OSU Law Record College of Law Alumni Association the Ohio State University OSU Law R Ecord

OSU Law Record College of Law Alumni Association The Ohio State University OSU Law R ecord Winter 1979-1980 Prepared and edited by Dean Robert A. Carter, Karen Nirschl, Pat Johnson, Barbara Rich and Michaele Prof. (Bob, ’34) and Mrs. Wills join Paul McNamara, ’32, Alex Thompson and Tom Frost. Cavendish, ’53, at lunch honoring the late O’Neill Chief Justice O’Neill. OSU Law Record is published by The Ohio State University College of Law for its Alumni Association, Columbus, Ohio 43210. portrait Send address changes and correspondence regarding editorial content to: Mrs. Pat Johnson, OSU unveiled Law Record, College of Law, The Ohio State University, 1659 North On October 3, 1979, the family, High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43210. friends and admirers of the late Chief Justice C. William O’Neill gathered in OSU College of Law Officers the courtroom of the Ohio Supreme James E. Meeks, Dean Court for a formal ceremony honoring Philip C. Sorensen, Associate Dean the late Chief Justice and to witness John P. Henderson, Associate Dean the unveiling of his portrait. Robert A. Carter, Assistant Dean Mathew F. Dee, Assistant Dean Former Justice Leonard Stern, who was chairman of the committee which OSU College of Law Alumni organized the ceremony, was to make Association the presentation of the portrait to the Court, but was unable to attend as he Norman W. Shibley, President was recuperating from a recent About the cover Frank E. Bazler, President-elect hospitalization. James K. L. Lawrence, Secretary- Treasurer Mrs. Betty O’Neill, wife of the late The presentation was made by Mr. Chief Justice C. William O’Neill, and John Eckler, a partner in the firm of her two children, C. William O’Neill OSU College of Law National Bricker & Eckler. and Mrs. Thomas Pokorski, are shown Council Executive Committee admiring a portrait of the late Chief J. Paul McNamara, Chairman After the ceremony, participants Justice which was unveiled William W. Stanhope, Vice Chairman adjourned to a luncheon in honor of at a formal ceremony before the William L. Coleman Chief Justice O’Neill at the Athletic Justices of the Ohio Supreme Court on Robert M. Duncan Club. During the luncheon, James October 3, 1979. The portrait was David R. Fullmer Meeks, Dean of the OSU College of painted by Cleveland artist, Mrs. John James K. L. Lawrence Law, presented a status report L. Sheridan. Norman W. Shibley regarding contributions to the O’Neill Stuart A. Summit Professorship Fund, and announced Robert A. Carter that Professor Robert Wills had been James E. Meeks appointed to the O’Neill Professorship. Law and the Ways of Knowing Kenneth L. Karst, professor of law, we like to be known for dexterity, and emotions. In contrast, the left University of California at Los Angeles we don’t want to be called maladroit. hemisphere is not only the main School of Law, and a former member We also value righteousness, and language center but also the center of of the OSU College of Law’s faculty, rectitude, and correct behavior out thinking that is analytic, that breaks up served as the keynote speaker at the there, whatever you may have heard information and processes it, bit by bit, Law Journal Banquet held on May 4, about the involvement of some in sequence. The meaning of 1979. The text of Professor Karst’s Californians in Watergate. language, of course, depends heavily presentation, “Law and the Ways of on the way words are ordered in time. Knowing,” follows: It is one thing to say, “The scales fell on Mrs; Palsgraf,” and quite another Since you already have a fair idea of thing to say, “Mrs. Palsgraf fell on the what I mean by law, I’ll begin on the scales.” In the same way, most day-to- other side of the topic. The last two day work involving mathematics and decades have seen a lot of research science depends on performing on the mechanisms in the human operations in particular sequences. It is brain which relate to different modes the regularity of those time sequences of consciousness, different ways of that permits us to turn complicated knowing. One of the most interesting calculations over to machines. On the findings is that the two halves of the other hand, when we recognize a brain are specialized. The left and right familiar face, we do not proceed analytically, measuring a dimple here, cerebral hemispheres mainly serve and there an eyebrow. We take in the separate modes of consciousness, and each hemisphere is capable of working whole face at once, and our right separately from the other. The next hemispheres recognize it and transfer time someone says to you, “I am of the information to our left two minds about that,” he may be hemispheres, which come up with the speaking the literal truth. name: Larry Herman. Professor Kenneth L. Karst It is easy to oversimplify in talking There is one complication that should about this subject. It is incorrect, for be noted at the outset. The brain’s example, to say that arithmetic is controls over the body are “crossed,” left-hemisphere activity. The logical with the left hemisphere controlling the A preference for the right ordering of numbers and procedures right side of the body and perceiving surely is; but a lot of people see spatial the right visual field, and vice-versa. In Why this linguistic preference for the relationships, and even imagery, when ordinary speech, when we say “left” right? No one really knows, but some they do arithmetic. 1 live with a potter, or “right,” we are talking about those speculations seem reasonable. About and she informs me that numbers sides of the body—and thus to their 95% of the population is have colors. Nor can we say that controls on the opposite sides of the right-handed. (The rest of you are a music is only a right-brained activity. brain. “discrete and insular minority,” but Melodies and pitch are recognized perhaps not yet a suspect there, since they both demand And we do, in ordinary speech, often classification.) For over 100 years it awareness of patterns and use the words “left” and “right”—and has been known that in the typical relationships. But a crucial ingredient not merely to indicate direction . A left- right-handed person, speech functions of music is the sequential ordering of handed compliment isn’t always as well as writing are controlled by the notes in time, and that happens appreciated, nor do we like being left hemisphere of the brain. So, the mainly on the left side of the brain. It called sinister, or even gauche (or its part of the brain which controls the isn’t even true that language resides English variation, gawky). But we do right hand is also responsible for the wholly on the left. One of the basic like to be in the right, and we do insist articulation of ideas, and for choosing ingredients of language is metaphor, on our rights. In a number of western the word that seems “right.” which is a form of analogy from one languages, the words for “right” (in pattern to another—the business of the the sense of direction) and “right” (in right brain. To top it all off, words with the legal sense) and “Law” are all the More recently we have learned that a highly charged emotional content, same, or nearly so. In French, the the awareness of spatial relationships is such as four-letter words, are stored word droit has all three meanings. The centralized on the other side, in the on the right. same word in Italian, mancino, means right hemisphere, along with the both “left” and “deceitful.” Out in abilities to recognize faces, to paint My left hemisphere tells me that it is California, where we celebrate youth, pictures, to dream and to experience time to summarize: On the left side, 1 our ways of knowing are logical, what he says about our field: pattern of conduct, and comparing it analytic, focused; on the right, The law, a most logically structured to some ideal pattern of what is knowledge is intuitive, holistic, diffuse. system, depends predominantly upon reasonable—all of which is activity of The left hemisphere understands precedent and sequence, and upon the right hemisphere. things that are explicit; the right, things language. It is, along with science and formal logic, one of the most refined that are tacit. Thinking on the left is developments of the analytic mode . The substantive law provides countless linear, segmented, sequential, examples of this non-analytic, holistic deductive, concerned with causes and When I read this passage for the first thinking. Consider the problem of effects; right brain thinking deals in time, I laughed, and thought: “You defining obscenity, a problem the textures, patterns and analogies, know a lot about your territory, but Supreme Court has not yet solved and relations that are understood all at you haven’t spent much time in ours.” probably never will solve. One once. The left hemisphere is the seat The law, after all, is a human process. experiment with a split-brain patient, of reason; the right hemisphere is the It would be astounding if it could get whose cerebral hemispheres had been home of dreams, and tears, and along without intuition, or emotion, or severed, had her look into a machine laughter. the recognition of familiar that flashed images of geometric patterns—and of course it cannot. Our figures separately to the left and right right hemispheres have enormous visual fields. Without warning, a nude influence on the legal process.

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