Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 8 P49 pptx

the judges thought that the rule did not apply to personal injuries. At first, U.S . courts generally did not apply the Rylands doctrine. Curiously, a number of cases spurning the rule rejected it in the broad form stated by Justice Blackburn, ignoring or overlooking the fact that the final formulation by Lord Cairns was narrower. Much of the earlier hostility to the rule was probably due to the strength of the fault ethic and to a desire to protect emerging industries. In the early twenty- first century, a majority of U.S. jurisdictions accept the rule, in name or in fact. In comparison to the English decisions, however, U.S. cases have been slightly less liberal in applying the rule. Even where Rylands v. Fletcher is expressly rejected or narrowly applied, the same result can be reached by actions for absolute nuisance or trespass. As of 2009, state and federal courts have cited the case more than 500 times. FURTHER READINGS Claus, C. Conrad. 1998. “Oregon’s Development of Absolute Liability under the Rylands Doctrine: A Case Study.” Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 53 (winter): 171–200. Kionka, Edward. 2005. Torts in a Nutshell. 3rd. Ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West. Shugerman, Jed Handelman. 2000. “The Floodgates of Strict Liability: Bursting Reservoirs and the Adoption of Fletcher v. Rylands in the Gilded Age.” Yale Law Journal 110 (November): 333. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 468 RYLANDS V. FLETCHER S CORPORATION A type of corporation that is taxed under sub- chapter S of the INTERNAL REVENUE CODE (26 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.). An S corporation differs from a regular corporation in that it is not a separate taxable entity under the Internal Revenue Code. This means that the S corporation does not pay taxes on its net income. Instead, the net profits or losses of the corporation pass through to its owners. It must conform to a state’s laws that specify how a corporation should be formed. At minimum, articles of incorporation should be filed with the SECRETARY OF STATE. The corpora- tion must also file a special form with federal and state tax authorities that notifies them of the election of the subchapter S status. A corporation may be granted S status if it does not own any subsidiaries, has only one class of stock, and has no more than 75 shareholders, all of whom must be U.S. citizens or residents . A corporation may elect S status when it is incorporated or later in its corporate life. Likewise, a corporation may elect to drop its S status at any time. An S corporation status is attractive to smaller, family-owned corporations that want to avoid double taxation: a tax on corporate income and a second tax on amounts distrib- uted to shareholders. This status may also make financial sense if a new corporation is likely to have an operating loss in its first year. The losses from the business can be passed through to the individual shareholder’s tax return and be used to offset income from other sources. It also avoids audit issues that surround regularly taxed corporations, such as unreasonable compensa- tion to office-shareholders. Finally, S status may avoid problems raised by corporate accounting rules and the corporate alternative minimum tax. These problems are eliminated because the income is taxed to the shareholders. The cost of employee benefits as a business expense can be deducted, however, shareholders who own more than two percent of the stock are not considered employees for INCOME TAX pur- poses and their benefits may not be deducted. Tax advantages can be achieved in some cases because income can be shifted to other family members by making them employees or share- holders (or both) of the corporation. Appreciation of the business also can be shifted to other fam ily members as a way to minimize death taxes when an owner dies. When an S corporation is sold, the taxable gain on the business may be less than if it had been operated as a regular corporation. FURTHER READINGS Hupalo, Peter I. 2003. How to Start and Run Your Own Corporation: S-corporations for Small Business Owners. St. Paul, Minn,: West. Internal Revenue Service. 1996. Tax Information on S Corporations. IRS Publication 589. Washington, D.C. Internal Revenue Service. “S Corporations.” Availableonlineat http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98263,00. html (accessed March 11, 2010). S 469 SABOTAGE The willful destruction or impairment of, or defective production of, war material or national defense material, or harm to war premises or war utilities. During a labor dispute, the willful and malicious destruction of an employer’s property or interference with his normal operations. The objective of sabotage is to halt all production, rather than to destroy or imperil human life. The original act of industrial sabotage is thought to have occurred not long after the introduction of machinery when someone slipped aworkman’s wooden shoe, called a sabot, into a loom in order to stop production. Sabotage is a crime. Though saboteurs may be portrayed in popular culture as alien enemies, sabotage is not limited to non-citizens. SACCO AND VANZETTI TRIAL The 1921 MURDER trial of the young Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti was one of the most controversial trials in U.S. history. For some observers, the trial was a way to bring two criminals to justice. For others, the two men were innocent of the crime but were found guilty because they were immigrants and political radicals. Defenders of Sacco and Vanzetti waged a fierce legal and public relations battle to save their lives, but the men were executed in 1927. On April 15, 1920, in South Braintree, Massachusetts, a paymaster and a security guard for a shoe company were delivering a $15,0 00 payroll for the business. Two men in an automobile fatally shot these two employees, stole the money, and fled. Eventually, the police focused on Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti as their prime suspects. The men appeared to be unlikely armed robbers. They had arrived in the United States in 1908. Sacco found work as a shoemaker, and Vanzetti became a fish vendor. Politically, they were anarchists who opposed all governments. Their opposition to WORLD WAR I led them to emigrate from the United States to Mexico to avoid military CONSCRIPTION. They returned to the United States in 1920 and settled in Massachusetts. The police took Sacco and Vanzetti into custody primarily on the basis of two pieces of evidence. Sacco owned a pistol of the type used in the murders, and the men were arrested at a garage attempting to reclaim a repaired automobile that had been seen in the vicinity of the South Braintree crime scene. Sacco and Vanzetti knew very little English and gave confusing and false answers during their interrogation, which diminished their credibil- ity. Sacco and Vanzetti were indicted on September 11, 1920, for the murders and the ROBBERY. The trial began on May 31, 1921, before Judge Webster Thayer. The defendants were represented by Fred Moore, who had been hired on their behalf by the recently formed AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION. EYEWITNESS testimony at the trial was con- tradictory. A few witnesses gave detailed descriptions of Sacco and Vanzetti, but on CROSS-EXAMINATION many of the details proved inaccurate. Several defense witnesses testified that Sacco had been in Boston at the time of the murders. Prosecutor Frederick G. Katzman used the unreliable answers that the defendants had given during their initial interrogation to impugn their credibility. He also made irrele- vant remarks about the defendants’ unpopular political beliefs and their lack of patriotism. Judge Thayer allowed these remarks to pass. Some trial observers noted that Thayer was hostile to the defense and that he may have been biased in favor of the prosecution. Moore argued that the defendants’ poor English was at the root of the false information they provided and that the y were innocent men thrown into an incomprehensible situation. The jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of the murders and the robbery on July 14, 1921. The convictions drew cries of outrage from socialists, radicals, and prominent intellectuals in the United States and Europe. Investigators were hired to look for new evidence that would prove Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent. Over the next six years, Sacco and Vanzetti’s lawyers presented many motions to Judge Thayer, asking that a new trial be granted so that new evidence could be introduced. Investigators claimed to have uncovered evi- dence that would refute damaging testimony of several prosecution witnesses. At that time Massachusetts law gave the trial judge the final power to reopen a case on the basis of new evidence. Thayer adamantly refused to order a new trial. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 470 SABOTAGE In 1925, Celestine Madeiros, a convicted murderer awaiting execution, confessed to being a member of a gang that had committed the South Braintree crimes. He absolved Sacco and Vanzetti of any involvement. Thayer refused to recognize the statement as adequate evidence to justify a new trial. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts agreed to review the case but affirmed the verdict (Commonwealth v. Sacco and Vanzetti, 255 Mass. 369, 151 N.E. 839 [1926]). FELIX FRANKFURTER, a Harvard law professor and future member of the U.S. Supreme Court, believed that the trial had been a travesty of justice and labored on the many post-trial motions. He and others used the press to make their claim that Sacco and Vanzetti were victims of political and ethnic bias. On April 9, 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti received the death sentence. This set off a storm of protest, with mass meetings throughout the United States. Massachusetts governor Alvin T. Fuller appointed an independent advisory committee compos ed of two university pre- sidents and a former judge to review the trial and its aftermath. On August 3, the governor announced that he would follow the panel’s recommendation and not grant Sacco and Vanzetti CLEMENCY. More protests erupted in many cities, and bombs were set off in New York and Philadel- phia. On August 23, 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti, still maintaining their innocence, were executed in the electric chair. Many years after the executions, in 1941, additional evidence related to the case emerged. Anarchist leader Carlo Tresca claimed to have knowledge that Sacco was guilty, and Vanzetti was innocent. This claim was published in a 1961 National Review article by Max Eastman. Like many issues related to the case, the significance of this evidence has been debated. While some individuals lent support to Tresca’s claim by indicating that they too had been told the same information by Tresca, others undermined the credibility of the claim by pointing to an ongoing feud between Tresca and the anarchist group to which Sacco and Vanzetti belonged. In 1952 the labor organizer Anthony Ramuglia admitted that a Boston anarchist group had asked him to provide a false alibi for Sacco. He was allegedly removed from the alibi list, however, because he had been in jail at the relevant time. In October 1961 ballistic tests using im- proved technology were performed on Sacco’s pistol. The tests revealed the bullet that had killed one of the men was indeed fired from Sacco’s weapon. That finding was substantiated upon further research conducted in 1983. This evidence tends to support Tresca’s claim that Sacco was guilty of the crime. However, the ballistic evidence has been a source of ongoing debate. In 1988 a claim emerged suggesting that police experts had switched Sacco’s pistol with the murder weapon. Hence, it has been argued that Sacco’s pistol was not, in fact, used in the crime. The guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti continues to be debated. Most com- mentators agree, however, that the defendants should have been granted a new trial because the first one was tainted with political and Nicola Sacco (left) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Many legal observers believed then, as now, that the men should have been granted a new trial after their conviction in 1921. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION SACCO AND VANZETTI TRIAL 471 ethnic prejudice that made a fair proceeding impossible. FURTHER READINGS Frankfurter, Felix. 2003. The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Critical Analysis for Lawyers and Laymen. Buffalo, N.Y.: W. S. Hein. Frankfurter, Marion Denman, and Gardner Jackson, ed. 1997. The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti. New York: Penguin Books. Kadane, Joseph B., and David A. Schum. 1996. A Probabilistic Analysis of the Sacco and Vanzetti Evidence. New York: Wiley. Temkin, Moshik. 2009. The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. CROSS REFERENCE Anarchism. SAID Mentioned earlier. Frequently used in contracts and other legal documents, with the same force as aforesaid. SAILOR A sailor is a person who navigates ships or assists in the conduct, maintenance, or service of ships. Sailors have historically received special treatment under the law because of the nature of their work. Sailing a vessel through treacher- ous waters, often for long distan ces, is an isolated and dangerous undertaking. Although most countries have developed comprehensive policing methods on land, the international community has not been able to muster the resources necessary to police the entire expanse of every body of water. Thus, except when moving along coasts or on rivers, ships are essentially cut off from the rest of the world as they sail from port to port. The unique problems sailors face have often aroused judicial concern. In 1823, for example, while serving as a circuit court justice, Supreme Court justice JOSEPH STORY wrote in Harden v. Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480 (Cir. Ct. D. Maine 1823) that sailors are liable to sudden sickness from change of climate, exposure to perils, and exhausting labour. They are generally poor and friend- less, and acquire habits of gross indulgence, carelessness, and improvidence. If some provision be not made for them in sickness at the expense of the ship, they must often in foreign ports suffer the accumulated evils of disease, and poverty, and sometimes perish from the want of suitable nourishment. Although sailors still face unusual challenges and dangers, their situation in the early 2000s is far less desperate than that described by Story in 1823. Merchant marines (professional sailors), at least in the United States, are well-paid professionals; they are represented by unions and receive the same employment benefits as other organized professionals. Sailors sign employment contracts for specific voyages. The contract may be made with the ship itself in the ship’s capacity as a corporate entity, or it may be made directly with the master of the ship. In any contract, a sailor is entitled to sail in a staunch and watertight ship that is properly equipped and handled by a competent crew. The employer must supply wholesome food during the voyage, and any sailor who becomes sick is entitled to maintenance and cure. Maintenance and cure is the duty of an employer to provide medical services to a sailor until the sailor recovers or the voyage ends. If a sailor requires immediate medical attention, the master of the ship may be required to change its course to find the closest hospital. A sailor’s right to mainte- nance and cure is not limited to illnesses or injuries suffered while at sea; employers are similarly required to provide maintenance and cure for illnesses or injuries that occur during shore leave. Courts have developed the right t o mainte- nance and cure in deference to the sailor’sdifficult and unique employment situation. Fear of MUTINY is one reason for providing maintenance and cure. As Story observed in Harden, if sailors’ earnings were taken away for illnesses or injuries suffered while at sea, “the great motives for good behaviour might b e ordinarily taken away.” Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (46 App. U.S.C.A. § 688 [1997])toprovide sailors with a remedy in federal court for employment-related injuries. The act, also known as the JONES ACT, specifically grants to a “seaman” the right to recover from an employer for the NEGLIGENCE of the employer or the unseaworthi- ness of the vessel. The act authorizes a trial by jury, and it also gives relatives of sailors a right to recover da mages for a sailor’s death. Because Congress failed to define the term seaman in the Jones Act, much of the LITIGATION involving the act has been over who qualifies for GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 472 SAID the remedies it provides. Originally only persons engaged in the navigation of a ship qualified for coverage. In 1995, in Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347, 115 S. Ct. 2172, 132 L. Ed. 2d 314, the U.S. Supreme Court suggested that a shore-based engineer who takes occa- sional voyages may be deemed a sailor under the act. According to the Court, to qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act, the worker’s duties must contribute to the accom plishment of a vessel’s mission, and the worker must have a connection to a vessel or group of vessels in navigation. The connection must be substantial in both duration and nature. Thus a shore- based person who works on the ventilation system in a ship but does not sail on a ship does not qualify as a sailor, but a shore-based vessel engineer who takes occasional voyages may be deemed a seaman under the Jones Act. The U.S. Department of the Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard recruit and employ sailors as part of the U.S. Armed Forces. The rights and responsibilities of military sailors are governed by contractual terms, regulations, and the UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE. FURTHER READINGS Alfieri, Mark. 1997. “Guevara v. Maritime: Caught in the Wake of Miles v. Apex Marine Corp.” Houston Journal of International Law 19 (winter). Allbritton, Jack L., and David W. Robertson. 1995. “Seaman Status after Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis.” University of San Francisco Maritime Law Journal 8 (fall). CROSS REFERENCES Admiralty and Maritime Law; Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Ci vil Relief Act of 1918. SALEM WITCH TRIALS In 1692 the community of Salem, Massachu- setts, was engulfed in a series of witchcraft afflictions, accusations, trials, and executions. During the course of the year, more than a dozen persons claimed to be afflicted by spells of black magic and sorcery that had been allegedly cast by men and women who had enlisted the supernatural powers of the devil. Most of the persons claiming to be afflicted were teenage girls. Those persecuted for allegedly practicing witchcraft included Salem residents who devi- ated in some way from Puritan religious, cultural, or economic norms. Other victims of the witch craze were perceived to be enemies of the largest family in Salem. A few victims were simply weak and sickly people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The legal institutions offered little protection for those accused of witchcraft because the primitive Massachusetts judicial system was still governed by superstitious RULES OF EVIDENCE permitting testimony about malevolent apparitions and broomsticks capable of flight. Although some ordinary Salem residents doubted the credibility of the witchcraft accusations, it was not until they were joined by authorities from Boston that the witch hunt came to a close. The outbreak of witchcraft hysteria took place in Salem Village, a small co mmunity a few miles inla nd from Salem Town. Salem Village was not an autonomous entity and lacked a government of its own until 1752 when it achieved independence and became known as Danvers. Salem Village was almost exclusively agrarian, cut off from the ports and tributaries that made Salem Town more mercantile and international in character. Although both com- munities were predominantly Puritan, during the seventeenth century Salem Town acquired an increasingly secular appearance through the growth of its fur, fish, and timber industries. The Salem witch craze was largely fueled by personal differences between two families, the Putnams and the Por ters. John Putnam Sr. (1579–1662) was the patriarch of the largest family in Salem. He had three sons, Thomas Putnam Sr. (1615–86), Nathaniel Putnam (1619–1700), and John Putnam Jr. (1627– 1710). John Porter Sr. (1595–1676) was the patriarch of the richest family in Salem. He had four sons, John Porter Jr. (1618–84), Joseph Porter (1638–1714), Benjamin Porter (1639– 1723), and Israel Porter (1644–1706), and a daughter, Sarah Porter (1649–1725). The Putnams were farmers who followed the simple and austere lifestyle of traditional Puritans. Althoug h the Porters derived much of their wealth from agricultural operations as well, they were also entrepreneurs who devel- oped commercial interests in Salem Town, throughout New England, and in the Carib- bean. The Porters’ diversified business interests allowed them to increase their family’s wealth whereas the Putnam family wealth stagnated. An interfamily rivalry began in 1672 when a dam and sawmill run by the Porters flooded the GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION SALEM WITCH TRIALS 473 Putnam farms, resulting in a lawsuit brought by John Putnam Sr. A few years later, the Putnams petitioned the town in an effort to obtain political independence for the village, and the Porters opposed them. The arrival of Reverend Samuel Parris in 1689 in tensified the Putnam- Porter conflict. Twenty-six villagers, 11 of whom were Putnams, voted to give Parris a parsonage, a barn, and two acres of land. Some villagers thought that these gifts were too generous. In October 1691, a faction of Parris-Putnam supporters was ousted from the village commit- tee and replaced by individua ls who were openly hostile to the reverend, including Daniel Andrew, the son-in-law of John Porter Sr.; Joseph Hutchinson, one of the sawmill opera- tors responsible for flooding the Putnams’ farms; Francis Nurse, a village farmer who had been involved in a bitter boundary dispute with Nathaniel Putnam; and Joseph Porter. The new committee quickly voted down a tax levy that would have raised revenue to pay the salary of Reverend Parris. It is no coincidence, then, that the witch- craft afflictions and accusations originated in the Parris household. In February 1692 the reverend returned home from his congrega- tion one evening to discover his nine-year- old daughter, Elizabeth Parris, her 11-year-old cousin, Abigail Williams, and their 12-year- old friend, Ann Putnam Jr., (the daughter of Thomas Putnam Jr. and Ann Putnam) gathered around the kitchen table with the Parris family slave, Tituba, who was helping the girls experiment in fortune telling. Soon after the girls were caught attempting to conjure up evil spirits, the girls appeared to become afflicted by strange fits that temporarily deprived them of their ability to hear, speak, and see. During these epis odes of sensory depriv ation, the girls suffered from violent convulsions that twisted The Trial of George Jacobs, August 5, 1692, painted in 1855 by T.H. Matteson, depicts the histrionics that often accompanied the trials of alleged Salem witches. PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM, SALEM, MASS. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION 474 SALEM WITCH TRIALS their bodies into what observer s called impossi- ble positions. When the girls regained control of their senses, they complained of being bitten, pinched, kicked, and tormented by apparitions that would visit them in the night. These ghostly visions, the afflicted girls said, pricked their necks and backs and contorted their arms and legs like pretzels. Witnesses reported seeing the girls extend their tongues to extraordinary lengths. After examining the afflicted girls, Dr. William Griggs, the village physician, pro- nounced them as being under an evil hand. Nearly 200 people were accused of practic- ing witchcraft in Salem during the summer of 1692. Twenty accused witches were executed (15 women and 5 men). Nineteen were hanged following conviction, and one was pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea. Four prisoners (three women and a man) died in jail. The trials began in June and continued for four months, the final executions taking place on September 22. In October the governor of Massach usetts, William Phipps, dissolved the tribunal that had been established to preside over the witchcraft prosecutions. The following spring, the gover- nor ordered the release of all the accused witches who remained incarcerated, upon payment of their fines. The persons accused of witchcraft ranged from a four-year-old girl, Dorcas Good, to an octogenarian farmer, Giles Cory. The accused also included an angry, muttering beggar, Sarah Good, who rarely attended church, and an ailing village matriarch, Rebecca Nurse, who was respected for her goodness and piety. Yet the witchcraft accusations were far from random. Historians have identified a pattern of accusa- tions that strongly suggests that the afflicted girls singled out social deviants, outcasts, outsiders, merchants, tradesman, and others who threat- ened traditional Puritan values. For example, Sarah Osborne, one of the first persons accused of witchcraft in Salem, had earlier scan dalized the village by having pre- marital sexual relations with an indentured servant from Ireland. Another accused witch, Martha Cory, had given birth to an illegitimate mulatto child. Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, relished her reputation as a sorcerer in black magic until she landed in jail after being accused of witchcraft. Bridget Bishop, the owner of a small Salem tavern known for its disorderliness, and Abigail Hobbs, a village rebel who was neither a church member nor a churchgoer, were two assertive and independent women whose scornful attitude toward Puritan social order was silenced by their arrests for practicing witchcraft. Like Bridget Bishop, John and Elizabeth PROCTOR were tavern keepers on Ipswich Road, the thoroughfare separating Salem Town from Salem Village. The tavern was frequented only by persons from outside Salem Village, and its loud, debauched patrons were a source of concern for residents of the village. John Proctor was one of the first Salem residents to openly criticize the witch craze, maintaining that the afflicted girls were shamming. The day after he questioned their credibility, the afflicted girls implicated his wife in the witch CONSPIRACY. Other Salem residents who were bold enough to express skepticism about the sincerity of the accusations made by the afflicted girls, including George Jacobs, Dorcas Hoar, Sarah Cloyce, and Susannah Martin, soon found themselves ensnared by the malignant web of witchcraft allegations. The largest common denominator among the accused witches was the source of the complaints against them. Eight members of the Putnam family were involved in the prosecution of approximately 50 witches. Thomas Putnam Jr. signed ten legal complaints against the defendants and provided testimony aga inst 24 accused witches. His wife, Ann Putnam, was the most prominent citizen among those who were purportedly afflicted by witchcraft, and his daughter, Ann Jr., was the most prolific accuser, providing testimony against 48 accused witches. Members of the Porter family attempted to mobilize the village against the witch trials but were stymied when 19 of their allies found themselves facing witchcraft allegations. Daniel Andrew, Phillip English, Francis Nurse, and George Burroughs were representa- tive of the group of defendants accused of witchcraft by the Putnam family. Andrew was born and raised in Watertown, Massachusetts. In 1669 he moved to Salem where he married Sarah Porter, daughter of Putnam family rival John Porter Sr. Through an inheritance, Andrew and his wife received a large parcel of land, helping them become the fourth-wealthiest couple in Salem Village. Andrew was also one of the Salem residents selected to replace the Putnam-Parris faction on the village GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION SALEM WITCH TRIALS 475 committee. Along with his village committee colleagues Francis Nurse and Phillip English, Andrew was accused of practicing witchcraft by the Putnam clan. None of the three was executed. The Salem witch-craze was fueled in part by the political and religious environment in which it was spawned. Salem Puritans had established a type of theocracy akin to that of medieval Roman Catholicism, in which the church ruled in all civil matters, including that of adminis- tering CAPITAL PUNISHMENT for violations of a spiritual nature. The Puritans believed in the existence of an invisible world inhabited by God and angels, including the Devil (who was seen as a fallen angel) and his fellow demons. To Puritans, this invisible world was as real as the visible one around them, and loss of crops, livestock, and children, as well as earthquakes and bad weather, were typically attributed to the wrath of God. The legal environment in Salem offered defendants few protections against fabricated allegations of witchcraft. Similar to modern legal procedure, criminal proceedings were instituted upon the filing of a formal complaint by a party allegedly injured by witchcraft. Such complaints usually prompted the issuance of an arrest warrant by a local magistrate who then con- ducted a preliminary examination in public to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to hold the accused in custody pending GRAND JURY deliberations. If the grand jury chose to indict a particular accused witch, the defendant was then tried by the Court of OYER AND TERMINER, an emergency tribunal established by gubernato- rial proclamation to resolve the burgeoning crisis. The law applied by the court was an English statute passed in 1604 during the reign of James I and carried with it the death penalty. The law prohibited “conjuration, witchcraft, and dealing with evil and wicked spirits” (Hill 1995). The INDICTMENT against the accused closely mirrored the language of the ENGLISH LAW, charging the defendants with having “killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, and lamed” certain individuals by witchcraft. During both the preliminary examinations and the ensuing trials, the accused witches were presumed guilty. The presiding judges and magistrates frequently asked leading questions designed to elicit answers that would disclose whom the defendants had bewitched and how, instead of more neutral and impartial questions aimed at ascerta ining whether they had actually bewitched anyone at all. Although juries were impaneled to determine guilt and innocence, in at least one instance the court directed the jurors to reconsider an unpopular verdict they had rendered. After further deliberations, the jury reversed itself, declaring a previously acquitted defendant guilty. No accused witches were afforded the right to legal counsel, and only those defendants who confessed were saved from the gallows upon conviction. The afflicted girls were normally present during the courtroom proceedings. When an accused witch entered the courtroom, the afflicted girls invariably collapsed into traumatic fits of hysteria that only ceased when the accused began to confess. In contrast to the dignified courtroom decorum demanded by most U.S. judges in the early twenty-first century, the Salem witches were confronted by belligerent magis- trates, rabid witnesses, and apoplectic spectators in the gallery. One defendant was struck in the head with a shoe thrown by an onlooker. The evidence offered to incriminate the defendants typically reflected the medieval superstitions of the Puritan community. Nine witches were convicted on the strength of spectral evidence alone, meaning that the only connection between the accused and the afflicted girls was testimony that an alleged victim had been visited during the night by a ghostly figure who resembled the defendant. Other defendants were convicted based on evidence that they could not properly recite the Lord’s Prayer, owned mysterious dolls and puppets, or suffered from a reputation for witchcraft in the community. Jurors were told that unusual protuberant growths proverb ially represented signs of a witch’s nipple through which the defendant had ostensibly consum- mated intimate relations with the devil or lesser demons. The Salem witch trials came to an end when the esteemed Reverend Increase Mather from Harvard University questioned the reliability of spectral evidence. The witch trials had been based on the premise that the devil could not assume the shape of a particular person without her consent. Mather turned this premise on its head, arguing that a deceitfully evil creature like the devil could assume the likeness of even the most unwilling and innocent person. Mather GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 476 SALEM WITCH TRIALS proclaimed that it is better for ten suspected witches to escape, than for one innocent person to be condemned. Various petitions were filed with the Massa- chusetts government between 1700 and 1709, demanding that the witchcraft convictions be formally reversed. On October 17, 1711, the Massachusetts General Court passed a bill reversing the judgment against the 22 persons convicted of witchcraft during 1692. Two months later, Governor Joseph Dudley autho- rized monetary compensation in the amount of 578 pounds, 12 shillings to be divided among the survivors and relatives of those convicted, and most of the accounts were settled within a year. Repentance was also evident within the Salem Village church. Reverend Joseph Green and the members of the church voted on February 14, 1703, after nearly two months of consideration, to reverse the excommunication of one of the accused witches. On August 25, 1706, when Ann Putnam Jr., the most prolific accuser, joined the Salem Village Church, she publicly asked for forgiveness. She claimed that she had not acted out of malice but was being deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people. FURTHER READINGS Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum. 1974. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Christenson, Ron. 1991. Political Trials in History: From Antiquity to Present. New Brunswick: Transaction Press. Hill, Frances. 1995. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. New York: Doubleday. Hoffer, Peter Charles. 1997. The Salem Witchcraft Trials: A Legal History. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas. Karlsen, Carol. 1989. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. New York: Vintage Books. Le Beau, Bryan F. 1998. The Story of the Salem Witch Trials: “We Walked in Clouds and Could Not See Our Way.” Paramus, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Mappen, Marc, ed. 1996. Witches & Historians: Interpreta- tions of Salem. 2d ed. Malabar, Fla.: Krieger. Starkey, Marion L. 1982. Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials. New York: Time. Trever-Roper, H. R. 1967. The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. San Francisco: Harper Torchbooks. Weisman, Richard. 1984. Witchcraft, Magic and Religion in 17th Century Massachusetts. Amherst, Mass.: Univ. of Massachusetts Press. CROSS REFERENCES Presumption of Innocence; Relig ion. SALES LAW The law relating to the transfer of ownership of property from one person to another for value, which is codified in Article 2 of the UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE (UCC), a body of law governing mercantile transactions adopted in whole or in part by the states. The sal e o f a good, or a n i te m t hat i s m ovea ble at the time of sale, is a transaction designed to benefit both buyer and seller. However, sales transactions can be complex, and they do not always proceed smoothly. Problems can arise a t several phases of a sale, and at least one of the parties may suffer a loss. In recognition of these realities a nd of the basic impo rtance o f o rderly commerce to society, legislatures and courts crea te laws governing s ales of goods. The most comprehensive set of laws on sales, the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), is a collection of model laws on an assortment of commercial activities. The UCC itself does not have legal effect; it was written by the lawyers, judges, and professors in the American Law Institute (ALI) and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL). All states have adopted the UCC in whole or in part by enacting the model laws contained in its 11 articles. Article 2 of the UCC deals with the sale of goods. All states with the exception of Louisiana have enacted at least some of the model laws in Article 2. Laws on the sale of real estate and the sale of services are different from laws on the sale of goods, and they are excluded from Article 2. A service contract may be covered by the provisions in Article 2 insofar as it involves the transfer of goods, and courts may use Article 2 as a reference for interpreting laws on the sale of services. Some contracts are a blend of the sale of goods and the sale of services and may be covered by Article 2. For example, the service of food by a restaurant may be considered, for some purposes, a contract for a sale of goods (U.C.C. § 2-314). Article 2 covers sales by both private indi- viduals and merchants. Merchants are persons engaged in the business of buying or selling goods. A small number of provisions apply only to merchants, but otherwise the provisions cover all sales. Contract Formation A contract fo r the sale of goods can be made in any manner that shows agreement between the GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION SALES LAW 477 . Adoption of Fletcher v. Rylands in the Gilded Age.” Yale Law Journal 110 (November): 333. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 4 68 RYLANDS V. FLETCHER S CORPORATION A type of corporation. painted in 185 5 by T.H. Matteson, depicts the histrionics that often accompanied the trials of alleged Salem witches. PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM, SALEM, MASS. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD. define the term seaman in the Jones Act, much of the LITIGATION involving the act has been over who qualifies for GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 472 SAID the remedies it provides.