished Clay’s term and was subsequently
reelected in his own right.
Throughout his five separate terms in the
Senate, Crittenden was affiliated with the Whigs.
With the
WHIG PARTY, he opposed the annexa-
tion of Texas, discouraged animosity toward
Great Britain over the Oregon boundary, and
refused to give enthusiastic support to the
Mexican War.
In 1848, while still a U.S. senator, Crittenden
was elected governor of Kentucky; he resigned
his Senate seat to accept the job. His return to
Kentucky brought renewed contact with Clay,
who was again running for the presidency.
Crittenden, convinced that Clay was not a viable
candidate, threw his support to
ZACHARY TAYLOR,
and caused a permanent rift between himself
and Clay.
Following the death of President Taylor and
the succession of Vice President Fillmore,
Crittenden was offered his old cabinet post as
attorney general. He again accepted, and
through this office he authored an opinion

upholding the constitutionality of fugitive slave
laws. Though many of Crittenden’s writings
were controversial, he agreed with the view that
attorney general opinions were only advisory
and could be ignored by the president.
In 1855 Crittenden was elected to another
term in the U.S. Senate. There, he vigorously
opposed the
KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT of 1854. When
the issue led to the breakup of the Whig party,
he joined the American, or Know-Nothing,
party in 1856. Two years later he joined the
Constitutional Union party, and campaigned on
behalf of
JOHN BELL and Edward Everett in the
1860 presidential election that brought
ABRAHAM
LINCOLN
to the White House.
Although Crittenden did no t agree with
Lincoln on all matters of policy, he did oppose
secession of the Southern states and he did
support Lincoln’s efforts to preserve the Union.
As a prominent political figure in both the
North and the South, Crittenden worked hard
to effect a compromise that would avert a
civil war.
In December 1860 he proposed an amend-
ment to the Constitution that has come to be
known as the Crittenden Resolution. To bring

the Union together, he suggested that the
Missouri Compromise line be restored and
continued to California, that
SLAVERY be guaran-
teed indefinitely in the District of Columbia,
and that slaveholders be reimbursed for run-
away slaves.
Crittenden’s compromise effort was
defeated by Lincoln’s strong stand against any
extension of slavery into the territories, and by
opposition from strong Republican leaders in
Congress. Nevertheless, Crittenden stood with
the government and continued to support
Lincoln’s position that it was the right and duty
of the government to maintain the Union.
Returning to Kentucky in early 1861,
Crittenden traveled the state urging citizens to
support the Union cause and to remain neutral
in the escalating conflict. On May 27, 1861, he
acted as chairman of the Frankfort Convention
and successfully argued against leaders who
encouraged Kentucky to join the Southern
secessionists. For his efforts, Crittenden was
returned to Congress, but this time to the U.S.
House of Representatives.
As a representative, he opposed the confis-
cation acts, the
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION,the
military regime in Kentucky, the employment of
slaves as soldiers, and the war in general. On

July 19, 1861, he offered a resolution that was
adopted with only two dissenting votes:
Resolved by the house of representatives of
the
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, That the
present deplorable civil war has been forced
upon the country by the disunionists of the
southern states, now in arms against the
constitutional government, and in arms
around the capital; that in this national
emergency congress, banishing all feelings of
mere passion or resentment, will recollect its
only duty to the whole country; this war is
not waged on their part in any spirit of
oppression, or for any purpose of conquest
or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing
or interfering with the rights of established
institutions of those states, but to defend and
maintain the supremacy of the constitution,
and to preserve the Union with all the
dignity, equality, and rights of the several
states unimpaired; and that as soon as these
objects are accomplished the war ought to
cease.
By 1863 Crittenden had held political office
for al most 45 years. He had served two
presidents as attorney general, completed five
terms as a U.S. senator, and finished a single
I HOPE TO FIND MY
COUNTRY IN THE

RIGHT
; HOWEVER,I
WILL STAND BY HER,
RIGHT OR WRONG.
—JOHN CRITTENDEN
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
CRITTENDEN, JOHN JORDAN 315
term as a U.S. representative. He was preparing
to run for another term in the House when he
died. He was remembered at his funeral as a
man with fine person al qualities, a gift for
public speaking, and a firm commitment to the
Union.
Crittenden’s efforts to preserve the Union
were personal as well as political: two of his sons
were on opp osite sides of the issues and the
battle lines. His youngest son, Thomas L.
Crittenden, was a commissioned officer in the
Union army; another son, George Bibb Crit-
tenden, held similar rank in the army of the
Confederacy.
v
CROCKETT, GEORGE WILLIAM, JR.
George William Crockett Jr.’s political career
spanned almost six decades. He was an attorney,
a judge, and a leading
CIVIL RIGHTS and LABOR
UNION
activist. At the age of 71, he was tapped to
represent Michigan’s 13th district in the U.S.

House of Representatives. His ten-year stint in
Congress was marked by many milestones and
much controversy.
Crockett was born August 10, 1909, in
Jacksonville, Florida. He grew up in the South
when racial segregation was a fact of everyday
life, an experience that fueled his commitment
to correct injustices. He attended public schools
and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree
from Morehouse College in At lanta in 1931. He
studied law at the University of Michigan,
graduating in 1934. He was admitted to the
Florida bar in the same year and began his legal
career in Jacksonville.
In 1939 Crockett became the first African
American lawyer in the U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR
. He was one of the first hearing examiners
in the Fair Employment Practices Commission.
Crockett’s early involvement in
LABOR LAW led to
his founding and directing the Fair Emplo y-
ment Practices Departm ent of the International
United Auto Workers (UAW) Union in 1944.
He also served as treasurer and associate general
counsel to the UAW and as assistant to the
union’s secretary-treasurer.
▼▼
▼▼

George William Crockett Jr. 1909–1997
19501950
19751975
20002000
19251925
❖
◆
1909 Born,
Jacksonville, Fl.
1914–18
World War I
1939–45
World War II
1950–53
Korean War
1961–73
Vietnam War
◆
❖
1934 Earned J.D. from
University of Michigan
Law School
◆
◆
◆
1997 Died,
Washington, D.C.
1980–90 Served in
the U.S. House of
Representatives

1966–78 Served as
judge on Detroit
Recorders Court
1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination
in voting, jobs, and public accommodations
1952 Served four months
in prison as result of
contempt citation from
Foley Square case
1949 Defended U.S. Communist party members in Foley Square trial
1943 Joined the Fair Employment Practices Commission
1944–46 Founded and directed the Fair Employment
Practices Department of the International UAW
George Crockett Jr.
AP IMAGES
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
316 CROCKETT, GEORGE WILLIAM, JR.
After leaving the UAW, Crockett returned
to private practice with the law firm of
Goodman, Crockett, Eden, and Rob, where he
was a partner from 1946 to 1966. He remained
active in the civil rights and labor movements
throughout his career. In the 1949 Foley Square
trial, he de fended several members of the U.S.
Communist Party against charges of un-Ameri-
can activities. (United States v. Foster, 9 F.R.D.
367 [S.D.N.Y.]). Crockett’s clients, along with
many codefendants, were charged with conspir-
acy to advocate the overthrow or destruction of

the government by force or violence and
conspiracy to organize the Communist Party
as a society advocating such overthrow or
destruction. During the trial, he railed against
what he thought were the judge’s abuses of his
clients’ rights. His refusal to back down earned
him a contempt citation (United States v. Sacher,
9 F.R.D. 394 [S.D.N.Y.]). His conviction and
sentence for contempt were upheld on appeal,
182 F.2d 416 (2nd Cir.), and he spent four
months in the penitentiary at Ashland,
Kentucky, in 1952.
While serving his prison term, Crockett
wrote to his son that prison is a good place to
learn patience because the relentless passage of
time teaches the value of persistence. Crockett’s
patience was severely tested after his return
from prison when he was ostracized and forced
to fight a move to disbar him. Because of his
involvement in the Foley Square trial, the labor
movement, and the
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT,
he was labeled a communist sympathizer.
However, in 1963 when President
JOHN F.
KENNEDY planned a meeting of civil rights
lawyers at the White House, Crockett’s name
was on the list of those the president wanted to
attend. To be allowed into the White House,
Crockett had to be investigated by the

FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
, which finally granted
him a security clearance.
Crockett served as a judge of the Detroit
Recorder’s (Criminal) Court from 1966 to 1978.
His years on the bench included a term as
presiding judge in 1974. He retired from the
recorder’s court in 1978, but soon returned to
public service. In 1980 Representative Charles
C. Diggs Jr. (D-Mich.), one of the few people
who had befriended Crockett upon his return
from prison in 1952, was himself sentenced to
three years in prison, for accepting kickbacks
from his congressional staff. Diggs endorsed
Crockett to replace him, and, in a special
election to fill the vacancy, Crockett was elected
to the post.
At the age of 71, Crockett launched into his
new career in Congress. He continued to take
controversial positions on issues ranging from
African Americans in the foreign service to
decriminalization of drugs. He was arrested in
1984 at a demonstration protes ting South
Africa’s policy of apartheid. In 1985, when
tensions between Arabs and Jews in the Middle
East were high and the United States officially
supported Israel, Crockett invited a representa-
tive of the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) to brief members of Congress on the

PLO’s views about conditions in the Middle
East. The invitation was denounced by some
members of the House, and, after intervention
by the
SECRETARY OF STATE, the visit was canceled.
In 1986 Crockett criticized President
Ronald Reagan’s administration for not
appointing more African American ambassa-
dors. He noted that the number of African
Americans in the foreign service had declined
during the years Reagan had been president. He
used his position as chair of the House
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Activi-
ties to initiate a hearing on racism in appoint-
ments to the foreign service. The result was a
promise from the secretary of state that the
STATE DEPARTMENT would pursue a goal of
appointing more members of minority groups
to foreign service positions. In 1987 President
Reagan appointed Crockett to the position of
public delegate to the
UNITED NATIONS.
In addition to chairing the House Subcom-
mittee on Western Hemisphere Activities,
Crockett served on the Committee on Foreign
Affairs, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the
Select Committee on Aging. His final contro-
versial act as a representative came in 1989
when he became the first member of Congress
to recom mend publicly the decriminalization of

drug possession. Stating, “Our co urts are
burdened down with these drug cases and there
is nothing they can do about it,” Crockett called
for decrimina lization as “the only solution.” He
was sharply criticized by many members of the
administration, including William J. Bennett,
who was the director of federal drug policy.
Crockett retired from public life at the end
of his fifth term in the House, which ended
January 3, 1991, but remained one of Detroit’s
NO OTHER
PROFESSIONAL
GROUP BEARS A
RESPONSIBILITY AS
GREAT AS THAT
OF THE LEGAL
PROFESSION FOR
RIDDING OUR LAW
AND OUR BODY
POLITIC OF THIS
CANCEROUS GROWTH
OF RACISM
.
—GEORGE CROCKETT
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
CROCKETT, GEORGE WILLIAM, JR. 317