The court held 7-2 that Scott remained a slave. To reverse that result:
What is your opinion of the 1857 case of Lemmon v. The People?
The Agreed Statement of Facts submitted to the Supreme Court established as a fact, not reviewable by the Supreme Court, that it was John Emerson who sold Scott and his family to Sanford. John Emerson died in 1843. How do you explain the Agreed Statement of Facts establishing that Emerson obtained ownership of Dred Scott from a corpse?
"The decision in the Taney Court in the Stader case, being simply a refusal to accept jurisdiction, did not impinge significantly upon Dred Scott's cause before the high court of Missouri. Indeed, it was irrelevant unless the Missouri judges decided against him and he attempted an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Even then, the two cases would be far from parallel. For Scott's claim to freedom rested upon several years of residence on free soil, rather than a brief visit, and residence not only in a free state but in free federal territory ...
"Taney's Stader opinion, if accepted as precedent, would have a controlling effect on the future disposition of any similar cases in the United States Supreme Court. it amounted to a declaration of judicial self-restraint, promising noninterference by the federal judiciary with state court decisions on the subject. This meant, however, that the effect of the opinion on a case being heard in a state court was permissive rather than controlling.... Taney's remarks, even if relevant to Dred Scott's case, indicated neither that Scott was free no that he was still a slave, but only that his condition depended solely on Missouri law." (Pg 260-262)
"The Stader decision had turned on the Court's finding that the Northwest Ordinance was no longer operative in Ohio and that accordingly there was no federal question at issue to justify review of the state court decision. But Dred Scott claimed his freedom by virtue of an operative federal law, and the claim had been denied by the Missouri court. These circumstances plainly qualified his case for appeal under Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, and Taney's emphatic pronouncement to the contrary was preposterous." (Pg 269)
Do you mean "Sanford" rather than Emerson? If so, Ferhenbacher discusses the problem on Pg 247-249 of his book.
In short, the link is that Mrs. John Emerson was formerly Eliza Irene Sanford. One of the Scott daughters is named after her. Mrs. Emerson inherited his late husband's estate in late 1843 and her brother, John F. A. Sanford was the executor. Mr. Sanford had failed to file a final report on the estate when he died in 1848.
Fehrenbacher later notes (pg 270):
"If Dred Scott v Emerson had been reviewed by the United Stees Supreme court, there would have been no Dred Scott v Sandford (sic), which was simply the alternative way of getting the case before that same Supreme Court. The crucial differnece was that the two major issues in the Sandford case - Negro citizenship and the contitutionality of the Missouri compromise restriction - did not appear on the face of the record in the Emerson case and would have been beyond the scope of federal court review. Thus a Supreme court decision in Dred Scott v Emerson would have been narrowly based and comparatively uncontroversial. In that event, unless Taney had been able to find another peg on which to hang his sweeping and inflammatory opinion of 1857, the great consequences attributed to the Dred Scott decision wouold have been unknown to history."