Joseph Kirchner
Open Letter to the Candidates for Minnesota Attorney General, October 10, 2026. Open it in review mode — the letter beside the debate it cites, every time in the text a link that plays the recording from that moment.
From the archives
Lloyd v. Barker (Star Chamber, 1607)
STAC 8/203/38
The National Archives (UK), Kew · Trinity term, 5 Jac. I (1607)
The original Star Chamber proceedings — leaf images reproduced by permission of The National Archives, beside the professional verification transcription by Christopher Whittick.
Read the manuscript (10 leaves)
Floyd v. Barker — the second account (Star Chamber, 1607)
HLS MS 149, ff. 81r–83v
Harvard Law School Library · Pasch. 5 Jac. I (1607)
The second manuscript account of the case behind judicial immunity — folio images courtesy of Harvard Law School Library, with line indexes and working papers.
Read the manuscript (6 leaves)
Research · a timeline
Where Immunity Came From
The history of immunity in 74 entries, 1750 BC to 2025, every one resting on The Subject's Unanswered Plea: A Restorative and Comparative History of Immunity or on a copy of its source; each citation opens the book at the passage that cites it.
- 1750 BC · Statute · The Code of Hammurabi, §§ 4–5
- 1689 · Statute · The Bill of Rights: the prerogative tribunals condemned, cruel and unusual punishments forbidden
- 1868 · Judicial decision · Scott v. Stansfield (Exchequer): a judge free to act without fear of consequences
- 1972 · Judicial decision · Krause v. Ohio: the eighteenth-century rule put to the Court as due process, and dismissed without opinion
- 1987 · Judicial decision · Anderson v. Creighton: a second reasonableness placed before the Fourth Amendment's own
- 2025 · Report · Coke's own notebook report of Floyd v. Barker in print for the first time
Read the timeline
“how unsafe it is to take Records upon trust, from the reports of learned Judges, who never read nor perused their originals.”