Law Librarian Blog

Judge Reconsiders WikiLeaks

Judge White of WikiLeaks fame has thoughtfully reconsidered his earlier opinion, and decided that perhaps he got it wrong.  It takes a courageous soul to admit one's mistakes so publicly.  Wired has a copy of Friday's order and quotes from Friday's hearing:

From the outset, the judge seemed to agree with the media and rights groups. About 30 minutes into the hearing, White said the case concerned "very important issues" and "the court does not want to be a part of any order that is not constitutional."

The NYT has the story, too: 

In reversing himself at a hearing here on Friday, Judge White acknowledged that the bank’s request posed serious First Amendment questions and might constitute unjustified prior restraint. He also appeared visibly frustrated that technology might have outrun the law and that, as a result, the court might not be able to rein in information once it had been disclosed online.

“We live in an age,” Judge White said, “when people can do some good things and people can do some terrible things without accountability necessarily in a court of law.”

I imagine this isn't the end of the saga.  Previous LLB posts here.  [JJ]

Permanent Injunction issued against Wikileaks

LLB has previously brought a few documents to your attention, made available via wikileaks here and here.  On Friday, a federal judge ordered the site shut down, issuing a permanent injunction against the wiki at a Cayman Islands bank request.  But then, reconsidered and decided to let the wiki live, but only if it refrained from posting actual documents.  Time will tell how this pans out.

Read more about it here, here, here, and here.  [JJ]

Update: See also Time's A Coming Chill Over Internet Freedom? [JH]

Beware Kentucky Librarians

Kentucky librarians save the day with quick thinking and aggressive confrontations in this entertaining sentencing case from the Sixth Circuit.  While the opinion's author seems to be quite taken with the fact that the bed sheet used by the would-be rare book robbers to carry out their nefarious plan was pink, the story is riveting (by judicial opinion standards).  Here's an excerpt:

[A librarian] caught up to them in a stairwell where they were attempting to open the emergency exit and, surprised by her arrival and aggressive confrontation, they dropped several objects — specifically, the two remaining volumes of the Birds of North America four-volume set (they had left two volumes atop the pink bed sheet in the Special Collections Department) and the two volumes of the Quadrupeds three-volume set (one of the three volumes had been left behind, tuck in its drawer in the Special Collections Department). Lipka and Borsuk fled through the emergency door carrying five objects (Hortus Sanitatis, the 20 pencil drawings, Synopsis of the Birds of North America, Origin of Species, and Illuminated Manuscript), with Ms. Brown and other librarians in hot pursuit. Lipka and Borsuk scrambled into the waiting van and Allen sped away, though not before Ms. Brown had scratched the van with a key in an attempt to mark it for later identification. Once the robbers had escaped, the police were called, but before the police could document the crime scene, some librarians collected the discarded objects and returned them to their proper places.

Bully for them! For future reference, the value of books never removed from their primary home (in this case, the rare book room) are not "taken" and so are not to be considered in sentencing calculations, whereas the value of books removed from the rare book room but later abandoned (even within the same building) are "taken" and should be be considered.  Indeed.

[JJ]

Should Precedential Rulings Be Designated Per Curiam?

In Per Curiam Opinions: What's the Point?, Howard J. Bashman criticizes the practice of  precedential rulings that are designated as per curiam.  Hat tip to Adjunct Law Prof Blog. [JH]

NLRB Rules on Employee Use of Email

What rights do employees have to use their employer's email systems for concerted activities? Essential none according to the NLRB in the Board's The Register Guard, 351 NLRB No. 70 (2007) ruling. For details, see Adjunct Law Prof Blog's NLRB Issues Major Decision On Employee Use of E-Mail post. See also Adjunct Law Prof Blog's More on Register Guard NLRB E-Mail Decision (NLRB is an aging agency that has not kept up with the modern workforce.). [JH]

Sentencing, Sentencing, Sentencing

Once again OSU law professor Douglas Berman is illustrating how blogging can be "scholarship in action." On his blog, Sentencing Law & Policy, Berman is providing comprehensive coverage of the Supreme Court's Kimbrough and Gall rulings, and the US Sentencing Commission's decision to give retroactive effect to the Commission's recent amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that reduces penalties for crack cocaine offenses. In addition to providing source materials and media reaction, including law blog coverage, Berman's analytical posts on these very important developments in sentencing law and policy are must-reads.

Sentencing Law & Policy is the web destination for this area of criminal law. It's the place to go to for research and reference questions. [JH]

Same-Day Audio in Supreme Court Detainee Cases

The full story from law.com:

C-SPAN announced Monday that Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has approved its request for same-day release of the audio of Supreme Court oral arguments set for Dec. 5 in Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States. The cases, testing the habeas corpus rights of Guantanamo detainees, were deemed of sufficient public interest to warrant same-day release, rather than the traditional schedule of releasing oral argument recordings to the National Archives at the end of each Court term.

[JJ]

Dworkin on the Roberts Court: The worst is yet to come.

In The Supreme Court Phalanx, New York Revew of Books (September 27, 2007), Ronald Dworkin writes

[A] series of odd decisions covertly overruling important precedents [last term] is part of a strategy to create the right conditions for overruling them explicitly later. [In his Senate confirmation hearings,] Roberts was careful to qualify his promise to senators not to overrule precedents by allowing that he might have to reconsider a precedent when its "doctrinal bases...had been eroded by subsequent developments." He has not been a judge for long; his main training and experience is as a litigator, and the strategy I describe is familiar to that craft.

Skilled corporate litigators think ahead like pool players: they argue for their clients on narrow grounds hoping for incremental victories that turn into much bigger ones later. Perhaps Roberts will keep his word and try in future years to build a new consensus that more faithfully reflects the Court's traditions. But I suspect that his Senate testimony was actually a coded script for the continuing subversion of the American constitution. The worst is yet to come.

Supremes Snipe at Each Other in End-of-Term Opinions

CNN's Bill Mears observes that "with justices rushing to finish business in time for summer recess, the luxury of polite, modest jurisprudence often gives way to bare-knuckle rhetoric, preserving for history the evidence of a divided court." Read more about it. [JH]

Student Loses "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" Case

Apparently the Supremes have no sense of humor. Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a concurring opinion. Alito, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Kennedy, J., joined. Breyer, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter and Ginsburg, JJ., joined.

Here's the opinion in MORSE et al. v. FREDERICK, No. 06-276, decided June 25, 2007. [JH]

First Instance of a Digital Video File Cited in Supreme Court Opinion

Kathy Carlson, State Law Librarian, Wyoming State Law Library, has spotted what may be the first digital video file cited in a US Supreme Court opinion. In Scott v. Harris, No. 05-1631 (April 30, 2007), Justice Scalia, writing for the Court in footnote 5, refers to a video that was used in evidence.

"JUSTICE STEVENS suggests that our reaction to the videotape is somehow idiosyncratic, and seems to believe we are misrepresenting its contents. See post, at 4 (dissenting opinion) ("In sum, the factual statements by the Court of Appeals quoted by the Court . . . were entirely accurate"). We are happy to allow the videotape to speak for itself. See Record 36, Exh. A, available at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/video/scott_v_harris.rmvb and in Clerk of Court's case file."

The video is posted on the Court's website. Kathy reports that Lexis is relying on the URL from the Court and have not put the digital file in their own database. Westlaw is doing the same. [JH]

Borgmann on Gonzales v. Carhart

Over on the Law Professor Blogs Network's Reproductive Rights Prof Blog, CUNY law prof Caitlin Borgmann has been covering the Supreme Court's Gonzales v. Carhart decision. Her work is another fine example of law blogging as "scholarship in action." Check out Borgmann's posts. [JH]

Commentary on Gonzales v. Carhart

Check out New Justices, New Rules: The Supreme Court Upholds the Federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 by Joanna Grossman and Linda McClain on Findlaw. [JH]

Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Accounts for Majority of Death Penalty Appeals Victories in 6th Circuit

In the second report of its capital punishment series, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that more death sentences are overturned by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit because of mistakes made by defense than for any other reason. The analysis found that ineffective assistance cases accounted for 54 percent of all appeals won in death penalty cases in the 6th Circuit. Read more about it at Fatal Mistakes, Cincinnati Enquirer (April 16, 2006). See also yesterday's post about the Cincinnati Enquirer's first report: Death Penalty Appeals Rulings in 6th Circuit Straddle Party Lines. [JH]

Death Penalty Appeals Rulings in 6th Circuit Straddle Party Lines

A Cincinnati Enquirer study of death penalty appeals decisions in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals finds that judges appointed by Republicans vote to deny death penalty appeals 85 percent of the time, while those appointed by Democrats vote for to grant at least some portion of those appeals 75 percent of the time. Read The Politics of Life and Death, Cincinnati Enquirer (April 15, 2007). [JH]

From the article:

Presidential Appointments	For Appeal	Against Appeal	Percentage
By Jimmy Carter	31	4	88.6%
By Ronald Reagan	13	39	25%
By George H.W. Bush	4	50	7.4%
By Bill Clinton	75	32	70.1%
By George W. Bush	5	34	12.8%

Media Reaction to SCOTUS Greenhouse Gases Ruling

In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 05-1120 (April 2, 2007) the Supreme Court told the EPA that it has the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The Christian Science Monitor writes, "in clearly acknowledging the existence of global warming, [the Court] essentially warned the EPA that it darn well better use its authority or have a very good reason not to." Today's edition of the Christian Science Monitor surveys media reaction to the decision. Check it out. [JH]

SCOTUS Justices Are of an Opinion, but Not Often

Interesting article from the Washington Post:

"When Justice Antonin Scalia met with members of a Northern Virginia business organization in December, he told them about an important case the Supreme Court had recently heard and then teased them a little.  "I know how that one comes out, but I'm not going to tell you," he said.  They're still in the dark. And so are a lot of others, as the court is off to a slower-than-usual pace in issuing opinions. The justices have issued 23 decisions so far, a bit behind last year's pace. Of course, at this point, they've also heard fewer cases than last year."  [RJ]

Court Holds Software Was Practicing Law Without a License

A web-based "expert system" that helped users prepare bankruptcy filings for a fee made too many decisions to be considered a clerical tool, an appeals court said, ruling that the software was effectively practicing law without a license. Maybe the software app should take (a) some online law school classes and/or (b) the bar exam.

Wired has the story and here's the 9th Circuit opinion (pdf). Hat tip to Lee Peoples. [JH]

Ninth Circuit Holds Right to Appeal Thwarted by Prison Librarian

In Phillips v. Hust, ___ F.3d ___, 2007 WL 446593 (9th Cir. 2007) the Court ruled that the arbitrary denial by prison officials of access to materials the prison routinely made available to inmates for the preparation of legal documents constitutes a denial of an inmate's right of access to the courts where it results in the loss of a legal claim. At issue was the use of a comb-binding machine needed by the plaintiff to bind a brief. Evidence in the record shows that the prisoner was arbitrarily refused use of the machine by the prison librarian. Download the opinion (pdf).

Hat tip to Kim Ositis, Reference Librarian, King County Law Library. [JH]

U.S. Court Uphold "Orphan Works" Law

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision to dismiss Kahle v. Gonzales, which argued that legal changes made in the 1990s had vastly extended copyright protections at the expense of free speech rights. The court rejected the argument made by the Internet Archive that copyright protection of orphan works, or books and other media that are no longer in print should be rolled back. [RJ]

Access To Gov't Info Is "Human Right", Inter-American Court Rules

Interesting article from Editor and Publisher:

"For the first time ever, an international court has declared that access to government information is a human right.

Ruling in a case brought by three Chilean environmental activists, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared that a "right of general access" to government-held information is protected by Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights. Article 13 deals with freedom of thought and expression."  [RJ]

Huge IPO Case Hits Big Snag at 2nd Circuit

From the American Lawyer:

"A federal appeals court vacated class certification in six key cases in the massive litigation over dot-com era initial public offerings -- a potentially devastating setback for plaintiffs in the biggest consolidated securities class action in U.S. history.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals leaves in doubt whether plaintiffs will ever be able to certify a class against IPO underwriters in the more than 300 cases that make up In Re IPO Securities Litigation. It may also help to unravel a pending $1 billion settlement agreement reached between IPO issuers and the plaintiffs, lawyers involved in the case say."  [RJ]

Court sides with alleged 'vacation' spammer

Interesting report from CNet News: "Precedent-setting decision says travel agency that sent repeated cruise-vacation e-mails is protected by federal Can-Spam Act." Check out the report and the opinion. [RJ]

Law on ‘Terror Finances’ Ruled Unconstitutional

From the Center for Constitutional Rights:

"CCR succeeded in having two key provisions of a Bush administration anti-terrorism initiative ruled unconstitutional. Los Angeles U.S. District Court Judge Audrey Collins ruled in Humanitarian Law Project v. Department of Treasury that the law, an Executive Order issued shortly after 9/11 and used to blacklist hundreds of individuals and organizations as “specially designated global terrorists” and freeze their assets, is unconstitutionally vague and imposes guilt by association."  [RJ]

Ohio Supreme Court Announces New Case Tracking Capability Through Its Web Site

New from the Ohio Supreme Court:

"To access the Court's Case Activity Notification Service, simply subscribe to the case tracking system through the Court's Web site (www.supremecourtofohio.gov/rss/subscription) using an e-mail address and creating a password. Searching is simple – by case name, case number or more generally by the year the case was filed.

Once subscribers have identified the case they want to track, they choose whether to be notified of any case activity, such as a new filing, through e-mail or RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary), or both."  [RJ]

Federal Judge Rules US Currency Discriminates Against Blind

In American Council for the Blind v. Sec’y of the Treasury, a federal judge ruled that "the Treasury Department’s failure to design and issue paper currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired individuals violates section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act." Read more about it at JURIST. [JH]

Court Rules No Financial Aid for Students With Any Drug Conviction

The U.S. District Court has upheld a law that automatically strips financial aid from any colege student with any drug conviction - including misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

Check out Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) page for court records. [RJ]

Same-sex Marriage OKed by New Jersey Supreme Court

New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled (opinion from Findlaw) Wednesday that same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual couples. [RJ]

U.S. Court Order Could Boost Spam By 50 Billion Daily

Interesting article from Information Week:

"A U.S. District Court judge ordered anti-spam organization Spamhaus to pay $11.7 million in damages against an e-mail marketing company. The U.K.-based Spamhaus said the U.S. court had no jurisdiction, and ignored it. Now, anti-spam advocates worry that the judge might order ICANN to eliminate the Spamhaus domain."

[RJ]

Class Action Status Granted To Smokers of "Light" Cigarettes

In SCHWAB V. PHILIP MORRIS USA, ET AL., a federal judge grants smokers of 'light' cigarettes class action status against tobacco companies, concluding "that the scale tips heavily...in favor of allowing a jury rather than a judge to decide the case." Here's the Findlaw collection of pleadings and memoranda. [JH]

NSA Eavesdropping Program Ruled Unconstitutional

A slam dunk for free speech, privacy, and separation of powers. Text of opinion (pdf) [JH]

US Court of Appeals Cites Blog at Length

From the California Appellate Report Blog: "Pretty interesting when a fairly substantial portion of your dissent entails a block quote from a blawg. As Judge O'Scannlain — joined by four others — does here."

Here's the quote:

A respected First Amendment scholar notes that the panel majority’s decision constitutes

a dangerous retreat from our tradition that the First Amendment is viewpoint-neutral. It’s an opening to a First Amendment limited by rights to be free from offensive viewpoints. It’s a tool for suppression of one side of public debates (about same-sex marriage, about Islam, quite likely about illegal immigration, and more) while the other side remains constitutionally protected and even encouraged by the government.

Eugene Volokh, Sorry, Your Viewpoint Is Excluded from First Amendment Protection, April 20, 2006, http://volokh.com/posts/1145577196.shtml.

[RJ]

Cooley Law School v. ABA

From the 6th Circuit Opinion:

"The dispute centers on Cooley’s attempts to begin two satellite programs – one at Oakland University in Rochester (“Oakland campus”) and one in Grand Rapids (“Grand Rapids campus”). Cooley claims that the ABA denied Cooley due process in failing to accredit the two proposed satellites and in imposing sanctions on Cooley for operating the satellites without ABA prior acquiescence. The district court denied these claims and granted judgment to the defendants. As we find that the ABA afforded Cooley all due process in making its rulings, we affirm."

[RJ]

Journalism Prof Wins Defamation Suit Against Blog Hosting Service in China

Blogcn.com, one of China's largest blog hosting services, received a judgment against it of 1,000 yuan (US$125) in damages plus was ordered to publish a formal apology on its website for allowing a defamatory blog post to remain online. The plaintiff is Chen Tangfa, an associate professor at Nanjing University's School of Journalism. The blogger is one of the prof's former student. The statement:

"Chen Tangfa is indeed an uncouth person. I can see this from his book. He wrote the worst textbook."

Professor Chen Tangfa decided not to sue his former student. Rather he sued Blogcn.com for failing to supervise its online content after the Company refused to delete the post. Blogcn.com argued unsuccessfully that it had no right to remove it. Xinhua summarizes the Journalism Prof's reaction to his victory in court:

"the case shows that personnel dignity overweighs freedom of speech, and it provides a significant example that bloggers can be controlled by law."

"K007," Chen Tangfa's former student, disagrees with holding the blog hosting company responsible. He voluntarily removed the post, explaining "it's my own responsibility to wipe out the comments not the responsibility of Blogcn.com." After the ruling, Blogcn.com announced that it will remove comments it deems slanderous or defamatory upon receipt of reader complaints.

Hat tip to Chinese Law Prof Blog editor, Donald C. Clarke (George Washington), for calling this ruling to the attention of the subscribers of CHINALAW list.

Editor's Note: Please email me a copy of the opinion if you have one or if you know where I can obtain a digital copy of one. Translation not necessary but helpful. Thanks. [JH]

Trial Exhibits in US v. Moussaoui Now Online

1,195 of the 1,202 exhibits admitted into evidence during the trial of U.S. v. Moussaoui have been posted online. Descriptions of the exhibits are the same as those provided by the parties to the jury in the parties' exhibit indexes. Explanations of certain exhibits noted [in brackets] are provided by the court to the public. Some exhibits include images or sounds which may be disturbing to some individuals. The explanations of these exhibits include the warnings "Viewer discretion is advised" or "Listener discretion is advised."

Releasing virtually all exhibits in a criminal case by a federal court probably has never been done before. Check it out. [JH]

Hamdan: Supreme Court Rejects Military Tribunals as Illegal

In a 5-3 decision, the Court ruled that military tribunals did not have the authority to try Hamdan because "its structure and procedures violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949." Four Justices also conclude that the offense with which Hamdan has been charged is not an “offens[e] that by . . . the law of war may be tried by military commissions.”

Read more about it at NY Time, Washington Post, and SCOTUSblog. Hat tip to Ron Jones.

File under "the pendulum is swinging back to the rule of law." [JH]

Leading Criminologist to Justice Scalia: You turned my research completely on its head.

In the Hudson ruling, Justice Scalia argues that the judiciary need not enforce the knock and announce rule because there are safeguards in place within the law enforcement community to take care of the problem. Scalia writes:

Another development over the past half-century that deters civil-rights violations is the increasing professionalism of police forces, including a new emphasis on internal police discipline. Even as long ago as 1980 we felt it proper to "assume" that unlawful police behavior would "be dealt with appropriately" by the authorities, United States v. Payner, 447 U. S. 727, 733-734, n. 5 (1980), but we now have increasing evidence that police forces across the United States take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously. There have been "wide-ranging reforms in the education, training, and supervision of police officers." S. Walker, Taming the System: The Control of Discretion in Criminal Justice 1950-1990, p. 51 (1993).

In an interview with Radley Balko, published in The Agitator, Criminology Prof. Sam Walker (UN-Omaha), who serves on the Panel on Policing of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, states "Scalia turned my research completely on its head. My point was that these reforms came about because the courts, specifically the Warren Court, forced the police to institute better procedures with judicial oversight. Scalia now wants to take that oversight away."

Picking up on Professor Walker's concern, Ed Brayton, Dispatches From the Culture Wars, observes the following:

The irony of this is that Scalia, by his own declaration a textualist and an originalist, would be the first one to criticize reliance on social science research to justify a court ruling. Yet not only does he use such research to justify his ruling here, he does so sloppily and inaccurately. If he did not agree with the outcome of the decision, if it was written by someone other than him using the same reasoning for a goal he didn't agree with, Scalia would be the first one out front blistering this decision as exactly the kind of unprincipled, undisciplined judicial reasoning that one would expect from those horrible liberals who ignore sound judicial interpretation in favor of injecting their own social science driven biases into the law.

Note to Scalia's law clerks: You might want to read Professor Walker's works before copying and pasting from it. Professor Walker is the author of 13 books on policing, criminal justice history and policy, and civil liberties. His current research involves police accountability, focusing primarily on citizen oversight of the police and police Early Warning (EW) systems and includes such works as The New World of Police Accountability (2005), Police Accountability: The Role of Citizen Oversight (2000) and Citizen Review Resource Manual (1985). [JH]

Immigration Law Trumps Probable Cause

The Washington Post blogger Andrew Cohen is commenting on a very controversial ruling in Turkmen v. Ashcroft, the first and largest of several class actions brought by  Muslim immigrants held after 9/11.

U.S. District Judge John Gleeson ruled that, under US immigration law, the federal government can round up and detain noncitizens "of a particular country" or race or religion so long as their "eventual removal" was "reasonably foreseeable."  The court did allow the class action to proceed on its claims that the the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. As Andrew Cohen summarizes "You can round them up based solely upon the color of their skin, this ruling says, but you have to treat them well once you have them in custody."

See also Nine Bernstein, Judge Rules That U.S. Has Broad Powers to Detain Noncitizens Indefinitely, Washington Post, June 15, 2006.

Appeals Court Sides With FCC Over Internet-Phone Wiretapping

From the NYT:

"In a 2-to-1 decision, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a Federal Communications Commission directive treating such companies the same as conventional phone companies for law enforcement purposes. Comcast and other cable companies offer Internet service over their networks, and Vonage is the biggest provider of Web-based phone service."

Click here for the opinion.

[RJ]

Bloggers Are Entitled to Benefits Of California Shield Law

A California appellate court has held that the "John Doe" bloggers in the Apple Computer case may avail themselves of the same protections as traditional journalists under the California shield law. Read the opinion. Hat tip to Media Law Prof Blog. [JH]

Federal Court Finds Air Force Engages in a Pattern or Practice of Violating the FOIA

Kudos to the National Security Archive. On Wednesday, a federal court granted partial summary judgment to the National Security Archive finding that the Air Force has violated the Freedom of Information Act and has engaged in a pattern or practice of violating the FOIA. 

From the press release:

In a suit brought by the Archive in March 2005, seeking to compel responses to 82 FOIA requests that had been pending between one and eighteen years, the court ordered the Air Force to provide the Archive with detailed information regarding each requested record and its FOIA processing, resolve each request with immediacy of attention and result, notify all agencies to which it has referred requests that it is operating under court order, and appear in court to discuss how to achieve results.

Judging By His Handwriting

Very funny story from the Smoking Gun:

"It seems that there is a serious penmanship problem with lawyers filing documents in Mississippi's Eighth Circuit Court. So much so that the presiding judge there issued an order warning attorneys that the court clerk would now reject pleadings and motions containing illegible signatures. The judicial order, filed February 3, will be enforced by clerks in four Mississippi counties: Leake, Neshoba, Newton, and Scott. Now here's the funny part: We defy you to make out the signature of the judge who issued the handwriting order."

Check out the order...and some other funny filings.

Ron Jones, University of Cincinnati Law Library

Maryland Judiciary Offers Internet Case Search of Court Records

The Maryland Judiciary announced earlier this month that public Internet access to information from case records maintained by the Maryland Judiciary is now available.

Source: Press Release

Supreme Court Upholds Solomon Amendment

Read  Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, 04-1152 (March 6, 2006)(unanimous)(opinion by C.J. Roberts) PDF HTML

Mark Giangrande, DePaul University Law Library

Oral Argument in Cuno Today

The Supreme Court hears oral argument today in Cuno v. DaimlerChrysler, Inc., 386 F.3d 738 (6th Cir. 2004), cert. granted, Nos. 04-1704 & 04-1724.  The case involves the constitutionality of Ohio's investment tax credit (as well as the procedural question of Respondents' standing).

For links to news accounts and court documents, see Cincinnati Law Prof Paul Caron's TaxProf Blog.

Tax Court Rejects Turbo Tax Defense

Garbage in, garbage out. TaxProf Blog has the details.

Court Rules Airline Passengers Must Show ID When Asked

The Ninth Circuit ruled yesterday that airlines and the U.S. government have the right to keep passengers from boarding planes if they refuse to show personal IDs. The suit involved John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who was refused boarding on flights by Southwest and United when he wouldn't show an ID. He sued complaining that the ID requirement was unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit said it was.

Now that this is settled, let's get back to being paranoid about the government's warrantless surveillance of phones and Internet search tracking.

Mark Giangrande