Seth Barrett Tillman: What Court (if any) Decided Ex parte Merryman?Michael Ramsey

Seth Barrett Tillman (National University of Ireland, Maynooth Faculty of Law) has posted What Court (if any) Decided Ex parte Merryman?—A Response (5 pages) on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

This article explains why it is incorrect to characterize Ex parte Merryman as a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, or as a decision for the United States Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, or as a decision for the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.

Merryman was not a decision of any court. Rather, it was decided by Chief Justice Taney under special authority granted to all Article III Justices and judges under the Judiciary Act of 1789.

As the essay makes clear, people get this wrong all the time, especially in attributing Merryman to the Supreme Court.