Volume 14, No. 4. September 1, 2010 ISSN 1489-954X
Published and Distributed by the Office of Lesley Ellen Harris. 2010 is the 15TH year of publication of the LEH Newsletter. All back issues are archived at http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/202/300/copyright-a/
1. Studies, Legislation and Conventions
BY: Claire M Germain, Edward Cornell Law Librarian and Professor of Law Cornell University and Director, Dual Degree Programs, Paris & Berlin
Publishers Note:
Claire Germain is interested in all aspects of legal information, from rare books to digital libraries, and often writes on these topics, most recently “Digitizing the World’s Laws: Authentication and Preservation.” the topic of this posting. For several years she has been actively advocating for effective measures to bring about authentication and improved preservation of digital law locally, nationally, internationally, and globally.
In his August 31, 2010 New York Law Journal article, Court Rule Altered to Buttress E-Discovery; I-Filing Advances, Joel Stashenko discusses the amended Uniform Rules of Trial Courts of the State of New York as an effort to insure that lawyers keep “up to speed” regarding their clients’ records at the early stages of discovery. The amended rules were published August 18 and went into effect immediately, having been approved beforehand by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and the presiding justices of the four appellate division departments.
Much of this activity has been influenced by a New York court system report, Electronic Discovery in the State of New York, published in February 2010. The key recommendations of that Report includes: establishing an e-discovery work group; improving the preliminary conference; more e-discovery programs in Education and Training; more court attorney referees serving as e-discovery specialists, establishing an institutional presence at the Sedona Conference; and working harder to improve the quality of E-Discovery practice.
On the second front mentioned in Mr. Stashenko’s article, electronic filing of litigant papers is said to be proceeding in New York at a deliberative pace. While more than10,000 lawyers registered for New York’s electronic filing system in 2009, compared to only 300 in 2002, there is , as Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau has observed, “there is a long way to go: before e-filing and E-Discovery are required in all New York Courts. After 11 years of experimentation with electronic filing, New York has accorded permanent status to the effort and is now beginning to institute mandatory e-filing in limited areas.
To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw
August 16-20, 2010.
United States First Circuit, 08/17/2010
US v. Donath
Defendant’s appeal of his conviction for his participation in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine and other drugs and a below-guidelines sentence of 90-months’ imprisonment is dismissed as defendant’s waiver of his right to appeal his plea or sentence if it did not exceed 120 months as part of his plea agreement is enforceable and his argument that district court’s error in calculating his sentence by mischaracterizing his prior crimes constituted a miscarriage of justice is meritless.
United States First Circuit, 08/17/2010
Grant v. Warden, Maine State Prison
District court’s denial of defendant’s request for habeas relief from his murder conviction of his mother-in-law is affirmed where: 1) the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s (SJC) application of the general standard announced in Mosley to the particular facts of defendant’s case falls within the broad limits of reasonableness; and 2) regardless of whether the SJC described its analysis as a “totality of the circumstances” test or a four-factor test, its conclusion was not an unreasonable application of Mosley.
United States Second Circuit, 08/16/2010
Friedman v. Rehal
In a sexual abuse prosecution, the denial of petitioner’s habeas petition is affirmed where: 1) the fact that hypnosis may have been used to stimulate alleged victims’ memory recall and potentially induce false memories of abuse was a circumstance that would fit comfortably under the general understanding of impeachment evidence — evidence that “is offered to discredit a witness . . . to reduce the effectiveness of [her] testimony by bringing forth evidence which explains why the jury should not put faith in [her] or [her] testimony”; and 2) even if hypnosis evidence comes within Brady’s broader definition of exculpatory evidence, the petition would still have to be denied Continue reading
To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw
August 16-20, 2010.
United States Third Circuit, 08/18/2010
McCauley v. Univ. of the Virgin Islands
In plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against a university, its president and two other individuals arising from the university’s decision charging plaintiff with violating provisions of the Student Code of Conduct (Code) for his alleged harassment of an individual who had accused his friend of rape, claiming that various Code provisions violated the First Amendment, district court’s judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) district court’s dismissal of all claims against the university in holding that it was not a “person” for purposes of section 1983 is affirmed; 2) the two individuals, as employees of the university acting in their official capacities, were likewise not “persons” for purposes of section 1983; 3) adjudication of plaintiff’s as-applied challenge to Major Infraction Paragraph E was unnecessary because the district court had already concluded that the paragraph was facially unconstitutional; 4) district court’s dismissal of Paragrap h B for lack of an injury should be reversed and judgment should be entered in favor of the two employees because that paragraph has a limited, constitutional construction; and 5) Paragraphs H and R are unconstitutional infringements on students’ First Amendment right to free speech.
United States Sixth Circuit, 08/17/2010
McKenna v. Honsowetz
In plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against two police officers who responded to a 911 report that plaintiff was having a medical seizure and and thereafter allegedly violated his Fourth Amendment rights, district court’s denial of defendants’ motions for summary judgment based on qualified immunity and reduction of an award for pain and suffering from $275,000 to $10,000 are affirmed where: 1) whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity depends on whether they acted in a law-enforcement capacity or in an emergency-medical-response capacity when engaging in the conduct that plaintiff claimed violated the Fourth Amendment, and here, the view of the facts undoubtedly supports a finding that the officers acted in a law-enforcement capacity; 2) the record contained ample evidence to support the determination that the officers unreasonably searched the home and seized plaintiff; and 3) plaintiff’s appeal of the reduction in the award is denied as the Suprem e Court has clearly stated that a plaintiff cannot appeal a remittitur after he has accepted it. .
United States Sixth Circuit, 08/20/2010
Hussein v. City of Perrysburg
In homeowners’ suit against a city, a city inspector and other individuals in their official and personal capacities, claiming that defendants violated their procedural and substantive due process rights by ordering a construction worker to remove a temporary asphalt layer in their driveway, judgment of the district court is reversed and remanded where: 1) defendants are entitled to qualified immunity because state officials are permitted under the Constitution to inform citizens of the officials’ view that they are violating state or local law and state officials are also permitted to threaten litigation or prosecution if citizens do not agree to conform their actions to state or local law; and 2) defendant did not violate plaintiffs’ substantive due process rights as the asphalt driveway incident did not implicate specific constitutional guarantees.
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A new study of judicial independence from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School
Authored by James Sample, Adam Skaggs, Jonathan Blitzer, Linda Casey Edited by Charles Hall
Foreword by Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
David Badertscher
Introduction
In an August 6, 2010 posting on the AALL Washington Blawg, “As Talks Break Down, What is Next for Neutrality”, Emily Feldman discussed the implication of talks on network neutrality between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and stakeholders of network neutrality falling apart, or at least being sidetracked, as part of the fallout from the private proposal presented by Google and Verizon regarding the management and possibly financing of internet traffic. As Ms. Feldman correctly noted, network neutrality is a priority for the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) because law librarians “are providers, creators and users of digital information, and it is up to law libraries to ensure that everyone has equal access to the information they need”.Although librarians are special stakeholders in issues relating to the nature and the existence of network neutrality due to the nature of their mission, everyone in our society should have special concerns about the outcome of these discussions and debates because of the increasing perception of web based information as increasing in value as a service, and even perhaps as a commodity (or something like a commodity).
TITLE: JUSTICE BRENNAN
SUBTITLE: Liberal Champion AUTHORS: Seth Stern & Stephen Wermiel PUBLICATION DATE: October 4, 2010
PUBLISHER: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt PAGE COUNT: 688 pp.
Volume 3 Number 7 July 2010
July 2010
PROTECTING DATA CONTAINED IN COPIERS AND PRINTERS
Today we received a link to a slide presentation by Glenn Patton, Director of Wordcat Quality Management at OCLC on July 11 at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. We are sharing this information with you because these slides convey an important message regarding the urgency of establishing acceptable standards and developing techniques based on those standards for ensuring continued and improved access to structured data stored in various formats on web.2.0 and future versions as they evolve. .Topics covered include updates regarding the Connexion client, some discussion of the Virtual Internation Authority File (VIAF), and the ISO 27729 ISO Standard, International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI).
