The following is an edited version of an article by Peter Galli, published on eWeek.com:.
December 19, 2007
By Peter Galli
New York State Legislature: 2007 Chapter Law List
To see the list of Chapter Laws enacted by the State of New York during the year, 2007, click here and select Chapters from the menu.
ABA Criminal Justice Section Announces Program for 2008 Mid Year Meeting
Criminal justice experts from around the country will descend upon Los Angeles on Feb. 7-9 for the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section’s 2008 Midyear Meeting. On Feb. 8 members can participate in CLE programs addressing among other issues how the “Jena 6” ordeal affected the public’s perception of the criminal justice system and what mediation and restorative justice could have done to prevent it, and the latest tactical approaches taken by both prosecutors and public defenders in DUI trials.
That same day, the CJS Innocence Subcommittee is pleased to announce that the Section is cosponsoring a symposium at Southwestern Law School entitled “Wrongful Convictions: Causes and Cures”.
Following the “Jena 6” and DUI programs, the Section will co-sponsor a joint reception celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the ABA Council on Legal Education Opportunity and the presentation of the Section’s inaugural Frank Carrington Victim Advocate Award presented in honor of Frank Carrington to the Carrington family.
A Preview of HTML 5
BY LACHLAN HUNT
Abstract
The web is constantly evolving. New and innovative websites are being created every day, pushing the boundaries of HTML in every direction. HTML 4 has been around for nearly a decade now, and publishers seeking new techniques to provide enhanced functionality are being held back by the constraints of the language and browsers.
Growing Trend Toward On-Demand Web Based Databases
An article by Brian Prince, “On-Demand Trend Touching the Database.” describes a growing trend in the marketplace toward migration to web-based databases. Some of the new or forthcoming databases discussed are SimpleDB beta of Amazon.com, Dabble DB, and Trackvia. A company also mentioned, Kognitio, provides on-demand data warehousing.
One person quoted in the article states that “[Data-as-a-service] is driven by the fact that business the business users cannot get what they need from their IT departments in a timely manner.” Even for those not experiencing IT problems, this is a positive trend because for many users, including online service providers, because of its being incorporated more directly into the seemingly all encompassing web.
Database-as-a-service (DAAS) is based on cloud computing technology. To see the entire article, click here.
Request for Quiche Interpreter for a Pending Case*
QUESTION:
“Good afternoon. …[our court] is trying to find a Quiche interpreter for a pending criminal case. Quiche or K’iche is a Mayan language spoken in the central highlands of Guatemala. We’ve tried courts in major metropolitan areas, NAJIT, major universities, Language Line, and even the Guatemalan embassy in Washington, DC. I noticed in a Google search that a court in Louisville, Kentucky tried to find a Quiche interpreter in 2000 — not sure if they ever found one. There are also a few appellate cases out there that talk about exhausting all efforts to find a Quiche interpreter, so I know we’re not the first court in this situation. We even tried my brother, who happens to be a theology professor at Biola University, who happens to know Bible translators in obscure South and Central American dialects, which led us to a possible translator at a university in Texas, but now that seems to be falling through. We even priced a plane ticket from Guatemala to Sioux Falls ($697, much less that I thought), but we have no contacts there and the embassy could not offer any.”
“If anyone has any leads or suggestions on a Quiche interpreter, we’d be very grateful. “
Legal Risks of Uncontrolled Email and Web Content
A paper prepared by Hillel L. Parness, Professor, Columbia University Law School and Of Counsel, Lovells (New York) for MessageLabs (http://www.messagelabs.com) ; it includes the following sections: Introduction, The Risks, Harassment, Child Pornography, Defamation, 3rd Party Intellectual Property Rights, Contract Formation, Confidentiality, Dealing With Risks, and a Summary.
Introduction “Email is critical to many businesses; its ease of use, combined with the speed and scale of distribution, make it an invaluable business tool. Today, many businesses could not function without consistent and unfettered access to the Internet.
However, these same attributes can also cause severe difficulties for employers if employees’ use of email and the Internet is not controlled adequately. This short summary considers some of the risks that employers face. It is not a comprehensive study of the topic; therefore, detailed legal advice should always be sought in specific situations.”
News Alert: New Jersey Ends Capital Punishment and Commutes All Death Sentences
From the New Jersey Law Journal December 17, 2007.
N.J. Ends Capital Punishment, Commutes All Death Sentences
Michael Booth
Draft Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control and the AALL Official Response
View Letter from the Working Group – November 30, 2007 [PDF, 41 KB]
Read Draft Final Report of the Working Group [PDF, 315 KB]
The period for public comment on the report is open until December 15, 2007. Comments can be submitted via the Web site at http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/contact/. Electronic submission of comments is encouraged. Please note that public comments are a vital part of the Working Group’s deliberations and may be available for public access either online or in print.