Criminal Law Library BlogThe American Bar Association (ABA), Criminal Justice Section has just published its Fall 2009 Newsletter, Volume 18 Issue 1 Fall 2009. This issue covers a variety of topics including: Practice Tips – Sexting: Balancing the Law and Bad Choices, Three Questions with Charles Hynes, Section Member News, New Books, News from the Field, and Ethics. Also included is a reminder that the ABA Criminal Justice Section Fall Meeting will be held in Washington DC November 5-8, 2009.
Articles Posted in News from Organizations
Vote for Your Favorite National Book Award Candidate
Want to vote for your favorite National Book Award winner? For the first time ever, the National Book Foundation is polling the reading public. Think of it as a “people’s choice” award. First, the foundation asked 140 top writers to narrow the field to just six titles.
The six contenders are: Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison; The Stories of John Cheever; Collected Stories of William Faulkner, Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor; The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty; and Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon.
Voting begins today and ends at midnight Oct. 21. Go to www.nationalbook.org to vote.
Results of National Center for State Courts e-Filing Survey
Rick Snow of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) has just announced that results of the NCSC e-filing survey conducted earlier this year are available at . Also, a brief summary of the findings is available on our Court Technology Bulletin at .
He writes: “We hope you find the results useful. If you have further questions regarding the survey, or would like to respond to the survey for your court or state, please contact Jim McMillan (jmcmillan@ncsc.org) or Rick Snow (rsnow@ncsc.org).”
American Bar Association Justice Center Director and Chief Counsel Hired
The ABA Justice Center is pleased to announce the hiring of Peter M. Koelling as the ABA Justice Center Director and Chief Counsel. Please click here for more detailed information.
Vacancy Announcement: Research Manager – Congressional Research Service
Research Manager-Congress and Judiciary
SALARY RANGE: 120,830.00 – 153,200.00 USD /year
OPEN PERIOD: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 to Tuesday, September 22, 2009
U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Stays Microsoft Word Sales Ban
According to a report by Matthew Weigett in the September 4, 2009 Federal Computer Week, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC has held that Mircosoft can keep selling its Word software in the United States. Microsoft had filed an emergency motion with the court to stay a ruling by Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas that ordered to the company to stop selling Word in the United States and to also pay the plaintiff i4i, a Toronto based software developer, over $290 million in damages and interest. The motion to stay has been granted, allowing Word sales in the U.S. to continue while the infringement lawsuit is appealed. The appeal is scheduled for September 23.
ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter. September 4, 2009.
Top Ten Stories for Week Ending September 4, 2009.
Careers Study: US Government Will Need to Go on Hiring Binge, Legal Jobs Included
Sep 3, 2009, 06:31 am CDT
ABA Criminal Justice Section: Second Annual Sentencing Advocacy, Practice and Reform Institute
The 2009 Fall Conference Washington, DC.
November 6, 2009
“The ABA Criminal Justice Section, in cooperation with our co-sponsors, is proud to present a one-day seminar to address a broad array of sentencing and reentry issues, with a particular emphasis on sentencing practice in white-collar cases. The conference will examine sentencing and reentry trends and opportunities for reform at both the federal and state levels. The program will begin with a plenary session on the state of the sentencing union including rates of incarceration, sentencing trends, racial disparity, alternatives to incarceration, and recent federal legislation. There will be two tracks of instruction focused on reentry and two focused on sentencing, each addressing issues of concern to different segments of the criminal justice community, including probation and parole officials, white collar crime defense attorneys, prosecutors, academics, public defenders, judges, sentencing consultants, mitigation specialists, corrections personnel, victim advocates and policy experts. One track will focus on practice and procedure issues of particular concern to criminal defense attorneys in general and white collar practitioners in particular. Confirmed speakers include Jeremy Travis, President of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the U. S. Sentencing Commission. The second annual conference is hoped to again attract a broad cross-section of those involved in perhaps the most pressing criminal justice issues of our time”.
Citations and Hyperlinks To Materials in Court Opinions on the Web
The following article published in the July 2009 issue of The Third Branch: Newsletter of the Federal Courts discusses a project conducted by U.S. Circuit librarians in the federal courts, and organized by the Fudicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management (CACM). The project involved observation and recording over a six month period of how court opinions and materials in court opinions are cited and hyperlinked in a representative sampling of web pages, resulting in a compilation of “suggested practices” for citing and hyperlinking these materials..
This type of resource is needed as a reference for citing primary materials in all branches of government – federal, state, local, and probably foreign and international as well.. With the increasing empsasis on “going green”, preservation of resources, etc. the rate of conversion from hard copy to digital, web based materials is accelerating to the point where it is urgent that we have authoritative sources now that we can rely upon for citing and hyperlinking primary source legal materials on the web.
With this article I am happy to see an example of how the federal courts are “stepping up to the plate” on this issue.
Opportunities for OCLC Fellowships
Call for Applications for the 2010 OCLC Minority Librarian Fellowship Program
Application deadline: September 8, 2009
OCLC has announced the expansion and increased support of the OCLC Minority Librarian Fellowship program designed to provide a unique opportunity for aspiring library professionals from historically under-represented groups.