Law Librarian Blog

On the Twilight of the West Paradigm for Case Reporting

I think most law librarians will agree with William Mills' (New York Law School) propositions that (1) the foundation of trust that underpins case law reporting has been undermined because Internet case law sources, other than Lexis or Westlaw, appear with no strong guarantee of accuracy or authenticity, and (2) rebuilding a foundation of trust in our case law reporting system will not succeed by utilizing the technology of printed books. Those days are over; the dominant paradigm is no longer.

In The Decline and Fall of the Dominant Paradigm: Trustworthiness of Case Reports in the Digital Age, 53 New York Law School Law Review 917 (2008/09), Mills "chronicles the twilight of West’s paradigm [as a universally accepted framework for working with American case law]. It asserts that the West system has ceased to exert a dominant influence on case law research, and on the way that lawyers think about the law. ... The demise of the West paradigm can be attributed, in large measure, to factors that flow directly from the computerization of American law and the rise of the Internet. This essay identifies these factors, and explains how they have contributed to the demise of the paradigm." Highly recommended. [JH] 

Casemaker vs. Fastcase for Caselaw Research

Bob Ambrogi offers a head-to-head review of Casemaker and Fastcase in Law Technology News. He concludes that in terms of coverage of federal and state libraries and the relative strengths of their search tools, "neither stands out as significantly superior to the other. But in their intuitiveness and ease of use, Fastcase has the clear edge." [JH]

Bad Legal Research or Faulty Legal Ethics? Or does it matter...

Attorney General Eric Holder and the office of professional responsibility is investigating the use of harsh interrogation techniques authorized by the Senate Judiciary Committee based on advice provided by Attorneys Jay Bybee (now a judge for the 9th circuit) and John Woo (now a law professor at Boalt Hall School of Law), both formerly of the Office of Legal Counsel.  One of the main questions about the string of memos provided by the OLC is:  Did the DOJ lawyers provide biased views on the definition of the word torture (that did not include waterboarding as a form of torture), or did they leave out important primary law sources that did define "waterboarding" as a type of torture because they do not possess good research skills?  Of course, sloppy research skills can be considered a form of ethical malpractice too.

Nevertheless, I thought I would repeat some common paths I would recommend to students who ask me the legal definition of a word.  I adopted the skeptical position that perhaps these attorney's did not have benefit of good legal research instruction, and perhaps were operating as a 1L might.

Often, I consult the tried and true "Words and Phrases."  Waterboarding is not in the set, and under torture, there are no cases specifically identifying waterboarding.

Next, I tried Black's Law Dictionary.  Also, no results. So I tried the Oxford English Dictionary.  Though not a legal reference, the OED does carry much weight in the legal profession, so they might have used it!  But waterboarding does not appear there either.

Turning back to my law resources, I tried an ALLCASES search on Westlaw and a combined federal state case law database on Lexis to see if I can find case law defined waterboarding as a form of torture.  While there were some cases the discussed waterboarding as a CIA interrogation technique, it was not formally defined as a type of torture.  (I should point out that NPR did report that there was a 1983 Texas case that did define this action as torture.)

This probably leaves secondary sources to rely on, or international sources that interpret the Convention Against Torture.  Or, prehaps this is one of those "res ipsa loquitur" things... (VS)

2009 Edition of Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual Now Available

Ken Svengalis is every law librarian's best friend. While I buy Bowker's Law Books and Serials in Print once every ten years, I purchase Ken's Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual (Rhode Island LawPress) every year. I always look forward to reading Ken's analysis of legal publishing industry practices and pricing trends -- something AALL should be but isn't doing nearly as well as Ken.

The Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual is the best annual guide for law library collection development work available because of the detailed information provided for every listed title including historical pricing information for supplementation. In my opinion, The Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual is an excellent reference tool too. If you can't get the publication out of your director's or acquisition librarian's hands, reference librarians should insist on buying second copies of this publication for their reference book collection. [JH]

Here's a message from Ken Svengalis, Rhode Island LawPress:

I am pleased to announce the release of the 2009 (13th) edition of the "Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual."  It's the book Kevin Gerson, Director of the UCLA Law Library, recently described as "hands-down the most useful book on legal information ever written."

Under our current economic challenges, it has exactly the information your library needs to confront the rising costs of legal information.  Its genesis in 1996 was one law librarian's response to the challenges we faced then.  Those challenges have grown ever more urgent with each passing year. It contains, among other things, the most extensive annotated bibliography of the legal literature in print, and a buyer's guide useful to lawyers and librarians who are in either acquisition or cancellation mode.  Consider this:

Since the merger of Thomson and West in 1996, West's print supplementation costs have risen 304% (1995-2008), reflecting an average annual increase of at least 11.5%.  There was not the slightest diminution in the rate of increase for 2008, despite an economy which has brought law libraries from New Jersey to California to dire straights, and threats of closure in a number of states.  Moreover, the prices of most West Hornbooks were increased over the past year at rates exceeding anything in the history of that series (generally 35-45%).  These price increases have allowed West to achieve an industry-leading profit margin for 2008 of 32.1% on the backs of struggling law libraries.  Yet, ironically, West will want us to sit down with them at a variety of receptions, luncheons, and parties at the upcoming annual meeting and pretend that this is not happening.  The expense of hosting these functions represents an infinitesimal fraction of the profits they have made off struggling law libraries, most of whose librarians cannot afford to attend the annual meeting because their libraries are so strapped for funds.

In light of the current state of the economy and the perilous position of many law libraries across the country, the current cost and supplementation cost data will no doubt prove an invaluable resource to libraries.  Those of you who have been in the profession for many years will remember the former "FTC Guides for the Legal Publishing Industry."  Those guides required publishers to provide customers the last two years' supplementation costs in their promotional literature, a requirement that was often ignored.  With the demise of the FTC Guides, and the lack of an effective replacement, the availability of this supplementation cost data is virtually non-existent, unless one asks for it specifically.  This is where the "Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual" has stepped in to fill the breach.  After all, it's all about the supplementation.  West, for example, made 86% of its profits off supplementation in 2008 according to its 2008 annual report.  Getting a handle on supplementation costs is the primary way in which law libraries can confront these budgetary challenges.

We are now tracking the costs of more than 2,500 publications, including more than 1,700 legal treatises and hundreds of the leading state and federal publications.  The 2009 edition now includes supplementation costs as far back as 1993 and up to and including 2008.  The initial cost and supplementation costs for the years 2004-2008 are also featured in a 51-page spreadsheet in Appendix H, providing a convenient and time-saving means of conducting comparative product evaluations.  There are also reviews of more than 80 of the most significant new treatise titles published in 2008 and early 2009.  In addition to substantial new content, and a complete updating of all pricing data, the 2009 edition has also been substantially redesigned inside and out (see attached).

This is what the 1996 Thomson-West merger has wrought.  My 2009 edition has, among more than 80 others, a review of Gary Reback's new book "Free the Market" which provides a fascinating examination of the Thomson-West merger as well as expert analysis of the state of antitrust law in the United States from one of its leading practitioners.

Shipments to all standing order subscribers were made last week.  If you are uncertain if your library is on standing order, please e-mail us and we will confirm your status.

I also direct you to the PowerPoint of my presentation to the Association of Legal Administrators on May 19th in New Orleans. Go to: www.rilawpress.com.

We have responded to the current economy by pricing our 2009 edition the same as last year's edition--$149.00.  The 2009 "Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual" may be ordered on our web site (www.rilawpress.com), by email at rilawpress@comcast.net, or by calling our NEW order line  (860-535-0378).  We accept Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, or will invoice.  Additional copies shipped to the same address are only $130.00.  A companion CD-ROM is also priced at $149.00, or $80.00 when ordered in combination with the print edition.

Why Won't Bloomberg Discuss Its Citator?

Stymied by Bloomberg's relucance to discuss the Bloomberg Citator (BCIT) in preparation for what he hoped would be a detailed analysis of BCIT, Michael Robak (Univ. of Illinois Law) was forced to rely on product literature and his own use of BCIT for his AALL Spectrum article, The Bloomberg Citator: A first look at BLAW's citations function. In the article, Robak provides an overview of the features and functionality of BCIT -- helpful for those of us who have not seen BCIT but leaving the reader wanting a more systematic analysis. This, of course, is not Robak's fault.  

Robak concludes that "Bloomberg’s entry into the legal information market appears to be serious and a potentially major challenge to Thomson Reuters and Reed Elsevier. The BCIT product does appear to be an attempt to rethink/re-design the citator concept with an eye toward developing a tool that can quickly and easily provide action-specific information..." Will Bloomberg now talk to Robak so he can follow up this article with a more detailed analysis of BCIT? [JH]

Blind Taste Testing Search Engines

No patrons with quizzical looks on their faces approaching the reference desk? Nothing else to do? Then take a break and perform some "blind taste testing" search engine exercises using a couple of new resources Phil Bradley recently spotted: Blind Search, Bingandgoogle and Bingle. For more, see Bradley's Search engine comparisons post. [JH]

New Articles and Updated Research Guides on GlobaLex

Luxembourg: Description of the Legal System and Legal Research by Nicolas Henckes

REGARD SUR LE SYSTEME JURIDIQUE ET JUDICIAIRE DU NIGER par Bello Mahamadou Boubacar

Updated Research Guides

• Philippine Legal Research by Milagros Santos-Ong

• Researching the United Nations: Finding the Organization's Internal Resource Trails by Linda Tashbook

More articles on international, comparative, and foreign law research on GlobaLex. [JH]

Guide to Legal, Factual and Other Internet Sites

Legal, Factual and Other Internet Sites for Attorneys and Legal Professionals, 15 Rich. J.L. & Tech. 13 (2009), by Timothy Coggins, Associate Dean for Library & Information Services and Professor of Law, Univ. of Richmond School of Law, lists Internet sites for legal, factual, and general research for attorneys, law students, and law librarians. The list includes sites for primary authorities, both federal and state, as well as links to other types of information such as names of possible expert witnesses and biographical and background information about individuals. [JH]

New Property Tax Database

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the George Washington Institute of Public Policy have launched Significant Features of the Property Tax, an online database that presents data on the property tax in all 50 states. This new site provides data sets and links relating to the property tax and its role in state and local finance in all 50 states. The interface allows users to access property tax and data online in a variety of forms, including tables of the most frequently sought figures, a query system for creating new tables, and a downloadable database. 

A snip from the site:

The term “Significant Features” pays tribute to the work of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, which was established by Congress in 1959 to study the relationships among local, state, and national levels of government. Until its termination in 1996, ACIR provided a wealth of research on the functioning of the federal system, particularly through its flagship publication, Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism.

Hat tip to ResourceShelf. [JH]

Add OpenJurist to List of Free U.S. Case Law Websites

Well, I'm adding OpenJurist to my list -- news to me but I might be behind the curve because of the proliferation of free case law websites. OpenJurist's database currently has approximately 647,000 opinions from the United States Supreme Court beginning in 1754 when it was known as the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and Federal Appellate Courts beginning in 1880 from the First, Second and Third series of Federal Reporter. The database is tied to a Google search engine. Hat tip to Cleveland Marshall Law Library Blog. [JH]

Maybe Westlaw thinks Scalia was wrong, but…

On May 26, 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided Montejo v. Louisiana, which overruled the Court’s 1986 decision, Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625 (1986).  To be sure, Justice Scalia in his majority opinion in Montejo stated on page 21 of the slip opinion “Michigan v. Jackson should be and now is overruled.”  Also, on May 26, 2009, my colleague, William Gaskill, planned to use Michigan v. Jackson as a Shepard’s/Keycite example in his Legal Research Bootcamp course.  He sent his class an email asking them to determine whether Michigan v. Jackson was still good law by class that evening.  I opined that students’ answers would be different depending on the time of the day they verified the case.  I was wrong.  The next morning, William had informed me that according to Keycite, Michigan v. Jackson is still good law.
 
We’ve been keeping track of the case over the past two weeks and as of today at 3:30 p.m. EST, according to Westlaw, Michigan v. Jackson is still good law.  West did enter Montejo into its system, but someone must have read over Nino’s quote or maybe they just figured the majority was wrong.  In any event, I hope for sake of criminal lawyers everywhere that this will be remedied soon.
 
By the way, West, Shepard's picked up the change in Michigan’s status.

David C. Walker, Reference Librarian, Charleston School of Law

The Next Frontier of Search

Developers are entering the "next frontier of search" by trying to add structure to the mass of unstructured electronic data. Computational search engines like Wolfram Alpha and Google Squared aim to construct a database of factual information based on user search logic and present that data is some structured way, like "squares" akin to a spreadsheet display produced by Google Squared where rows of output represent attributes/characteristics related to the user's search terms.

Early reviews of both computation search engines are mixed and for a variety of reasons. Comparisons abound. See, e.g. Google Squared vs. Wolfram|Alpha … FIGHT! and What Is Google Squared? It Is How Google Will Crush Wolfram Alpha. Expectations are high, far higher I think than what these SEs can deliver. As information professionals, we must also be mindful of fundamental differences in their scope. Google Squared for example searches the Web while Wolfram Alpha's data is not drawn from the Web but from a database that is "curated" by Wolfram Research, meaning its data is drawn only from sources that are edited and checked. There is a huge difference between filtered and unfiltered data and search results will reflect this in addition to the differences in the algorithms used by Google Squared and Wolfram Alpha.

Law librarians have been testing Wolfram Alpha and Google Squared and rightly so -- it's what we are supposed to do. See, e.g., LLB's Early Reviews of WolframAlpha for Legal Research. Greg Lambert is the first (or at least one of the first) law librarians to write about a test drive of Google Squared for legal research purposes. See his Google Squared - Better Than Wolfram Alpha on Legal Searches? In my opinion, both computational search engines eventually will be tools law librarians turn to for factual research of legal documentation, like patent research (Greg's idea, not mine), but these tools will be additions to, not in lieu of, search engines we already use, and they probably will be more useful for business and scientific research than for legal research.

The Next Frontier of Search for Legal Research. I don't believe anyone in legal informatics is claiming otherwise about Wolfram Alpha and Google Squared but the point I want to make here is that the next frontier of search for legal research is replacing the aging search engines we current use regularly in LexisNexis and Westlaw and the only new search engine I have seen in recent years that offers the prospect of doing that is PreCYdent. Right now, the PreCYdent search engine is so closely and unfortunately associated with the free online legal research movement (see, e.g., Bob Ambrogi's Get Your Free Case Law on the Web and his earlier post, Sophisticated Search for Public Domain Law) that we tend to forget how innovative the PreCYdent algorithm is. That will change if/when LexisNexis or Westlaw admit that PreCYdent is better than their own search engines and license it.

It's time to replace the antiquated SEs in our fee-based online legal research services with ones that incorporate modern principles and techniques of information retrieval. Looks to me like a San Diego law prof and his team of software engineers have already accomplished this. For more, see Steven Robert Miller's PreCYdent: A New Search Engine Enters the Legal Research World and LLB's Law Prof as Toolmaker:  An Interview with PreCYdent’s Thomas A. Smith. [JH]

Researching Sotomayor

As we get closer to the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, many of us are being asked for more information about the first Hispanic nominee to the United States Supreme Court. We should give a shout out to Georgetown University Law School Library’s Libguide on Supreme Court nominations. Not only do they provides background links for Judge Sotomayor, they also give us information about past nomination procedures. It is a very thorough guide that organizes a lot of detail in an easy to use format.

You should also consult the Library of Congress web site on Judge Sotomayor. At the LOC site, there is an expanded list of free web sites that will be tracking her progress to Souther’s seat. They also have some brief Lexis statistics on her past caseload and instructions on how to access this information for free at the Second Circuit web site by using “sotomayor” as your keyword.

As a librarian, I am quite grateful that our nominee as a fairly unique name to search! However, not everyone knows how to spell it properly. A review of law journals shows that both her first and last name cause problems for writers. Sonia is sometimes misspelled as Sonya, and Sotomayor is sometimes misspelled as Sotomayer. If you are searching the journal databases for articles that mention her, you are advised to use universal characters to replace the ‘I’ in Sonia, and the last ‘O’ in Sotomayor.

Out of the many free web sites covering this nomination, I found SCOUTUSBLOG to be most helpful. They are providing an analysis of her decisions and dissents on a variety of topics. For example, the first posting was on May 15 thand includes a review of her decisions on abortion, civil rights, environmental law, first amendment, second amendment, and international law. Also on this posting, under the heading Privacy and Information, librarians might be interested in reading about her decisions on access to information and FOIA. The analysis continues with supplements on May 18th, May 19th, May 20th, May 21st (dissents), and May 28th(circuit court splits). In addition to the case analysis, SCOUTUSBLOG gives us information about this woman’s legal victories and personal achievements. By following the tag “nominations” you will pull up all the postings so far. An added bonus on SCOUTUSBLOG is the updated Press roll on the judge and the nomination process. This is helpful to follow the controversy that naysayers are causing in this process which include matters of race, judicial activism, and the Judge’s rate of reversal.

While there are many articles and broadcasts criticizing and praising Judge Sotomayor, I found her own words posted on YouTubeto be particularly compelling. It does not reveal a lot about her legal rulings, but tells you about the person. This seems to be a growing concern among anti-Sotomayor interests. Many of the objections raised by the anti-Sotomayor camp can be summarized by reading the blog posts from conservative groups like The Judicial Confirmation Network.

President Obama wants the confirmation process completed before the August 7 th Senate recess. The Legal Affairs page at National Public Radio has an interesting post on how the Senate GOP might successfully stall the hearings, among other articles and podcasts about the Judge. C-Span will undoubtedly broadcast the hearings when they do take place along with many other media outlets. It will be interesting to see how much analysis takes place during those hearings and the sort of indexing librarians undertake with respect to her testimony. [VS]

For related Sotomayor coverage on LLB, see,e.g., Sotomayor: The News Coverage Angle and Sotomayor: "Court of Appeals Is Where Policy Is Made" In Context (and More Important Resources Like SCOTUSblog's Summary of Sotomayor's Opinions).

Editor's Note: Please welcome Vicki Szymczak as an LLB Contributing Editor. Vicki is the  Library Director and Assistant Professor of Law at the Brooklyn Law School where she teaches courses in Advanced Legal Research and International and Foreign Law Research. Vicki's professional interests encompass the role technology plays in information literacy, library services, and legal education. Her research interests include defining output measurements for law libraries and the impact of open source initiatives on law library operations. Vicki is an active AALL member and currently serves as chair of the Association's Computing Services Special Interest Section. Today's post is the first of many I believe LLB readers will find informative and stimulating. Welcome aboard Vicki! -- Joe Hodnicki

ICC Legal Tools on International Criminal Law and Justice

The ICC's Office of the Prosecutor has developed the ICC Legal Tools website to serve as an electronic library on international criminal law and justice. The website contains comprise at present over 40,000 documents in several databases, together with four legal research and reference tools developed by lawyers with expertise in international criminal law and justice: the Case Matrix, the Elements Commentary, the Proceedings Commentary and the Means of Proof Document. Note the terms of use agreement. Hat tip to Slaw's Simon Fodden. [JH]

Guide to Criminal Justice Reform Resources

Ken Strutin, Director of Legal Information Services at the New York State Defenders Association and author of The Insider's Guide: Criminal Justice Resources on the Internet and ALI-ABA's Practice Checklist Manual on Representing Criminal Defendants has published Criminal Justice Reform Resources 2008-2009 on LLRX.com. The Guide focuses on select current reports, surveys, legislative proposals and scholarship in the areas of criminal justice, discovery, forensics, juvenile justice, prosecutorial misconduct, public defense, sentencing and wrongful conviction. [JH]

Early Reviews of WolframAlpha for Legal Research

Call it a fact search engine or a knowledge search engine, WolframAlpha is creating quite a buzz and rightly so. [Blog | Community] The recently launched computational search engine creates data sets from search results on the fly. The results are impressive. Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian, Jenkins Law Library, calls it his new favorite business search tool. But early reviews indicate WolframAlpha isn't ready for legal research, at least not yet. Legal Informatics Blog reports:

Currently, WolframAlpha seems unable to answer legal questions, whether they concern identifying primary law or applying law to facts.

Currently, WolframAlpha seems unable to answer most factual questions (even statistical questions) about U.S. courts or U.S. judges.

Search Examples. In a comment to a Legal Informatics Blog post, LLB Contributing Editor, Rob Richards reported that WolframAlpha could not answer four questions he put to the SE:

(1) What is the rule against perpetuities?
(2) What is the statute of frauds in the uniform commercial code?
(3) What is the statute of limitations for murder in Pennsylvania? and
(4) If I am a director of a Delaware corporation, can my liability for breach of duty of care be limited?

Greg Lambert received similar results to questions including:

(1) Number of lawsuits filed against Exxon
(2) Patents held by IBM
(3) General Counsel of Wal-Mart
(4) Chairman of Skadden Arps

On 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, Lambert writes, "in fairness, WolframAlpha is in its infancy and isn't claiming to be a legal research tool at all. No one should expect it to answer all of these questions right out of the box, but I'm hoping that it can develop and expand its data collection abilities to begin answering some of these types of questions. To me, the 'patents' question seems like something that can be integrated into the WolframAlpha database without much difficulty."

Patents, a great idea. Plus all sorts of topical litigation and compliance statistics generated by federal and state agencies and courts. Citation indexes? For more, follow the discussion of WolframAlpha & legal research on the Law Libraries and Librarians Ning Forum.

WolframAlpha Reviews. More generally, see Danny Sullivan's review, Impressive: The Wolfram Alpha “Fact Engine" and Read/Write Web's Wolfram Alpha in Action: Our Screenshots. The Berkman Center posted the below video of Stephen Wolfram's public demo of WolframAlpha. [JH]

Ambrogi Reviews 10 Free Sites for U.S. Case Law

Bob Ambrogi reviews the peculiar strengths and weaknesses of the following free case law sites:

1. Fastcase, www.fastcase.com and Casemaker, www.casemaker.us
2. FindACase, www.findacase.com
3. PreCYdent, www.precydent.com
4. The Public Library of Law, www.plol.org
5. AltLaw, www.altlaw.org
6. Justia, www.justia.com
7. FindLaw, www.findlaw.com
8. Public.Resource.Org, http://public.resource.org
9. LexisONE, www.lexisone.com
10. Legal Information Institute, www.law.cornell.edu

[JH]

What's Your Retainer Agreement Say About Online Research Billing Practices?

The National Law Journal is reporting that a lawsuit has been filed in California state court against Chadbourne & Parke for allegedly overcharging a client for online legal research costs. Waggoner v. Chadbourne & Parke, No. BC408693 (Los Angeles Co., Calif., Super. Ct.). Plaintiff's counsel, Patricia Meyer alleges that the firm pays a flat fee for online serves which should have resulted in a $5,000 bill for costs to her client instead of the $20,000 billed.

There's appears to be nothing wrong with cost-plus billing but the plaintiff, in this case, claims that it is a violation of California ethics rules to charge the higher amount without disclosing the arrangement. According to the National Law Journal interview with Meyer "that many similar lawsuits are in the pipeline, noting that she has amassed evidence that shows at least a dozen other law firms are overcharging clients for legal research, but not telling them." (emphasis added)

It's only "overcharging" if the online billing practice isn't disclosed and time spent performing research by attorneys and law librarians is usually treated as billable hours. Sounds like firms should review and, if necessary, revise their retainer agreements. [JH]

Access to Court Records in the UK and Europe

“[T]rans-European research on civil or criminal justice would appear to be impossible given” a lack of access to court records, and inconsistent regulation respecting that access, “in the various European member states,” argue Philip Leith and Maeve McDonagh in their new article, New Technology and Researchers’ Access to Court and Tribunal Information: The Need for European Analysis, 6 SCRIPTed 33 (2009). The authors call for a European-wide study of access to court records, in order to thoroughly document access barriers faced by researchers, and to develop a basis for policy recommendations.

In exploring this topic, the authors provide an enlightening discussion of the public/private status, physical/administrative accessibility, and regulation (particularly respecting article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU Data Protection Directive, the UK Data Protection Act 1998, the UK Freedom of Information Act, and cases and administrative materials interpreting them) of court documents in the UK and Europe.  For example, the authors observe that

“judgments from most European courts are copyright of the relevant government or agency. In the UK . . .  there is some dispute over whether the judge or Court Service owns the judgment, and frequently the only text version of a judgment is copyright of the privately employed court stenographer. [] Is, then, [UK and European] court based information public? Answered in toto, it certainly is not.” 

The article is of potential interest to those conducting research on UK or European law, librarians who assist them, those engaged in public policy work respecting access to court records, and those who build or administer digital law collections. [Robert Richards]

US Torture At Home and Abroad

The Torture Timeline. Foreign Policy has created the "ultimate guide to the Bush administration's journey to the dark side" by tracking Bush administration's memos, executive orders, and policy decisions pertaining to the use of torture on suspected terrorists.  The timeline shows the key relevant legal and military events and provides links to primary source material. 

AG Holder outlines a history of DOJ opinions on the CIA's detention and interrogation program in a letter to Senator Rockerfeller (April 17, 2009). See also the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on The Treatment Of Detainees In U.S. Custody.

Commentary & Analysis. Check out NPR's special series, Re-Examining Bush Era Interrogation Tactics and Jeff Jacoby's A Tortured Debate Over The "Torture Memos.

Public Opinion Poll: Detainee Treatment, Torture Memos, US Legal System. Rasmussen Reports reports on its poll covering the treatment of detainees and release of the torture memos. Findings include:

• Among all voters, 42% say terrorism suspects were tortured by the United States, but 37% disagree.

• Most Democrats (54%) and a plurality of unaffiliated voters (46%) believe the United States did torture terrorism suspects. Fifty-five percent (55%) of GOP voters do not believe torture was used.

• Thirty-seven percent (37%) of voters now believe the U.S. legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights when national security is at stake. But 21% say the legal system is too concerned about protecting national security. Thirty-three percent (33%) say the balance between the two is about right.

• Fifty-five percent (55%) of Republicans think the legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights at the expense of national security. Democrats and unaffiliated voters are more closely divided. A plurality of Democrats (44%) say the legal system’s current balance between individual rights and national security is about right.

[JH & RJ]