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May 6, 2010
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, CIVIL PROCEDURE, CLASS ACTIONS, FAMILY LAW, GOVERNMENT LAW City of N.Y. v. Maul, No. 65 In an action concerning the alleged failures of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) to fulfill their statutory and regulatory duties with respect to certain children in ACS’s foster care system, the appellate division’s order affirming the trial court’s order certifying a class is affirmed where the appellate division identified four common allegations that transcended and predominated over any individual matters, which tended to establish a de facto policy followed by ACS of delaying the receipt of services as a result of its practices.

CIVIL RIGHTS, LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW Zakrzewska v. The New School, No. 62 In an action asserting claims for sexual harassment and retaliation under the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL), in which the Second Circuit certified to the Court of Appeals the question of whether the affirmative defense to employer liability articulated in Faragher v City of Boca Raton, 524 US 775 (1998) and Burlington Industries, Inc. v Ellerth, 524 US 742 (1998) applied to sexual harassment and retaliation claims under section 8-107 of the New York City Administrative Code, the court responded in the negative where subdivision 13 of section 8-107 of the NYCHRL created an interrelated set of provisions to govern an employer’s liability for an employee’s unlawful discriminatory conduct in the workplace, and this legislative scheme simply did not match up with the Faragher-Ellerth defense.
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May 3-7, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court, May 03, 2010 Renico v. Lett, No. 09–338 In a murder prosecution, a grant of petitioner’s habeas petition is reversed where it was reasonable for the Michigan Supreme Court to determine that the trial judge had exercised sound discretion in declaring a mistrial, and thus the state court’s decision was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under a proper application of the AEDPA’s deferential standard of review. .

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, May 03, 2010 US v. Guzman, No. 08-1693 Conviction and life sentence of defendant for his role in an arson that killed a mother and her infant daughter are affirmed where: 1) there was no error in the denial of defendant’s motion to suppress statements made to ATF agents; 2) there was no error in the court’s exclusion of hearsay statements offered by defendant and limits on cross-examination; 3) district court correctly found a jurisdictional nexus with interstate commerce; and 4) defendant was properly sentenced as the district court’s failure to explain the sentence was not plain error, correctly applied the sentencing guidelines and the life sentence was substantively reasonable.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, May 03, 2010 US v. Aranjo , No. 08-2307 Convictions of a former CEO of a federal credit union and her husband for conspiracy to embezzle and to make false entries, and other related crimes, are affirmed where: 1) the defendants’ Batson claims are rejected as district judge did not clearly err in accepting the proffered reasons with respect to the government’s peremptory challenge of an African-American juror; and 2) the husband’s remaining claims are rejected as sufficient evidence supported his convictions.
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To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw
May 3-7, 2010
U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, May 04, 2010 Estate of Oliva v. Dep’t of Law & Pub. Safety , No. 09-2082 In an action by the estate of a now deceased state trooper who committed suicide, claiming harassment by numerous individuals connected with the State Police for his objections to what he believed was a State Police practice to profile motorists when making traffic stops, a grant of summary judgment to defendants and denial of plaintiff’s leave to amend his complaint is affirmed as plaintiff is not entitled to relief as he has failed to establish that his section 1981, 1985(3) and other various statutory causes of action can be sustained according to their requirements or establish that the district court abused its discretion in denying him leave to amend his complaint. …

U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, May 06, 2010 Dique v. New Jersey State Police, No. 05-1159 In plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment claim for selective-enforcement, arising from his 1990 traffic stop that led to his conviction for drug related offenses which was vacated in 2002 on the ground that colorable issues of racial profiling existed at the time of the arrest, district court’s dismissal of the claim as time barred is affirmed where: 1) under Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007), in a case of selective-enforcement, it will no longer be required that the complainant have been convicted and have had that conviction reversed, expunged or invalidated, and the statute of limitations begins to run at the time the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process; and 2) plaintiff asserted his selective-enforcement claim over two years after July 2001, when his attorney became aware of the extensive documents describing the State’s pervasive selective enforcement practices, that plaintiff discovered, or by exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered that h! e might have a basis for an actionable claim. .

U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, May 06, 2010 Flanory v. Bonn , No. 09-1161 In a pro se prisoner’s section 1983 suit against various prison officials and others claiming violation of his Eighth Amendment right, dismissal of the complaint for failure to state a claim is reversed and remanded as plaintiff has made allegations which satisfy the objective and subjective components required for an Eighth Amendment violation as he has alleged that he was completely denied certain hygiene items and that he specifically was without toothpaste for a period of 337 days, and he also alleged that defendants were aware that he was without toothpaste and were deliberately indifferent to his hygiene needs.
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CRS Report No. R41222; 4/30/2010; Posted 5/7/2010 Author(s): Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist in American Public Law Subject(s): Criminal Justice; Law

No. of Pages: 9

Summary Zacarias Moussaoui, members of the Colombian drug cartels, members of organized crime, and some of the former Enron executives have at least one thing in common: they all have federal conspiracy convictions. The essence of conspiracy is an agreement of two or more persons to engage in some form of prohibited misconduct. The crime is complete upon agreement, although some statutes require prosecutors to show that at least one of the conspirators has taken some concrete step or committed some overt act in furtherance of the scheme. There are dozens of federal conspiracy statutes. One, 18 U.S.C. 371, outlaws conspiracy to commit some other federal crime. The others outlaw conspiracy to engage in various specific forms of proscribed conduct.General Section 371 conspiracies are punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years; drug trafficking, terrorist, and racketeering conspiracies all carry the same penalties as their underlying substantive offenses, and thus are punished more severely than are Section 371 conspiracies. All are subject to fines of not more than $250,000 (not more than $500,000 for organizations), most may serve as the basis for a restitution order, and some for a forfeiture order.

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The following is being posted as an urgent message at the request of a law librarian colleague :

As I am sure you know this year is on track to produce a budget disaster for libraries in New York City. The cuts currently proposed will result in massive layoffs and cuts in public service. A small group of library workers and concerned citizens has started a postcard campaign to highlight support for public libraries and ask the City Council to restore as much funding to library budgets as possible.

The idea is that we are going back to an old fashioned postcard writing campaign. Individuals are encouraged to write postcards in support of libraries and mail them to the offices of City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer. His office will collect the postcards and present them to the City Council, en masse as a sort of Miracle on 34th Street statement. Any postcards will do. We suggest being creative, but inexpensive postcards, ten for a dollar in Time Square, work great too.

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From: Fair Courts E-lert, May 7, 2010 Published by the Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law.

1. Show Me Better Courts, a Missouri organization seeking to replace the state’s merit selection of judges with contested judicial elections, claims to have raised $1.5 million “to gather petition signatures” to put the organization’s proposal for a constitutional amendment on the November ballot. In a conference call with reporters, director of the organization James Harris said he expected “another $2 million to $4 million will be spent on the fall campaign if enough signatures are valid.” Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts, “the group leading opposition to the measure,” and defending the so-called “Missouri Plan” has thus far raised approximately $268,000.

Dave Helling, The Battle Over Missouri’s Courts: A Million Dollar Bash, Kansas City Star, May 3, 2010.

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Jonathan Stock who along with others has been working tirelessly to save six threatened law libraries in Connecticut from closure due to financial constraints. Here is Jonathan’s latest report, received as an e-mail on May 6, 2010.:

The Connecticut General Assembly closed down last night. We now know that the bill, its substance merged with the 2011 Budget, passed. You will find herein as an attachment [ see download link below] the latest bulletin from the Judicial Office of External Affairs. We have saved at least three of the six threatened law libraries: Bridgeport, Litchfield, and Hartford. Depending on the Branch’s negotiations with the Department of Public Works, we may also get back the Willimantic Law Library as well as the Willimantic Courthouse.

The good news Jonathan writes about would not have occurred without his continuing, tireless efforts along with those of many other people and organizations such as the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), Southern New England Law libraries Association (SNELLA).

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NYLINK reports that on May 30, 2010 OCLC plans to discontinue access to the NetLibrary database on WorldCat.org, WorldCat Local and WorldCat Local “quick start” on May 30. This database of NetLibrary metadata was released in July 2009 to facilitate discovery of NetLibrary eBooks and eAudiobooks through WorldCat.org-based services. Discontinuation of the discrete NetLibrary database is a result of the March 2010 acquisition of NetLibrary by EBSCO Publishing. For more information, please see the NYLINK Status Line blog at http://nylink.org/SL/?p=1325&preview=true.

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