Roscoe Pound (1870 - 1964) was a distinguished American legal scholar and educator. 1870 (MDCCCLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ...

Early life

Pound was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA to Stephen Bosworth Pound and Laura Pound. Nickname: Location in Nebraska Coordinates: , Country   State     County United States   Nebraska     Lancaster Founded[1]   Renamed   Incorporated 1856   July 29, 1867   April 1, 1869 Government  - Mayor Chris Beutler Area  - City 195. ... Stephen B. Pound (1833 - 1911) was a pioneer lawyer, senator, and judge in Nebraska. ...

Pound studied botany at the University of Nebraska (BA, 1888, & MA, 1889) in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1889, he began the study of law; he spent one year at Harvard but never received a law degree. He received the first PhD, in botany, from the University of Nebraska in 1898. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln is a state-supported institution of higher learning located in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. Often referred to as simply Nebraska or UNL, it is the flagship and largest campus of the University of Nebraska system. ...

Law career

In 1903, Pound became dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law. Also in 1903 Pound, with George Condra, founded the Society of Innocents, the preeminent senior honor society at Nebraska. It is still in existence. In 1910, Pound began teaching at Harvard and in 1916 became dean of Harvard Law School. He wrote "Spurious Interpretation" in 1907,Outlines of Lectures on Jurisprudence in 1914, The Spirit of the Common Law in 1921, Law and Morals in 1924, and Criminal Justice in America in 1930. He was the founder of the movement for "sociological jurisprudence," an influential critic of the Supreme Court's "liberty of contract" line of cases, symbolized by Lochner v. New York (1905), and one of the early leaders of the movement for American Legal Realism, which argued for a more pragmatic and public-interested interpretation of law and a focus on how the legal process actually occurred, as opposed to the arid legal formalism which prevailed in American jurisprudence at the time. Pound would later turn against the movement and became a leading critic of the legal realists later in his life. Seal of the University of Nebraska The University of Nebraska is one of two public university systems in the state of Nebraska, USA. The system has four universities and a technical college: University of Nebraska-Lincoln University of Nebraska at Omaha University of Nebraska at Kearney University of Nebraska Medical... Mephistopholes Head above crossed tridents, the symbol of the Society of Innocents The Innocents Society, the chancellors senior honorary was founded on April 24, 1903, through the efforts of notable University of Nebraska alumni, including George Condra and Roscoe Pound. ... Harvard Law School (colloquially, Harvard Law or HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. ... Year 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Year 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Holding New Yorks regulation of the working hours of bakers was not a justifiable restriction of the right to contract freely under the 14th Amendments guarantee of liberty. ...

Pound was a brother of Louise Pound, who was also a distinguished educator and author. Louise Pound (1872-1958) was a distinguished American folklorist and educator. ...

Criminal Justice in Cleveland

In 1922, Roscoe Pound and Felix Frankfurter undertook a detailed quantitative study of crime reporting in Cleveland newspapers for the month of January 1919, using column inch counts. They found that, whereas, in the first half of the month, the total amount of space given over to crime was 925 inches, in the second half if leapt to 6642 inches. This was in spite the fact that the number of crimes reported had only increased from 345 to 363. They concluded that although the city's much publicized "crime wave" was largely fictitious and manufactured by the press, the coverage had a very real consequence for the administration of criminal justice. Because the public believed they were in the middle of a crime epidemic, they demanded an immediate response from the police and the city authorities. These agencies wishing to retain public support, complied, caring "more to satisfy popular demand than to be observant of the tried process of law" The result was a greatly increased likelihood of miscarriages of justice and sentences more severe than the offenses warranted.^[1][2] Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. ...

Quotes

One of his most oft-quoted views was on professionalism: The term [professionalism] refers to a group pursuing a learned art as a common calling in the spirit of public service - no less a public service because it may incidentally be a means of livelihood. Pursuit of the learned art in the spirit of a public service is the primary purpose. ^[3]

Miscellaneous

• Pound is a member of the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
• Pound was a Freemason, and was a member and Past Master of Lancaster Lodge No. 54 AF & AM Lincoln, Nebraska.
• Pound helped to found The Harvard Lodge A.F. & A.M. along with Kirsopp Lake a Professor of the Divinity School, and others.

Nebraska Hall of Fame is an official list of prominent Nebraskans compiled in accordance to state law. ... “Freemasons” redirects here. ... A divinity school is an institute of higher education devoted to the study of divinity, religion and theology. ...

See also

• A Test of the News

A Test of the News is a 1920 study done by Walter Lippmann, a US journalist and Charles Merz. ...

Notes

1. ^ Jensen, Klaus Bruhn (May 10, 2002). A Handbook of Media and Communication Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies. UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22588-4.  p. 45-46
2. ^ Pound, Roscoe; Felix Frankfurter (1922). Criminal Justice in Cleveland. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Foundation.  p. 546
3. ^ Pound, Roscoe (1953). The Lawyer from Antiquity to Modern Times. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co.,.  p. 5.

References

• Pound, Roscoe. American National Biography. 17:760-763. 1999.

External links

• Roscoe Pound papers at Nebraska State Historical Society