Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 7 P29 pot

The increased number of these representatives
has led states to develop training and certifica-
tion programs for individuals wishing to serve
as next friends or guardians ad litem. Though
attorneys also may represent juveniles, next
friends provide valuable assistance to the courts.
CROSS REFE RENCE
Infants.
NEXT OF KIN
The person or persons most closely related———
by blood or “affinity”——— to someone who dies.
When someone dies without leaving a will
(or without leaving a valid will), the next of kin
is that person, or those people, legally entitled to
inherit the decedent’s property. The term is
variously interpreted to include blood relatives
or relations by marriage or even adoptive
parents or children. Commonly, police will first
notify a deceased person’s next of kin of a death,
and generally prior to release of the person’s
identity to the media, as a privacy safeguard.
Illinois, for example, has a statute known as
the Wrongful Death Act, 740 ILCS 180/0.01,
which provides for the recovery of funds for
“the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse
and next of kin” of a deceased person.
The term is not limited to matters of death
and survivorship. For example , when a person is
incapacitated and unable to form his or her own
medical decisions, an individua l designated as
next of kin may be authorized to act on behalf

of that person.
CROSS REFE RENCE
Descent and Distribution.
NIHIL
[Latin, Nothing.] The abbreviated designation of
a statement filed by a sheriff or constable with a
court describing his or her unsuccessful attempts to
serve a writ, notice, or process upon the designated
person.
The complete phrase, nihil est, refers to a
failure to serve any writ. The English word nil,
meaning “nothing,” is a contracted form of nihil,
which serves as the root of the words “annihi-
late” and “ni hilist.”
v
NIMMER, MELVILLE BERNARD
Melville B. Nimmer was a leading authority
on
COPYRIGHT law.
Nimmer was born June 6, 1923. He
graduated from the University of California at
Berkeley in 1947 and from Harvard Law School
in 1950. After law school he obtained a position
in the legal department at Paramount Pictures
where he remained until 1957 when he entered
private practice. Nimmer continued to be
involved with the motion picture industry,
however, and served as general counsel to the
Writers Guild of America, which represents
film and television writers. He was the chief

negotiator for the guild during a five-month
strike in 1960 where the right to receive residuals
for the showing of theatrical films on television
was established.
Although Nimmer’s work in the film indus-
try involved questions of copyright law, he had to
learn the subject largely by reading cases on his
own. At that time copyright law was a relatively
unimportant discipline. Few lawyers specialized
in it, and no law school offered courses in the
subject as part of its regular curriculum. In the
last decades, however, copyright questions have
Melville Bernard Nimmer 1923–1989
▼▼
▼▼
19251925
20002000
19751975
19501950
❖
◆◆◆
❖
◆
◆
◆
1939–45
World War II
1923 Born, Los
Angeles, Calif.
1950–53

Korean War
1961–73
Vietnam War
1942–46
Served in
U.S. Army
1947 Earned A. B. from
University of California at Berkeley
1950 Earned LL.B. from Harvard Law School
◆
1960 Served as chief
negotiator for the
Writers Guild of
America during strike
1950–57
Worked in the
legal department at
Paramount Pictures
1962 Became professor of law at UCLA Law School
1963 Nimmer on Copyright published
1971 Successfully
represented anti-
draft protester in
Cohen v. California
1984 Nimmer
on Freedom
of Speech
published
1989 Died,
Los Angeles,

Calif.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
268 NEXT OF KIN
become a major concern for many industries,
including the computer industry.
Nimmer became a leading authority in the
growing field. His treatise Nimmer on Copy-
right (first published in 1963 with frequent
revisions thereafter) became the standard work
on the subject. A companion volume Nimmer
on Freedom of Speech appeared in 1984. When
he died, Nimmer was working on a book
entitled World Copyright, which was to contain
chapters on all significant copyright laws in
the world.
In 1962 Nimmer joined the faculty at the
University of California at Los Angeles School
of Law and continued to teach there until his
death. At the university Nimmer came into
contact with the student protests and antiwar
demonstrations and became increasingly inter-
ested in the
FREEDOM OF SPEECH issues that the
demonstrations raised. In Cohen v. Cali f ornia,
403 U.S. 15, 91 S. Ct. 1780, 29 L. Ed. 2d 284
(1971), Nimmer represented a protestor who was
charged with disturbing the peace because he
entered a courthouse wearing a jacket inscribed
with a vulgar protest against the draft. The U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in favor of the protester on

the ground that the words presented no danger
of violence and that the state therefore had no
compelling reason to suppress them. Nimmer
died November 23, 1985, in Los Angeles,
California.
FURTHER READINGS
Low, Charlotte. “Profile.” Los Angeles Daily Journal (April
19, 1982).
McCarthy, J. Thomas. 1987. “Melville B. Nimmer and the
Right of Publicity.” Melville B. Nimmer Symposium.
UCLA Law Review 34 (June-August).
Van Alstyne, William W. 1996. “Remembering Melville
Nimmer: Some Cautionary Notes on Commercial
Speech.” UCLA Law Review 43 (June).
NINETEENTH AMENDMENT
The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution reads:
The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any State on account of
sex. Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
The Nineteenth Amendment was enacted
in 1920, after a 70-ye ar struggle led by the
women’s suffrage movement.
The groundwork for the suffrage movement
was laid in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York,
now considered the birthplace of the women’s
movement. There,
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

drafted the Declaration of Rights and Senti-
ments, which demanded voting rights, property
rights, educational opportunities, and economic
equity for women.
Rather than face the difficult task of
obtaining approval of an amendment to the
U.S. Constitution from an all-male Congress
preoccupied with the question of
SLAVERY,the
suffragists decided to focus their attention on
the separate states and seek state constitutional
amendments. The state-by-state effort began in
1867 in Kansas with a
REFERENDUM to enfran-
chise women. The referendum was defeated,
but that same year the western territories of
Wyoming and Utah provided the first victories
for the suffragists.
The movement then suffered a series of
setbacks beginning in January 1878, when the
voting rights amendment was first introduced
in Congress. The full
SENATE did not consider
the amendment until 1887 and voted to defeat
the bill. The suffragists continued their state-by-
state strategy and won a referendum ballot in
Colorado in 1893 and in Idaho in 1896.
The suffragists mounted a final and decisive
drive in the second decade of the 1900s with
victories in Washington in 1910 and in

California in 1911. The following year, Arizona,
Kansas, and Oregon gave women the right to
vote, and in 1913 Illinois also passed measures
Suffragists march in a
1912 rally in New
York City. In 1920,
after decades of
struggle for the right
to vote, the
Nineteenth
Amendment’s
ratification granted
female suffrage.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
NINETEENTH AMENDMENT 269
Table shows
maximum number of
women elected or
appointed to serve in
that Congress at one
time. (A total of t hree
women served in the
75th Congress, but no
more than two served
together at any one
time.) Numbers do
not include those who
filled expired terms

and those never sworn
in. Numbers do not
include the delegate
from pre-statehood
Hawaii or nonvoting
delegates from U.S.
territories and
Washington, D.C.
ILLUSTRATION BY GGS
CREATIVE RESOURCES.
REPRODUCED BY
PERMISSION OF GALE,
A PART OF CENGAGE
LEARNING.
Women in U.S. Congress: 1917 to 2011
Number of women
105th Congress, 1997–99
104th Congress, 1995–97
103rd Congress, 1993–95
102nd Congress, 1991–93
101st Congress, 1989–91
100th Congress, 1987–89
99th Congress, 1985–87
98th Congress, 1983–85
97th Congress, 1981–83
96th Congress, 1979–81
95th Congress, 1977–79
94th Congress, 1975–77
93rd Congress, 1973–75
92nd Congress, 1971–73

91st Congress, 1969–71
90th Congress, 1967–69
89th Congress, 1965–67
88th Congress, 1963–65
87th Congress, 1961–63
86th Congress, 1959–61
85th Congress, 1957–59
84th Congress, 1955–57
83rd Congress, 1953–55
82nd Congress, 1951–53
81st Congress, 1949–51
80th Congress, 1947–49
79th Congress, 1945–47
78th Congress, 1943–45
77th Congress, 1941–43
76th Congress, 1939–41
75th Congress, 1937–39
74th Congress, 1935–37
73rd Congress, 1933–35
72nd Congress, 1931–33
71st Congress, 1929–31
70th Congress, 1927–29
69th Congress, 1925–27
68th Congress, 1923–25
67th Congress, 1921–23
66th Congress, 1919–21
65th Congress, 1917–19
108th Congress, 2003–05
109th Congress, 2005–07
110th Congress, 2007–09

111th Congress, 2009–11
106th Congress, 1999–2001
107th Congress, 2001–03
Women in Senate
Women in House
SOURCE: Center for the American Woman and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, and Open CRS,
Con
g
ressional Research Re
p
orts for the Peo
p
le.
0 1020304050607080
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
270 NINETEENTH AMENDMENT
supporting suffrage, as did Montana and
Nevada in 1914. Women in eleven states voted
in the 1916 presidential election. By that time,
the United States was also involved in
WORLD
WAR I
, which brought national attention to the
suffrage movement as well as to the important
role that women played in the war effort.
During the war, an unprecedented number of
women joined the depleted industrial and
public service workforce. Women became an
active and visible population of the labor sector
that benefited the national economy. By the end

of 1918, four more states—Michigan, Oklahoma,
New York, and South Dakota—had approved
women’s suffrage.
With the requisite two-thirds majority, the
U.S.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES introduced the
amendment in January 1918, and President
Woodrow Wilson promptly announced his
support. Though the House narrowly passed
the amendment, the Senate defeated it in
October by three votes just prior to the
congressional elections. In response, the Na-
tional Woman’s Party urged voters to defeat
anti-suffrage senators who were up for election.
After the 1918 election, most members of
Congress supported suffrage. The amendment
passed the House in May 1919 and in the Senate
in June. The amendment was ratified in August
1920, when Tennessee became the thirty-sixth
state to approve it. The
SUPREME COURT,inLeser
v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130, 42 S.Ct. 217, 66 L.Ed.
505 (1922), upheld the constitutionality of the
Nineteenth Amendment.
FURTHER READINGS
Brown, Jennifer K. 1993. “The Nineteenth Amendment and
Women’s Equality.” Yale Law Journal 102 (June).
Clift, Eleanor. 2003. Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth
Amendment. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.
Hillyard, Carrie. 1996. “The History of Suffrage and Equal

Rights Provisions in State Constitutions.” BYU Journal
of Public Law 10 (winter).
CROSS REFERENCES
Anthony, Susan Brownell; Equal Rights Amendment;
Women’s Rights.
NINETY-DAY LETTER
The name given to a written notice sent to a
taxpayer by the Internal Revenue Service regard-
ing a deficiency in the payment of tax (26 U.S.C.A.
§ 6212 et seq.).
The ninety-day letter, also known as the
“statutory notice of deficiency,” suspends the
running of the
STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS regarding
tax assessment for 90 days. During the ninety
days following the mailing of a ninety-day letter,
the taxpayer may consent to the assessment and
pay the tax but later seek a refund in U.S.
district court. If the taxpayer disputes the
assessment or refuses to pay the additional
amount, he or she may challenge the deficiency
by filing a petition with the U.S.
TAX COURT. The
ninety-day letter, sent by certified or registered
mail, gives the taxpayer an opportunity to
challenge an alleged deficiency before paying
it. If the taxpayer neither pays the tax nor files a
Tax Court petition within the ninety-day
period, the additional tax liability may be
assessed promptly. For taxpayers who reside

outside the United States, the time period is
extended to 150 days.
The petition is considered timely if the
postmark date falls within the prescrib ed 90
days and the envelope containing the petition is
property addressed with the correct postage.
The U.S. Tax Court has a simplified procedure
for cases where the amount in dispute is
$50,000 or less for any one tax year. The time
a taxpayer has for filing a petition is set by law
and cannot be extended or suspended. Plaintiffs
may represent themselves before the Tax Court,
or they may hire a lawyer to do so.
CROSS REFERENCE
Taxation.
NINTH AMENDMENT
The Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
reads:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of
certain rights, shall not be construed to deny
or disparage others retained by the people.
The Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Consti-
tution is something of an enigma. It provides
that the naming of certain rights in the
Constitution does not take away from the
people rights that are not named. Yet neither
the la nguage nor the history of the Ninth
Amendment offers any hints as to the nature of
the rights it was designed to protect.
Every year federal courts are asked to

recognize new
UNENUMERATED RIGHTS “retained
by the people,” and typically they turn to the
Ninth Amendment. However, the federal
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NINTH AMENDMENT 271
judiciary does not base rulings exclusively on
the Ninth Amendment; the courts usually cite
the amendment as a secondary source of
fundamental liberties. In particular, the Ninth
Amendment has played a significant role in
establishing a constitutional right to privacy.
Ratified in 1791, the Ninth Amendment is
an outgrowth of a disagreement between the
Federalists and the Anti-Federalists ove r the
importance of attaching a
BILL OF RIGHTS to
the Constitution. When the Constitution was
initially drafted by the Framers in 1787, it
contained
NO BILL of Rights. The Anti-Federalists,
who generally opposed
RATIFICATION because
they believed that the Constitution conferred
too much power on the federal government,
supported a Bill of Rights to serve as an additional
constraint against despotism. The Federalists,
by contrast, supported ratification of the Con-
stitution without a Bill of Rights because they
believed that any enumeration of fundamental

liberties was unnecessary and dangerous.
The Federalists contended that a Bill of
Rights was unnecessary because in their view
the federa l government possessed only limited
powers that were expressly delegated to it by the
Constitution. They believed that all powers not
constitutionally delegated to the federal govern-
ment were inherently reserved to the people
and the states. Nowhere in the Constitution, the
Federalists pointed out, is the federal govern-
ment given the power to trample on individual
liberties. The Federalists feare d that if the
Constitution were to include a Bill of Rights
that protected certain liberties from government
encroachment, an inference would be drawn
that the federal government could exercise an
implied power to regulate such libertie s.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, one of the leading
Federalists, articulated this concern in The
Federalist, No. 84. Why should a Bill of Rights,
Hamilton asked, “declare that things shall not
be done which there is no power to do?” For
instance, Hamilton said it was unnecessary for a
Bill of Rights to protect the
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
when the federal government is not granted the
power to regulate the press. A provision “against
restraining the liberty of the press,” Hamilton
said, “afford[s] the clear implication that a
power to prescribe proper regulations concern-

ing it was intended to be vested in the national
government.”
The Federalists were also concerned that any
constitutional enumeration of liberties might
imply that other rights, not enumerated by the
Constitution, would be surrendered to the
government. A Bill of Rights, they feared, would
quickly become the exclusive means by which
the American people could secure their freedom
and stave off tyranny. Federalist
JAMES MADISON
argued that any attempt to enumerate funda-
mental liberties would be incomplete and might
imperil other freedoms not listed. A “positive
declaration of some essential rights could not
be obtained in the requisite latitude,” Madison
said. “If an enumeration be made of all our
rights,” he queried, “will it not be implied that
everything omitted is given to the general
government?”
Anti-Federalists and others who supported a
Bill of Rights attempted to mollify the Feder-
alists’ concerns with three counterarguments.
First, the Anti-Federalists underscored the fact
that the Constitution guarantees certain liberties
even without a Bill of Rights. For example,
Article I of the Constitution prohibits Congress
from suspending the writ of
HABEAS CORPUS and
from passing bills of

ATTAINDER and EX POST FACTO
LAWS
. If thes e liberties could be enumerated
without endangering other unenumerated lib-
erties, Anti-Federalists reasoned, additional
liberties, such as freedom of the press and
religion, could be safeguarded in a Bill of Rights.
Second, while acknowledging that it would
be impossible to enumerate every human liberty
imaginable, supporters of a Bill of Rights
maintained that this obstacle should not impede
the Framers from establishing constitutional
protection for certain essential liberties.
THOMAS
JEFFERSON
, responding to Madison’s claim that
no Bill of Rights could ever be exhaustive,
commented that “[h]alf a loaf is better than no
bread. If we cannot secure all of our rights, let
us secure what we can.”
Third, Anti-Federalists argued that if there
was a genuine risk that naming certain liberties
would imperil others, then an additional
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT should be drafted
to offer protection for all liberties not men-
tioned in the Bill of Righ ts. Such an amend-
ment, the Anti-Federalists argued, would
protect those liberties that might be omitted
from the written constitutional provisions. This
idea became the Ninth Amendment.

Unlike every other provision contained in
the Bill of Rights, the Ninth Amendment had no
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
272 NINTH AMENDMENT
predecessor in ENGLISH LAW. It stemmed solely
from the genius of those who framed and
ratified the Constitution. Ironically, Madison,
who opposed a Bill of Rights in 1787, was the
chief architect of the Ninth Amendment during
the First Congress in 1789.
After reconsidering the arguments against
a Bill of Rights, Madison said he was now
convinced that such concerns could be over-
come. It was still plausible, Madison believed,
that the enumeration of particular rights might
disparage other rights that were not enumer-
ated. Yet Madison told Congress that he had
attempted to guard against this danger by
drafting the Ninth Amendment, which he
submitted in the fo llowing form:
The exceptions [to power] here or elsewhere
in the constitution made in favor of particu-
lar rights, shall not be so construed as to
diminish the just importance of other rights
retained by the people, or as to enlarge the
powers delegated by the constitution; but
either as actual limitations on such powers,
or as inserted merely for greater caution.
The House Select Committee, consisting of
one representative from each state in the Union,

reviewed and revised Madison’s proposal until
it gradually evolved into its present form. The
debates in both houses of Congress add little
to the original understanding of the Ninth
Amendment. The
SENATE conducted its sessions
in secret, and the House debates failed to offer a
glimmer as to what unenumerated rights are
protected by the Ninth Amendment, how such
rights might be identified, or by what branch of
government they should be enforced.
The
SUPREME COURT did not attempt to
answer these questions for more than 170 years.
Until 1965 no Supreme Court decision made
more than a passing reference to the Ninth
Amendment. In 1958 Supreme Court Justice
ROBERT H. JACKSON wrote that the rights protected
by the Ninth Amendment “are still a mystery.”
Nevertheless, the dormant Ninth Amendment
experienced a renaissance in Griswold v. Con-
necticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed.
2d 510 (1965).
In Griswold, the Supreme Court was asked
to review the constitutionality of a Connecticut
law that banned adult residents from using
BIRTH CONTROL and prohibited anyone from
assisting others in violating this law. In the
majority opinion, Justice
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS,

writing for the Court, rejected the notion that
the judiciary is obligated to enforce only those
rights that are expressly enumerated in the
Constitution. On several occasions in the past,
Douglas wrote, the Court has recognized rights
that cannot be found in the written language of
the Constitution.
Only briefly discussed in Douglas’s majority
opinion, the Ninth Amendment was the
centerpiece of Justice Arthur Goldberg’s con-
curring opinion. The language and history of
the Ninth Amendment, Goldberg wrote, dem-
onstrate that the Framers of the Constitution
intended the judiciary to protect certain un-
written liberties with the same zeal that courts
must protect those liberties expressly identified
in the Bill of Rights. The Ninth Amendment,
Goldberg emphasized, reflects the Framers’
original understanding that “other fundamental
personal rights should not be denied protection
simply because they are not specifically listed”
in the Constitution.
Justices Hugo L. Black and
POTTER STEWART
criticized the Court for invoking the Ninth
Amendment as a basis for its decision in
Griswold. The Ninth Amendment, the dissent-
ing justices said, does not explain what
unenumerated rights are retained by the people
or how these rights should be identified. Nor

does the amendment authorize the Supreme
Court, in contrast to the president or Congress,
to enforc e these rights. By reading the Ninth
Amendment as creating a general right to
privacy, Black and Stewart suggested, the
unelected justices of the Supreme Court had
substituted their own subjective notions of
justice, liberty, and reasonableness for the
wisdom and experience of the elected repre-
sentatives in the Connecticut state legislature
who were responsible for passing the birth
control regulation.
The Griswold decision was the starting point
of a continuing debate over the proper role of
the Ninth Amendment in constitutional
JURIS-
PRUDENCE
. One side of the debate reads the
Ninth Amendment to mean that the Constitu-
tion protects not only those liberties written
into the Bill of Rights but some additional
liberties found outside the express language of
any one provision. The other side sees no way to
identify the unenumerated rights protected by
the Ninth Amendment and no objective
method by which to interpret and apply such
rights. Under this view, courts that interpret
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NINTH AMENDMENT 273
and apply the Ninth Amendment do so in a

manner that reflects the political and personal
preferences of the presiding judge. Federal
courts have attempted to reach a middle
ground.
A number of federal courts have found that
the Ninth Amendment is a rule of judicial
construction, or a guideline for interpretation,
and not an independent source of constitutional
rights (Mann v. Meachem, 929 F. Supp. 622
[N.D.N.Y. 1996]). These courts view the Ninth
Amendment as an invitation to liberally inter-
pret the express provisions of the Constitution.
However, federal courts will not recognize
constitutional rights claimed to derive solely
from the Ninth Amendment (United States v.
Vital Health Products, 786 F. Supp. 761 [E.D.
Wis. 1992]). By itself, one court held, the Ninth
Amendment does not enunciate any substantive
rights. Instead the amendment serves to protect
other fundamental liberties that are implicit,
though not mentioned, in the Bill of Rights
(Rothner v. City of Chicago, 725 F. Supp. 945
[N.D. Ill. 1989 ]).
After Griswold, federal courts were flooded
with novel claims based on unenumerated
rights. Almost without exception, these novel
Ninth Amendment claims were rejected.
For example, the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals found no Ninth Amendment right to
resist the draft (United States v. Uhl, 436 F.2d

773 [1970]). The Sixth Circuit Court ruled that
there is no Ninth Amendment right to poss ess
an unregistered submachine gun (United States
v. Warin, 530 F.2d 103 [1976]). The Fourth
Circuit Court held that the Ninth Amendment
does not guarantee the right to produce,
distribute, or exper iment with mind-altering
drugs such as marijuana (United States v. Fry,
787 F.2d 903 [1986]). The Eighth Circuit Court
denied a claim asserting that the Ninth
Amendment guaranteed Americans the right
to a radiation-free environment (Concerned
Citizens of Nebraska v. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, 970 F.2d 421 [1992]).
This series of cases has led some scholars to
conclude that the Ninth Amen dment may
be returning to constitutional hibernation. Yet
the Ninth Amendment retains some vitality. In
Roe v. Wade, the federal District Court for the
Northern District of Texas ruled that a state law
prohibiting
ABORTION in all instances except to
save the life of the mother violated the right to
privacy guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment
(314 F. Supp . 1217 [1970]).
On appeal the Supreme Court affirmed the
district court’s ruling, stating that the right to
privacy, “whether it be founded in the Four-
teenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty
and restrictions upon

STATE ACTION,aswefeelit
is, or, as the District Court determined, in the
Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to
the people, is broad enough to encompass a
woman’s decision whether or not to terminate
her pregnancy” (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.
Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 [1973]). Federal courts
continue to rely on the Ninth Amendment in
support of a woman’s constitutional right to
choose abortion under certain circumstances.
In the debate over whether a state could
permit its residents to use mar ijuana for
medical purposes, the Ninth Amen dment was
raised as one line of justification. The right to
control one ’s own body could not, in the view
of supporters of legalization, be more funda-
mental to a person. In G onzales v. Raich, 545
U.S. 1, 125 S. Ct. 2195, 162 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2005),
the state of California legalized the use of
medical marijuana, which ran counter to the
national ban on the drug in the federal
Controlled Substances Act. A woman who grew
marijuana for her own medical use and did not
sell it to others was charged with violating the
federal law. Though the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals agreed that the federal law violated
the plaintiff’s rights under the due process
clause of the
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT and the
Ninth Amendment, the Supreme Court rejected

such reasoning. The
PLAINTIFF had also claimed
that her non-commercial growing and use of
marijuana did not affect interstate commerce
and thus removed the
COMMERCE CLAUSE as the
basis for the federal law. The Supreme Court
ruled that the commerce clause did apply and
overturned the Ninth Circuit decision.
FURTHER READINGS
Abramson, Paul R., Steven D. Pinkerton, and Mark Huppin.
2003. Sexual Rights in America: The Ninth Amendment
and the Pursuit of Happiness. New York: New York
Univ. Press.
Farber, Dan. 2007. Retained by the People: The “Silent” Ninth
Amendment and the Constitutional Rights Americans
Don’t Know They Have. New York: Basic Books.
Hardaway, Robert M. 2003. No Price Too High: Victimless
Crimes and the Ninth Amendment. Westport, Conn.:
Praeger.
Lash, Kurt. 2009. The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment.
New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
274 NINTH AMENDMENT
Yoo, John Choon. 1993. “Our Declaratory Ninth Amend-
ment.” Emory Law Journal 42.
CROSS REFERENCES
Constitution of the United States; Federalist Papers;
Penumbra.
NIRA

See NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT.
NISI PRIUS
[Latin, Unless before then.]
A court of nisi prius is a court that tries
questions of fact before one judge and, in some
cases, a jury. In the United States, the term
ordinarily applies to the trial level court where
the case is heard by a jury, as opposed to
a higher court that entertains appeals where
no jury is present. The term is now obsolete in
the United States except in New York and
Oklahoma.
v
NIXON, RICHARD MILHOUS
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president
of the United States. Though he made several
major breakthroughs in his presidency, his
involvement with the
WATERGATE affair proved
his undoing. In 1974 he became the only
president ever to resign from office. Late in life
Nixon’s advice as a political analyst and foreign
affairs expert was sought by both parties.
Nixon was born January 9, 1913, in Yorba
Linda, California, the second of five sons of
Francis A. Nixon and Hannah Milhous Nixon.
His fathe r had grown up on a farm in Ohio and
arrived in California in 1907. He worked as a
trolley car motorman in Whittier, where he met
Hannah Milhous. They were married in 1908.

In 1922 they bought the grocery store and gas
station where Nixon grew up. Nixon was a
disciplined student who worked hard and
received superior grades. He enjoyed playing
football and participating in music, acting, and
debating. A devout Quaker during his youth, he
attended church four times per week.
When Nixon was 12, his younger brother
Arthur died of tubercular encephalitis. His older
brother, Harold, died when Nixon was 20, after
a ten-year battle with tuberculosis. Harold’s
death was particularly traumatic for the family,
as it had poured much of its limited resources
into his treatment.
Richard Milhous Nixon 1913–1994
❖
1913 Born,
Yorba Linda,
Calif.
◆
1937 Graduated from
Duke Law School
1950
Elected
to U.S.
Senate
1942–46 Served in U.S. Navy
1994 Died,
New York City
◆◆

◆
◆◆◆◆
◆
1992 Seize the Moment published
1914–18
World War I
1961–73
Vietnam War
1939–45
World War II
1950–53
Korean War
▼▼
▼▼
19001900
19501950
19751975
20002000
19251925
❖
◆
1946 Elected to U.S. House
1953–61
Served as
vice
president
under
Eisenhower
1952 Made Checkers speech
◆

◆
1983 Real
Peace
published
1978 RN
published
1974 Facing impeachment, resigned from
office in aftermath of Watergate
1972 Made landmark visit to China; signed anti-
ballistic missile treaty with USSR; Watergate
break-in and cover-up; reelected to presidency
1968 Elected
as president
of U.S.
1960 Lost presidential election to Kennedy
1962 Ran
unsuccessfully
for governor of
California against
incumbent Edmund
"Pat" Brown
Richard Nixon.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NIXON, RICHARD MILHOUS 275
After graduating from high school, Nixon
wanted to attend an Ivy League college but
instead entered Whittier College, a small
Quaker school close to home and within his
family’s financial means. He graduated second

in his class and won a scholarship to Duke
University Law School. At Duke, he was elected
president of the Duke Bar Association and
graduated third in his class.
In 1937 Nixon was admitted to the
California bar and joined the firm of Wingert
and Bewley in Whittier. He participated in civic
groups; taught Sunday school; and acted in a
community theater troupe, where he met
Thelma Catherine Ryan, who was known as
Patricia or Pat. They were married June 21,
1940, and had two children, Patricia (“Tricia”)
Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower. The
Nixons would celebrate 53 years of marriage
before Pat’s death in 1993.
In 1941 Nixon took a job as an attorney
with the Office of Price Administration in
Washington, D.C. Seven months later, he
applied for and received a Navy commission.
He served as an operations officer with the
South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command
during
WORLD WAR II.
Shortly after his return from the service,
Nixon ran for Congress against INCUMBENT
California Democratic representative Jerry
Voorhis. Nixon’s campaign literature portrayed
him as a returning veteran who had defended
his country in the mud and jungles of the
Solomon Islands while his opponent never left

Washington, D.C. It also implied that Voorhis
was endorsed by a Communist-supported
POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE. At a time when fear
of Communist subversion was widespread,
Nixon’s strategy worked. He came from behind
in a race no one expected him to win to defeat
Voorhis with 57 percent of the votes.
Nixon quickly made his mark in Washing-
ton, D.C. He became a vocal member of the
House Committee on Un-American Activities,
which investigated U.S. citizens suspected of
having ties with or sympathies for the Commu-
nist party. One such case brought Nixon into
the national spotlight. In 1948
ALGER HISS,a
former
STATE DEPARTMENT official, was investi-
gated for allegedly passing secret information
to the Commu nist government in the former
Soviet Union. Nixon’s determined pursuit of
the case led to Hiss’s
INDICTMENT and eventual
conviction for
PERJURY.
In 1950 Nixon ran for the U.S. Senate
against Democratic Representative Helen Gaha-
gan Douglas. In an effort to discredit Douglas,
he circulated a campaign flyer indicating that
she had voted 354 times with Representative
Vito Marcantonio of New York, a member of

the Communist Workers party. The flyer,
printed on pink paper, was know n as the pink
sheet, and Nixon often referred to Douglas as
the pink lady, a link to the color red associated
with
COMMUNISM. Nixon defeated Douglas by a
secure margin of 680,000 votes, raising specula-
tion that his strident campaign may have been
unnecessary.
In 1952 Republicans chose World War II
hero General
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER as their
nominee for president. Eisenhower chose Nixon
as his running mate. The campaign encountered
a crisis almost immediately. In September 1952
several newspapers disclosed that Nixon had
received financial support from a secret fund
raised by wealthy California business owners.
This offense was viewed as shocking, and many
people called for Nixon to withdraw from the
ticket. Instead, he took the offensive and
pleaded his case on national television, deliver-
ing what came to be known as the “Checkers
Speech.” Nixon maintained his innocence,
disclosed his financial situation to show he
was in debt, and pointed out that his wife did
not have a mink coat but rather wore “a
respectable Republican cloth coat.” He went on
to say that a supporter in Texas had given the
family a gift, a dog named Checkers, and that

“the kids love the dog, and we’re going to
keep it.” The public’s response was overwhelm-
ingly positive and Nixon remained on the
Republican ticket. Nixon had discovered the
enormous power of television and had utilized
it to his advantage, reaching a large audience
without the need to endure press scrutiny.
Eisenhower and Nixon received 55.1 per-
cent of the popular vote in the 1952 election.
Nixon served two terms as an unusually active
vice president, honing his foreign policy skills
during trips to 56 countries. Among the most
famous of these journeys was a 1959 visit to
Moscow, where he engaged in the celebrated
Kitchen Debate with Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev. The two men informally debated
the merits of capitalism versus Communism
while they toured the kitchen of a model hom e
at a U.S. fair. Nixon’s willingness to confront
THERE IS ONE THING
SOLID AND
FUNDAMENTAL IN
POLITICS
—THE LAW
OF CHANGE
.WHAT’S
UP TODAY IS DOWN
TOMORROW
.
—RICHARD M. NIXON

GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
276 NIXON, RICHARD MILHOUS
critics and his ability to turn adversity to his
advantage earned him praise and acclaim.
In 1960, delegates at the Republican con-
vention in Chicago nominated Nixon for
president on the first ballot. He faced another
young, energetic, popular contender, Demo-
cratic senator
JOHN F. KENNEDY of Massachusetts.
In the first of four televised debates with
Kennedy, Nixon, who had been ill and was
exhausted from campaigning, appeared hag-
gard, strained, and tense. His appearance cost
him many votes even though he had a keen
command of the facts and debated well—
indeed, those who listened to the debates on
radio rather than watching them on television
felt that Nixon had outdone Kennedy. Nixon
lost the election, suffering his first political
defeat, by a mere 119,000 votes. In spite of
allegations of voting irregularities, particularly
in Chicago, Nixon decided not to demand a
recount and instead gracefully conceded to
Kennedy.
After losing the 1960 election, Nixo n ran for
governor of California against Edmund “Pat”
Brown in 1962 but was unable to unseat the
incumbent. He moved to New York to practice
law and almost immediately began preparing

his comeback. In January 1968 he announced
his candidacy for the presidency and was
nominated on the Republicans’ first ballot,
defeating Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller of
New York, and Governor
RONALD REAGAN of
California.
The
DEMOCRATIC PARTY was in a shambles in
1968. President
LYNDON B. JOHNSON withdrew as a
candidate because of growing domestic unrest
and opposit ion to the
VIETNAM WAR. Senator
ROBERT F. KENNEDY was assassinated in June 1968
while campaigning for the Democratic nomina-
tion. The Democrats nominated
HUBERT H.
HUMPHREY, Johnson’s vice president. Nixon
defeated Humphrey by a narrow margin.
During his first term, Nixon appointed a
broad-based cabinet that included both con-
servatives and liberals. In his inaugural speech,
he said that he hoped to “bridge the generation
gap” and bring the country back together after
years of unrest over Vietnam and
RACIAL
DISCRIMINATION
. While he continued to pursue
foreign policy goals, he also achieved much on

the domestic front. He responded to strong
public demand for expanded government
services, and proposed a family assistance
program that, had it not been voted down by
Congress, would have been the most far-
reaching
WELFARE reform in modern history.
He supported health and safety protection on
the job and housing allowances for disadvan-
taged people. Nixon’s administration built more
subsidized housing units than any administra-
tion before or since. He expanded the Food
Stamp Program and began the federal revenue-
sharing program for local governments. An-
other lasting legacy was the creation of the
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY.
Nixon also reshaped the
SUPREME COURT.
Under Chief Justice
EARL WARREN, who had be en
appointed by President Eisenhower, the Court
had taken what many felt was an ideologically
liberal turn. During his presidency, Nixon
appointed four members to the court:
WARREN
E
. BURGER, as chief justice; and HARR Y A. BLACK-
MUN
, LEWIS F. POWELL JR., and WILLIAM H.
REHNQUIST, as associate justices. The Burger

Court began a retreat from liberalism and
judicial activism that continued through the
1980s and 1990s.
Perhaps Nixon’s most noteworthy triumphs
were in foreign policy. In 1972 Nixon and his
chief foreign affairs adviser,
HENRY KISSINGER,
traveled to Communist China to begin the
process of reestablishing diplomatic relations
with the Beijing government. The visit marked a
major shift in U.S. policy toward China. The
two governments shared a history of animosity,
and the United States had long recognized the
Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang
Kai-shek, based on the island of Taiwan, as
the official government of China. After Nixon’s
visit, the door was opened to diplomatic and
trade dealings. Formal diplomatic relations with
Communist China were established in 1978.
Nixon also opened negotiations with the
Communist government in the former Soviet
Union. He initiated the process known as
détente by holding three summit meetings with
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. His efforts
culminated in a breakthrough agreement in
1972 limiting the use of antiballistic missiles.
One major goal that eluded Nixon in
foreign policy was a quick end to the Vietnam
War. After promising “peace with honor”
during his campaign in 1968, he saw the war

continue through his first term.
Though the war would end in January 1973,
an event in June of 1972 marked the beginn-
ing of Nixon’s downfall. At that time, during
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
NIXON, RICHARD MILHOUS 277