St. John's Law Review Volume 23 Number 1 Volume 23, November 1948, Number Article 1 1 The Spectre of Attainder in New York (Part 1) Alison Reppy Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/lawreview This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in St. John's Law Review by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ST. JOHN'S LAW REVIEW Published semi-annually during the Academic Year by St. John's Law Students VOLUME XXIII NOVEMBER, 1948 NUMBER 1 THE SPECTRE OF ATTAINDER IN NEW YORK* I. INTRODUCTION THE average American citizen has come to accept the liberty which he enjoys under the Constitution as a matter of course and of which there could be not the slightest doubt. This results from the fact that the average citizen, except for voting or paying income taxes, has little direct contact with the government in its day-to-day operation. Under these circumstances, the decision in the recent case of United States v. Lovett 1 in which the Supreme Court was called upon to declare unconstitutional, as amounting to a bill of attainder, an act of Congress barring three Amer- ican citizens from ever again holding public office, came as a surprise to our people and as a distinct shock to the mem- bers of the legal profession. Surmising that the spirit which made such an occurrence possible has always been present in the social order, though usually submerged, the present writer set out to investigate the matter generally, but in this article with specific reference to developments in New York from Colonial times up to the present.