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November 21, 2005
Indianz.com is the Web Destination for American Indian Legal Developments
Editor's Note: Victoria A. Santana, Reference Librarian/Native American Resources, Oklahoma City University Law Library has been kind enough to share her expertise on native American legal research. Victoria was a tribal attorney for the Blackfeet tribe for many years. She teaches in Oklahoma City University School of Law's ALR course on several subjects including native American legal research.
Inspired by Mary Whisner’s description of her Cool Websites in the latest LAW LIBRARY JOURNAL, I want to share with you my favorite American Indian site, one that every law librarian should know about.
There will always be the need to consult research guides to deal with the often bewilderingly complex issues of American Indian law. But what you really need today is some way to keep up with the latest news, as this is a very active legal area. There is one website that is essential for finding the latest case or proposed legislation.
Indianz.com probably received its name as a play on the Indian slang expression “rez,” used as an abbreviation for “reservation.” Owned by the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, it is primarily a news aggregator, usually listing 20 or so items a day. The site also publishes two or three news articles of its own every day. Each article listed is summarized and a link is given to the entire article, including a username and password to enter that news site. One drawback is that the site is not updated on weekends or holidays.
The search feature is fairly well developed. It searches up to one year back. The results page then gives you the option of searching the archives back to the inception of the site in 1999. Boolean terms are supported. There are other features on the site like forums and specialty pages, even one for law (see link at bottom of home page), but these do not seem to be updated or used much. There is even an irregularly published gossip column called “In the Hoop,” modeled after the Washington Post’s “In the Loop” column.
The best feature for law librarians is that many of the articles contain links to the information described.. For example, the article summarizing the latest bombshell of an appellate decision in the long running Cobell case on Indian trust issues contains a link to the decision from the site of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit. At the end of the article there are also links to congressional statements and a proposed legislative settlement, a link to the plaintiffs proposed settlement principles, and links to the websites of the plaintiff, the defendant and relevant Indian organizations. There is also a long list of past articles on the case. The current legal document delivered up with background material- it doesn’t get any better than this!
- Victoria A. Santana, Reference Librarian/Native American Resources, Oklahoma City University Law Library
November 21, 2005 in Legal Research | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Kudos to Lee Peoples
Last week our contributing editor, Lee Peoples (Oklahoma City University Law Library) was guest blogger on Out of the Jungle. If you missed any of his posts there, here are the links:
Monday: Another Nail in the Coffin
Tuesday: Irrational Exuberance
Wednesday: Improving Research Skills
Thursday: Teaching in "Real" Courses
Friday: The Future of Teaching
I hope you take the time to review his posts.
Lee was very active last week. I have a backlog of posts sent to me last week by Lee. I promise to published them all this week.
November 21, 2005 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
LC's Thomas Gets a Face Lift
See the newly redesigned Thomas.
November 21, 2005 in Gov Docs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Editorializing Job Application Statements
In a Sunday editorial by the Washington Post about statements made by SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito in 1985 job application to then-Attorney General Edwin I. Meese. (blogged here) the Post writes:
Judge Alito was 35 when he wrote the memo, and his views may have changed in the succeeding two decades. Moreover, while the memo may shed light on his views of decisions by the courts headed by chief justices Earl Warren and Warren E. Burger, it does not reveal whether he would seek to overturn them now. Barely a dozen years after it came down, Roe v. Wade presented a different legal question in 1985 than it does now after the Supreme Court's subsequent decision reaffirming its central holding. It has now stood as good law for a generation. Many conservatives who opposed the Warren Court's revolution in criminal procedure or its reapportionment cases have since made an uneasy peace with them.
File under "Voice of Reason"
November 21, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Belated Happy Anniversary to LawSites
Bob Ambrogi's LawSites turned three years old Saturday. That's 30 years in blog-years. Congratulations!
November 21, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 20, 2005
Roundup of Law Professor Blogs Network Posts
Here is a sampling of recent posts:
Second Circuit Upholds Reverse Payments
In a case involving Tamoxifin, the Second Circuit held that a reverse payment as settlement in a patent infringement suit, while suspicious, did not violate the antitrust law under closer scrutiny. The decision now creates a 2-1 split ...
Ongoing Saga at Sovereign Bancorp
Posted by Bill Sjostrom Sovereign Bancorp, the nation’s third largest savings and loan, has been under attack from its biggest shareholder, Relational Investors, since last May. Relational is upset because it believes Sovereign’s stock is underperforming and blames this on...
Double Dummy Acquisition Structure
Posted by Bill Sjostrom Click here for a fairly detailed CFO.com article describing the horizontal double dummy acquisition structure. This structure is used to achieve favorable tax treatment for the shareholders of the target corporation. It was used in the...
The NYSE has settled with dissident members who objected to the price negotiated in the Exchange's merger with Archipelago. Article The parties agreed to hire an independent expert to appraise the value of the deal for Exchange members before...
Conglomerate, one of the leading blogs on business law, has an interesting posting on Chinese antitrust law here: http://www.theconglomerate.org/2005/11/antitrust_in_ch.html...
Chinese Law Prof Blog intermittently blocked again in China
I am sorry to announce that some users in China have again found this blog blocked. Another user reports that he can still access it, so apparently the blocking is not complete. As readers will know, this blog is not...
A Humorous Look at Law Review Offer and Acceptance
During the last round of law review submissions, my colleague Brannon Denning and I were musing about stressful the process was. Perhaps we were also reading too much legal theory and drinking too much coffee, but the angsty (and hopefully...
Need to bone up on the difference between Type I, Type II and Type III contract indemnity clauses? Click here for a blog post at May It Please the Court that gives the details on a recent California case which...
Looking for a good picture of a Red Owl store to illustrate Hoffman v. Red Owl Stores? Well, we don't have pictures of what Hoffman's store would have looked like, but the good folks at Squid’s Market have given...
The good folks at the Social Science Research Network are continuing their project to get previously published law review materials on the site to make them freely accessible. A recent and welcome addition is Toward a Prudential and Credibility-Centered...
Improving U.K. Insurance Contracts
Insurance contracting practices in Britain are inadequate, uncertain, and unacceptable, and the Financial Services Authority has launched a major effort to increase contract certainty -- practices that (it's hoped, at least) will allow companies and their insureds to better...
Ayres & Klass on Promissory Fraud
Oliver Wendell Holmes famously noted that there is no moral component to contract law; that a contract was a mere option either to perform what was promised or to pay damages for failing to do so. Some of the...
Lara Croft and the Temple of Insurance
With businesses subject to the ever-increasing risk of damages from “long-tailed risks” -- harms that can arise decades after the act that caused them -- it’s often important to figure out what insurance policies were in force in, say,...
When a seller puts a car up on an online auction site and announces it will take the highest bid for the car, is that on offer to sell, an invitation for bid, or an advance acceptance of the...
Holocaust Denier Arrested on Suspicion of Denying the Holocaust
David Irving was arrested in Austria for this crime....
From the DPIC: Pennsylvania man becomes 122nd person in U.S freed from death row New NC law allowing plea to life in prison to avoid death penalty results in sharp drop in death sentences Prosecutorial misconduct results in new trial...
New Article Spotlight: Vandy's King
Vandy CrimProf Nancy King has posted Judicial Oversight of Negotiated Sentences in a World of Bargained Punishment on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article examines parties' ability to circumvent consistency in sentencing by bargaining around the rules that structure...
Alabama CrimProf on Sexual Orientation's Exclusion from Hate Crime Legislation
From Al.com (Montgomery, Ala.): AP--The severe beating of a Montgomery man for allegedly making sexual advances toward another man is the latest example of why Alabama's hate crime law should include sexual orientation, the leader of a gay advocacy group...
Here's a page with the test of the Second Chance Act, and hearings about the act, which was designed to facilitate prisoner reentry. According to Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich: “This Legislation authorizes much needed assistance to state and local governments...
CrimProf Blog Spotlight: CUNY Law's Jeffrey Kirchmeier
This week the CrimProf Blog spotlights Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier of CUNY Law. Professor Kirchmeier teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Lawyering Seminar, and Death Penalty Law. He received his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University. Before joining the...
Business Groups Join ACLU and Criminal Defense Lawyers to Limit the USA Patriot Act
From Bloomberg: Even in Washington, this isn't a coalition you see every day. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, the nation's two largest business groups, have formed an alliance with the American Civil Liberties Union and...
Oped: Massachusetts needs Son of Sam Law
A killer of four in Springfield is auctioning off his paintings of Jesus. Although proceeds will go to a prison group, the Boston Herald does not want to take any chances that a prisoner will profit from crime....
From Law.com: Daily Business Review: Last month, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals chastised judges of the Southern District of Florida for completely hiding cases from public view by placing the cases on a secret...
On Monday the FBI published a report concluding that racial prejudice is the most prevalent motive underlying hate crimes. The number of racially-motivated hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2004 numbered 4,042, over half of the 7,649 total reported...
The Harvard Petrie-Flom Center Fellowship Program
The Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School Announces its 2006-2007 Fellowship Program for post-graduate and mid-career fellows. To ensure rich intellectual exchange and encourage the movement of top current and future scholars into issues of health care law and policy,...
HHS sponsors infomercial on Part D benefit
When: Saturday, November 19thand again onSunday, November 20th6:30 - 7:00 p.m. Easternon CNBCPaid program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health Human Services. Get info from HHS/CMS. But will it be reliable?...
Feds warn companies: stop marketing products as "health cures"
Federal officials on Monday warned companies in Palm Beach and Pembroke Pines to stop falsely claiming their dietary supplements and skin creams can prevent cancer and other diseases without scientific proof. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Federal...
Prof Kaplan (Illinois): Caution: New Medicare drug plan may cause headaches
From EurekaAlert: If many seniors are scratching their heads about the new Medicare prescription drug plan, so are the experts. A prescription for confusion is how Richard L. Kaplan, a professor of law at the University of Illinois, characterizes the...
House-Senate negotiators boost veterans funding, freeze education
Money for veterans health care would get a big boost, but federal aid for education would be frozen under bills emerging from House-Senate negotiations. A sprawling bill funding education, labor and health and human services programs remains in negotiations after...
Rosa Parks' Estate Triggers Battle
The estate of Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who refused give up her seat on the bus in 1955, is now embroiled in a battle. As reported in Jeffrey Zaslow, Rosa Parks's Death Stirs Up Bitter Feud >Over Her...
Earlier on this blog, I reported that several grams of James Doohan's (Scotty of Star Trek fame) ashes were going to be sent into space by Space Services Inc. in late 2005. The launch has been delayed. As reported in...
Putting Science into Fisheries Management
Science reported that Sen. Stevens introduced legislation to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act last week. Both the Pew Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy urged dramatic changes to address the failure of the Act to...
What's Next?: Post-Kyoto Climate Change Options
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is pleased to announce the release of a major new report outlining options and recommendations for advancing the international climate change effort post-2012. The report is from the Climate Dialogue at Pocantico, a...
Coverage for Uninsured Children
Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich signed a measure on Tuesday intended to allow all children in Illinois, including those in working-class and middle-class families, to obtain health insurance. National experts on health care said the new law, which will offer discounts...
Executives Seal Divorce Records
The nation's courts are getting hit with a growing number of requests to seal divorce records, but not by squabbling couples. Divorce lawyers say corporations -- along with the rich and powerful -- are increasingly asking judges to seal the...
Chinese Survey Says Homosexuals Better-Accepted, But Not For Child-Adoption Rights
A recent survey in China indicates that young people are more broad-minded about homosexuals as a group, with 75 percent of those polled accepting homosexual acquaintances, 37 percent among their friends and 21 percent among their relatives. However, few people...
State Trial Court Upholds Missouri Law Limiting Abortions
A new Missouri law that limits abortions is constitutional, a county judge ruled Thursday. Circuit Judge Charles Atwell also ordered an injunction that prohibits enforcement of the law pending a ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court. The law would expose...
Group Asks That Abortion Ban Not Be Taken Up By High Court
An advocacy group asked the United States Supreme Court on Friday to let stand a ruling by a Nebraska judge that the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional. The New York based Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the...
New York Family Court Judge Admonished For Abusing Contempt Power
The New York Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly admonished Family Court judge Richard S. Lawrence for holding a litigant in contempt for sighing, fidgeting and turning his back in his Nassau County Family Courtroom. The commission said that Lawrence had...
House Bill May Impact Child Support Enforcement
House Republican leaders secured a hard-fought victory early Thursday when they eked out passage of a $50 billion budget-cutting bill, but the broad measure must now be reconciled with a far more modest Senate version that largely steers clear of...
Survey Claims Happier Marriages When Couples >Between 23 and 27
A survey done for the National Fatherhood Initiative, which supports marriage and family values, says marrying late does not make for a happy union. The survey says while Americans are waiting longer to get married, the odds for a...
North Carolina Man Executed For 1990 Murder of Wife Who Threatened Divorce
A 67-year-old North Carolina immigrant who stabbed his wife to death with a screwdriver after she threatened divorce was executed by injection Friday after the governor rejected his children's plea for clemency. Elias Syriani was pronounced dead at 2:12 a.m...
North Carolina Man Executed For 1990 Murder of Wife Who Threatened Divorce
A 67-year-old North Carolina immigrant who stabbed his wife to death with a screwdriver after she threatened divorce was executed by injection Friday after the governor rejected his children's' plea for clemency. Elias Syriani was pronounced dead at 2:12 a.m....
Sailors Charged in New York Marriage Scam
Six American Navy crew members looking for quick and profitable marriages to illegal aliens face federal charges after being among 10 people caught in an FBI sting operation targeting the sham unions, prosecutors said. The six, assigned to the U.S.S....
Ontario May Bar Faith-Based Tribunals From Formally Settling Family Law Disputes
Ontario families may no longer be able to turn to a religious tribunal to settle disputes such as divorce and child custody cases if new legislation introduced Tuesday by Attorney General Michael Bryant becomes law. “When it comes to family...
Will Georgia Marriage Law Shield Pregnant Woman Who Eloped With 15-Year-Old Boy?
A pregnant 37-year-old Georgia woman who eloped with a 15-year-old boy was in jail on charges of child molestation, authorities said on Tuesday. Lisa Lynnette Clark was arrested last week in Hall County, Georgia a day after a judge married...
French Minister Says Polygamy To Blame For Riots
France’s employment minister on Tuesday fingered polygamy as one reason for the rioting in the country. Gérard Larcher said multiple marriages among immigrants was one reason for the racial discrimination which ethnic minorities faced in the job market. Overly...
Daughter, 40, To Receive Child Support
A Lexington County, South Carolina man must continue paying child support for his 40-year-old mentally disabled daughter, the State Supreme Court has ruled. The court heard arguments last month from a man who said a family court judge should have...
Juan Peron's Body To Get DNA Test In Paternity Case
An appeals court in Argentina has ruled that DNA be extracted from the corpse of former president Juan Peron to investigate a woman's claim that he is her biological father, a court official said. The order came in the 12-year-old...
The Cost of Nosocomial Infections in PA
Modern Healthcare's Daily Digest (requires free registration) reported Thursday that a new report set the extra health care costs of nosocomial infections in Pennsylvania hospitals at nearly $2 billion in 2004:Infections acquired in Pennsylvania hospitals resulted in extra charges of...
OIG Releases FY 2006 Work Plan
From Lew Lefko at Haynes and Boone, this important news: OIG has posted the Fiscal Year 2006 Work Plan. To access the new Work Plan go...
New Standards for Health Care Interpreters
If you do ethics (or other) consults in a multi-ethnic, multilingual environment, you know how crucial it is to have a great translator. But what makes a health care translator great? Here's an answer, courtesy of the Commonwealth Fund>:SummaryThe National...
Global Cervical Cancer Prevention
The New England Journal of Medicine has published an article about the ongoing effort to prevent cervical cancer: The Promise of Global Cervical Cancer Prevention NEJM, Volume 353:2101-2104 November 17, 2005 Number 20 JT...
Non-profit Hospital Financials
Here is an interesting article on the increased financial information that is being shared by NFP hospitals....
An El Paso Times article discussing ICE's extension of expedited removal policies to the entire southwest border -and particularly to El Paso - can be found here. The article does note some of the serious concerns raised by expedited removal...
DHS Press Release -- Effort to End Orantes Injunction
Here is the latest from the Department of Homeland Security on border enforcement. The Orantes litigation was a landmark case in which the federal government was found to have violated the rights of Salvadoran asylum-seekers by effectively denying them access...
Debate about the Need of a New Border Fence
The debate this week on http://ourlatinamerica.blogspot.com/2005/11/weekly-debate-should-us-construct-wall.html is on immigration and the border fence Congressman Duncan Hunter wants to build. Specifically the question posed by the blog is Should the US construct a wall to keep out immigrants? Many of the...
News Story on Immigration Judges
Adrianna Khoo adrianna@lawdragon.com is doing research on the best immigration court judges for a feature working on for a new legal publication, Lawdragon. She os seeking recommendations from xperienced immigration lawyers on any truly outstanding immigration court judges in any...
Oberweiss and Undocumented Workers
When wealthy dairy owner Jim Oberweis campaigned in last year's GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, he dramatized how tough he would get on undocumented immigrants by running an ad in which a helicopter circled over Soldier Field. So many...
African Americans and Immigrants
The Bar Area Immigrant Rights Coalition (BAIRC) in San Francisco is creating a popular education model to bridge African Americans and immigrant communities. The group is working with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Tex) on developing a model, casting immigrant rights as...
Immigration in Popular Culture
From the www.nbc.com website describing the November 15 episode of popular television show Law Order: MURDER OF SMUGGLING TRUCKER COULD BE LINKED TO BORDER PATROL GROUP -- When the owner of a big-rig trucking company is shot to death, Detectives...
Halliburton and the Rebuilding of New Orleans -- Abuse of Undocumented Immigrants?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/15/halliburton_katrina/ Roberto Lovato's story for www.salon.com is entitled Gulf Coast slaves Halliburton and its subcontractors hired hundreds of undocumented Latino workers to clean up after Katrina -- only to mistreat them and throw them out without pay. KJ...
Noveck on the Promise of Technology for Collective Action & Governance
Beth Simone Noveck is rapidly becoming known as one of the most innovative electronic democracy theorists. She is an Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy and the Democracy Design Workshop (http://dotank.nyls.edu) at the New...
Recent SSRN Reports on Internet Risk and Regulation
The Generative Internet by Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law School; Oxford UniversityHarvard Law Review, 2006 Abstract>:The power and flexibility of the Internet has ignited growth and innovation in information technology and in associated creative endeavors, its generativity soliciting contribution from varied...
John Giuffo profiles Judge Richard Posner in Judging Richard for the Columbia Journalism Review. In the article, Giuffo quotes a revealing statement Posner made about himself.I have exactly the same personality as my cat. I am cold, furtive, callous, snobbish>,...
How Long Should the Patriot Act's Extension Be?
The Patriot Act will expire December 31, 2005 if Congress does not agree on the Act's sunset provision. The House wants to extend the Act for another 10 years; the Senate for only four. The split-the-difference compromise, seven years, is...
An Opponent's Guide to Intelligent Design Advocacy Resources
Have you heard of the strange case of Richard Sternberg? NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty says >its probably the best-documented battle in the war between the vast majority of scientists and a tiny insurgency promoting intelligent design. Sternberg, an opponent of...
Lexis Butterworth Adopts BIALL Code of Ethics for Legal Publishers
Lexis Butterworths is the first publisher to adopt the BIALL ( British Irish Assoc of Law Libs) new code of ethics for legal publishers. Sean Hocking has the story. Sean Hocking, publisher of Practice Source, House Of Butter, and Law...
Ideas, Hofstra Law Review's "Back-to-the-Future" Feature
The Hofstra Law Review has an introduced a new feature called Ideas. Each Idea is a 3-to-10 page essay. Here's a couple of snips from the Introduction: To some degree, Internet blogs have begun to fill the need for short...
Law School Academic Support Blog
This time of year, the demands of the semester can begin to take a toll on students' emotional and physical well-being, and that toll can be especially great for first-year students. Professor Lawrence Krieger of Florida State University College...
For those of you involved in bar exam preparation, have you ever wondered about the putative standard for passing the bar? The standard is, allegedly, “minimum competence to practice law.” As states continue to raise their “cut scores” and lower...
Exam writing is different from first year legal writing because, while the usual 1L legal writing class teaches writing as a craft, exam writing is a skill. What does this mean? Legal writing for class is something that students have...
Are your students confused about their professors' expectations regarding exams? Are they tired of IRAC, or IREAC, or CREAC ... or any of the many other acronymic formulaic panaceatic magical templates for exam success? >Although it's impossible for me to...
The Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) has just announced it will once again, for the summer of 2006, be awarding summer research grants. The grants help legal writing professors spend the summer pursuing scholarship. In past years the grants...
Another Blogging First: Harvard Law School Has an Admissions Blog
Comments are flying through the blogosphere about Bob Woodward's late-in-the-game disclosure that he spoke with an unnamed official about Valerie Plame before Lewis Libby is supposed to have mentioned her to any reporter, and that Woodward, an assistant managing editor...
Judge Dismissed; Mishandled Case and Took Money For Making Pilot for Reality Series
We may not be seeing a reality series called Mobile Court any time soon. The judge who tested for it by filming a pilot episode in a strip club has been tossed off the bench by California's Commission on Judicial...
Blumm and Ritchie on the Rule of Capture
Michael C. Blumm and Lucus Ritchie (both of Lewis & Clark Law School) have posted The Pioneer Spirit and the Public Trust: The American Rule of Capture and State Ownership of Wildlife on SSRN. ...
How Blogs Make Google a Legitimate Legal Research Tool
Dan Solove has an amusing post up on some of the odd Google searches that have directed people to Concurring Opinions. I suspect that some of the oddities are the result of comment and trackback spam. Blogs tend to rank...
Busy and important sentencing day in the Eighth Circuit
The Eighth Circuit today continues its busy post-Booker ways: this official opinion page has nearly a dozen dispositions that include sentencing issues. The two published dispositions that appear to be most noteworthy are US v. Coyle, No. 04-1944 (8th Cir. Nov. 17, 2005) (available here) and US v. Saenz, No. 04-2673 (8th Cir. Nov. 17, 2005)…
New report on incarceration and crime
Via e-mail, I received notice of this interesting new report from The Sentencing Project, entitled Incarceration and Crime: A Complex Relationship. The e-mail states that the report "challenges the widely held misperception that the decline in crime rates since the 1990s resulted from an increasing reliance upon incarceration," and that the report …
Judge Gertner applies Sixth Amendment to restitution
Hall of Famer Massachusetts US District Judge Nancy Gertner issued another major ruling on Booker issues earlier this week with another decision in US v. Mueffelman, No. 01-CR-10387-NG (D. Mass. Nov. 14, 2005) (available here). In this iteration of Mueffelman, Judge Gertner breaks new ground with respect to the application of Blakely and Booker to orders of restitution…
Did Texas execute an innocent man?
The title of this post is the title of this front-page article in Sunday's Houston Chronicle. The article details that a "dozen years after his execution, a Houston Chronicle investigation suggests that [Ruben] Cantu, a former special-ed student who grew up in a tough
More signs of the capital times
In recent posts here and here, I have spotlighted signs that the American culture of the death penalty may be in the midst of a significant transformation. Around the web and blogosphere, there are additional interesting signs of the capital times…
More on a new death penalty culture
AAs detailed in this post last week, there are many signs that the American culture of the death penalty is in the midst of significant transformation. Along with this week's defeat of Massachusetts Governor Romney's foolproof death penalty bill adds to this story, consider this additional evidence…
A new argument for considering family circumstances at sentencing?
Thanks to this post at How Appealing, I see this news that the House of Representatives found time to pass this resolution expressing disagreement with a recent Ninth Circuit decision about parental rights. Catching my eye in the resolution was the bold statement that the rights of parents ought to be strengthened …
Another month of Booker stats from the USSC
Continuing what has become a monthly tradition, US Sentencing Commission's Booker webpage now has updated post-Booker sentencing data available at this link. The latest USSC post-Booker sentencing update includes all cases sentenced by close-of-business on November 1, 2005, and the cumulative data now cover almost 46,500 cases…
Busy Booker day in the First Circuit
Thanks to the always helpful Appellate Law & Procedure, I see that the First Circuit had a busy Booker day. From a quick scan of AL&P's posts on the three Booker rulings, which are here and here and here, it does not appear that the First Circuit broke any significant new ground. …
The joys of post-Booker review in the 8th Circuit
Along with the Seventh Circuit, the Eighth Circuit has been among the most active in exploring the dynamics of post-Booker appellate review. And today the Eighth Circuit has a bunch of sentencing rulings on this official opinion page that further fill out the review story. Two published dispositions of note are US v. Sanchez, …
This morning's papers bring a number of notable articles in the arena of the death penalty…
Tobin on Politics and Religion – Bad Bed Fellows?
We have extensively blogged (here, here, here, here, and here) the IRS's threatened revocation of the tax exemption of All Saints Episcopal Church because of an anti-war sermon delivered the Sunday before the 2004 Presidential election. The posts engendered an...
6th Circuit: Inspection by Property Tax Assessor Is Not a 4th Amendment Search
Interesting opinion today from the Sixth Circuit: Widgren v. Maple Grove Township, No. 04-2189 (6th Cir. 11/17/05), holding that a property assessor does not conduct a Fourth Amendment search by entering the curtilage for the tax purpose of naked-eye observations...
Bernie Black and I have posted a revised version of our forthcoming article, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. ___ (2006), on SSRN. Here is the abstract>:There are several methods for ranking the scholarly...
Raby & Raby on Substance vs. Form: The Taxpayer Catch-22
Burgess J.W. Raby William L. Raby >have published Substance vs. Form: The Taxpayer Catch-22, also available on the Tax Analysts web site as Doc 2005-23384, 2005 TNT 221-41. Here is the Introduction:The tax war pitting substance against form has...
Tax Prof Profile, New Professor Edition: Shari Motro
This week's Tax Prof Spotlight continues our series of profiles of folks starting their careers as tax professors at American law schools. We hope the profiles will help introduce our newest colleagues to the tax community. [If you are, or...
Barthold Named Acting Chief of Staff of Joint Tax Committee
Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) and Vice-Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced late Friday that Thomas Barthold, the current Deputy Chief of Staff for JCT, will be named Acting Chief of Staff, effective immediately upon George Yin’s...
Bagging a Charitable Deduction
Interesting article in the Washington Post: Loophole For Hunters Targeted; Senate Debates Curbing Tax Breaks on Trophies>:Big-game hunters will find it far more difficult and less lucrative to donate their extra trophy mounts and claim charitable tax deductions under new...
Johnson on IRS Settlement Initiative Creates a Perfect Environment for Tax Shelters
Calvin H. Johnson (Texas) has published IRS Settlement Initiative: A Perfect Environment for Tax Shelters, 109 Tax Notes 929 (Nov. 14, 2005), also available on the Tax Analysts' web site as Doc 2005-22783, 2005 TNT 219-36. Here is a...
Sitkoff & Schanzenbach on Perpetuities or Taxes: Explaining the Rise of the Perpetual Trust
Robert H. Sitkoff (Northwestern) Max M. Schanzenbach (Northwestern) have posted Perpetuities or Taxes: Explaining the Rise of the Perpetual Trust, 26 Cardozo L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2006), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: By abolishing the Rule Against Perpetuities, 21...
Tax Foundation Files Amicus Brief in DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno
The Tax Foundation has filed an amicus brief in support of the petioners in DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno (Nos. 04-1407, 04-1704 04-1724). Here is the executive summary: As a threshold matter, it is critical to examine whether any respondent has...
Bloomberg: U.S. House, Senate Split on Dividend Tax Cut, Oil Windfall Tax (Ryan J. Donmoyer):U.S. House and Senate panels have chosen divergent paths on a $70 billion tax cut for wealthy Americans, with the House seeking to renew investment tax...
WSJ Calls TaxProf Blog "A Must-Read Blog"
This morning's Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on blogs, What the In-Crowd Knows; From Hollywood to Wall Street, Our Guide to the Blogs Insiders Read to Stay Current: No self-respecting industry these days is without a must-read blog. Although...
Updated SSRN Rankings of Tax Faculty
SSRN has updated its new monthly rankings of 225 American and international law school faculties and 1,500 American law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN data base. Here is the new list (through...
Albany Shrinks Class Size, Increases Tuition to Improve Rankings
On Monday, we blogged Tax Prof William J. Quirk's proposal to move South Carolina into the U.S. News Top 50 by reducing both class size and tuition. Press reports explain Dean Thomas Guernsey's approach to improve Albany's ranking by reducing...
Willens on Application of the Section 302(c) Attribution Rules
Robert Willens (Managing Director, Lehman Brothers, >New York) has published Exceptions to the Application of the Attribution Rules: Few and Far Between, 109 Tax Notes 923 (Nov. 14, 2005), also available on the Tax Analysts web site as Doc...
Two recent court opinions of note in the tax shelter wars: United States v. Jeffrey Stein et al., No. S1 05 Crim. 0888 (LAK) (S.D.N.Y. 11/14/05) (denying bail to KPMG defendant Daniel Greenberg because of risk of flight) Acker v....
Westchester County Executive Talks About Proposed Wi-Fi Law
Westchester County (NY) Executive Andy Spano is responding to criticism to the proposed law that would require WIFI providers to install security on their networks to protect customer data. He responds to comments he has received and attempts to clear...
Sony is pulling all stock on XCP protected discs and exchanging them for non-protected discs. USA Today has a pretty good story on it in FAQ form. Other news outlets are covering the story, and coverage is so widespread that...
Canadian Mom Sued for Internet Defamation
Ontario, Canada, mom Louisette Lanteigne of Waterloo is being sued for 2 million dollars in a libel suit based on statements made on her web site. Lanteigne began to document code violations by developers doing construction in her neighborhood. She...
Google Searches Used as Evidence in Murder Trial
WRAL of the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina is reporting that prosecutors are using evidence searches made by Robert Petrick in their case against him for murdering his wife. The body of Jane Sutphen was found in May, 2003 in...
Corruption Indictment for Bribes to Obtain Reconstruction Work in Iraq
The New York Times reports that Philip Bloom has been charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, interstate transportation of stolen property, and conspiracy to launder money related to payments made to two coconspirators and their wives to obtain reconstruction contracts...
Will Woodward's Revelation Help Libby's Defense?
To say that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's revelation that he received information about Valerie Plame's status as a covert CIA agent came out of the blue would be an understatement. For I. Lewis Libby, the question is whether this...
The Mess in Michigan: Prosecutor Finds Extortion Allegation Credible, But Won't File Charges
An earlier post discussed the allegations by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox that Geoffrey Fieger, a prominent local attorney who has announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to oppose Cox in next year's election, tried to blackmail him...
D.C. Circuit Finds SEC Monetary Penalties Were Arbitrary and Capricious
In a market manipulation case, the D.C. Circuit held that the SEC had not established that a series of matched trades by the defendants were conducted with the requisite scienter for a Section 10(b)/Rule 10b-5 finding of market manipulation, and...
Abramoff Partner Charged with Conspiracy
Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay whose public relations firm worked closely with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is named in a criminal information of conspiracy to defraud Indian tribes that were Abramoff's clients by making secret payments to...
Targets Identified in Milberg Weiss Probe
A Los Angeles Times story about the government's ongoing investigation of possible kickbacks paid by plaintiff securities class action firm Milberg Weiss to lead plaintiffs in class actioncases notes that leading partners Melvyn Weiss and David Bershad, along with...
Connecticut Attorney Will Serve Five Years for Stealing From Estates
The Connecticut Chief State's Attorney announced that an attorney who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from estates for which she had been appointed the conservatrix by the probate court...
SEC Sues Former Patterson-UTI CFO for Embezzlement
Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc., the drilling rig company, announced earlier that an internal investigation had uncovered an embezzlement of up to $70 million from the company through bogus asset purchases. The company's CFO, Jody Nelson, had resigned just a week before...
Check out the Washington Post here this a.m. as we now add Bob Woodward to the mix as it seems he also knew of Plame's CIA identity. Mind you he won't tell us where he found out - an official...
Bail Denied to Accused in a White Collar Case
A key difference between white collar cases and many of the cases involving alleged street crimes is the treatment of the accused pre-trial. Where an accused in a street crime case may be denied bail, it is truly rare that...
Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog
Conservators Gone Bad -- Another Installment
Earlier on this blog, I reported on a series of articles published by the Los Angeles Times which exposes the abuses perpetrated by some conservators. A fourth and final article in this series has been released. See Robin Fields, Evelyn...
Robert Blake Found Liable for Wife's Death
A California jury by a 10-2 vote has determined that Robert Blake is civilly liable for the death of his wife which may trigger the California slayer statute. The jury pondered the issue for eight days and included in ...
Rosa Parks' Estate Triggers Battle
The estate of Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who refused give up her seat on the bus in 1955, is now embroiled in a battle. As reported in Jeffrey Zaslow, Rosa Parks's Death Stirs Up Bitter Feud Over Her...
Earlier on this blog, I reported that several grams of James Doohan's (Scotty of Star Trek fame) ashes were going to be sent into space by Space Services Inc. in late 2005. The launch has been delayed. As reported in...
Sex Discrimination & Harassment, Independent Contractors, and Macaws
Yesterday, the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion authored by Judge Frank Easterbrook in the employment discrimination case of Dunn v. Washington County Hospital. Dunn, a hospital nurse, alleged that a doctor harassed and discriminated against her. ...
DOL-BLS Reports Decline in Nonfatal Workplace Injuries/Illnesses
The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics released today a 2004 Report demonstrating the incidence rates, by industry, of nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses. The overall rate of injury and illness declined from 5.0 per 100 workers in 2003...
Delta Airlines will argue today at a hearing that a federal bankruptcy judge in New York should abrogate the airline's collective bargaining agreement with ALPA. If the parties don't settle, a ruling will be due in 30 days. The Department...
November 20, 2005 in New Publications | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
