Source: The following are excerpts from the February 28, 2007 issue of the Selfhelpsupport.com Newsletter:
NEW Announcements:
Pro Se Sessions offered at the Equal Justice Conference in (March 22-24, 2007)â€"if you are attending this conference, make sure you check out the variety of pro se sessions.
If you missed the Feb. 22nd webinar on "A Guide to Selfhelpsupport.org," the presentation has been posted and is now available for viewing. This guide provides a brief overview of the products and services offered through selfhelpsupport.org.NEW in the Library:Case for....documents--a just released series of 5 introduction sheets that make a case for self represented litigation innovation in 5 key areas: self help programs, courtroom support process programs, court-based forms and instruction programs, discrete task representation, and judicial education by the Self Representation Litigation Network.
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What's New at Selfhelpsupport.org
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New York Law Journal Decisions of Interest February 28, 2007
If you are already an online subscriber to this service you should be able to click on any of the links provided below, sign in, and access any of the decisions listed which interest you.
Click here to go to www.nylj.com
APPELLATE DIVISIONSECOND DEPARTMENTTortsLaw Allows Cause of Action for Injuries Infant Plaintiff Suffered While In Utero, Not Viable Outside Womb Leighton, appellants v. City of New York, respondents
NEW YORK COUNTYTortsDefendants Fail to Establish Entitlement to Judgment Of Whether Agent Made Negligent Misrepresentations Blumenthal-Levy v. Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy NEW YORK COUNTYBusiness LawConversion of New York Partnership to Delaware Limited Liability Company Not Permitted, Nullified Miller v. Ross BRONX COUNTYConsumer ProtectionCourt Finds Transfer of Over $500,000 Structured Settlement for $151,000 Not in Payee's Best Interest Matter of Structured Asset Funding LLC v. Taylor KINGS COUNTRYReal PropertyPetition Seeking Discharge of…
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Peter Drucker on Librarians
Source: Special Libraries & Information Service Group (SLIS) at http://www.slis.co.za/
"I love librarians and have been doing so since I was a young trainee, not yet 18, on my first job ... Librarians in a special library know what their customers need and often they know it much better that their customers in the organisation do. They can - and do - anticipate the customer's information needs. They can - and do - reach out to the customer and point him or her in the right information direction. They can - and do - know what new data is in their customer's field or sphere of interest." Peter Drucker (Information Outlook, 9(12):32) .
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Montana's Special Court for Mentally Ill is Up and Running
Source: Crime and Justice News, February 13, 2007.
"Montana's lone court specifically for mentally ill people accused of crimes is now in full operation in Missoula, after a startup that began with initial funding in 2003. Without the Missoula Mental Health Court, many of the defendants who pass through it would languish in jail, reports the Billings Gazette."
"The court works with prosecutors, defense attorneys and treatment agencies to help people accused of crimes that appear linked to mental illnesses. 'People noticed that drug treatment courts (for addicted offenders) were having positive results, so they began to look at other populations in the criminal justice system that were defined by very specific aspects of the offenders' lives,' said Theresa Conley, coordinator for Missoula's mental- health court. The goal is to divert nonviolent offenders with significant mental disorders into treatment programs rather than…
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New York Law Journal Decisions of Interest January 17, 2007
If you are already an online subscriber to this service you should be able to click on any of the links provided below, sign in, and access any of the decisions listed which interest you.
Click here to go to www.nylj.com
APPELLATE DIVISIONTHIRD DEPARTMENTJudgesTown Abused Powers in Adjusting Justice's Salary; Panel Notes Threat to Judicial Independence Matter of Kelch, appellant v. Town Board of the Town of Davenport, respondent
NEW YORK COUNTYCriminal PracticeIndictment Against BASE Jumper Dismissed; Conduct Did Not Rise to Level of Depraved Indifference People v. Jebb Corliss NEW YORK COUNTYConsumer ProtectionInfant Compromise Settlement Approved by Court; Counsel Sufficiently Followed Process for Approval Dominguez v. Reardon NEW YORK COUNTYLegal ProfessionClient Granted Summary Judgment on Liability For Attorney's Negligence in Underlying Action Tanger v. Ferrer KINGS COUNTYWorkers' CompensationWCL §11 Does Not Shield Employer From…
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More High Court Cases May Extend Sentencing "Shambles"
Source: Crime and Justice News, January 25, 2007.
"The Supreme Court's latest sentencing-law decision, this week's ruling that overturned a California law, is part of a high court 'war on sentencing has enraged the lower courts and left the law in a shambles," says Slate.com. In the 2000 case that got the series started, Apprendi v. New Jersey, the court suggested that the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of trial by jury means that a defendant can't be sentenced above the maximum specified in a statute unless a jury finds the facts that justify the increase. "
"In two cases to be argued next month, the Supreme Court will fill in more detail about how much discretion federal judges actually now have. Doug Berman, law professor and sentencing blogger, believes that both cases look like vehicles for additional change and leniency. In one, the defendant is a military veteran whose perjury crime looks more like a misunderstanding…
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New York Legislature: Weekly Activity Report 1/15-21/2007 - Corrections Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Judiciary Law, Penal Law
Source: New York Legislative Retrieval System (LRS) January 21, 2007.
Sorted by category:
Bill No.
A2190
Bacalles -- Requires non-indigent prisoners to bear the cost of medical care provided by the county or city of New York to such non-indigent prisoners while in prisonSUMM : Amd SS500-h, 500-n & 508, Cor L Requires non-indigent prisoners to bear the cost of medical care provided to them by the county or city of New York while such non-indigent prisoners are in prison. 01/16/07 referred to correction
LAW / CORRECTNSA2228
Lafayette (MS) -- Provides for the suspension of the driver's licenses of persons under 21 convicted of making graffitiSUMM : Amd S510, V & T L; amd S701, Cor L Authorizes the suspension of driver's licenses (and of vehicle registration) for between 6 months and 1 year where the holder, being under 21 years of age, is convicted of making graffiti or receives a youthful offender or other juvenile…
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New York Law Journal Decisions of Interest January 22, 2006
If you are already an online subscriber to this service you should be able to click on any of the links provided below, sign in, and access any of the decisions listed which interest you.
http://www.nylj.com
APPELLATE DIVISIONFIRST DEPARTMENTDamages Split Panel Upholds $15 Million Judgment Awarded Over Beating Death of Child Launders, plaintiff-respondent v. Steinberg, defendant-appellant NEW YORK COUNTYCriminal Practice Instrument Sufficiently Alleged Defendant Failed to Pay Subway Fare by 'Doubling Up' People v. Tammy Lang BRONX COUNTYCriminal Practice Police Not Obligated to Provide Attorney for Suspect In Investigatory Lineup; Suppression Denied People v. Carlos Santos KINGS COUNTYCriminal Practice Repugnancy Inapplicable to Grand Jury Votes; Defendant Denied Dismissal on Claim People v. Michael Lopez KINGS COUNTYFamily Law Omission of One Billing Statement Not 'Substantial Noncompliance'; Pendente Lite Awarded to Wife Harding v. Gilbert…
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ABA Opinion Editorial: Judicial Pay Crucial To Our Courts' Future
Source: American Bar Association, Division of Media Relations and Communication Sources.
Opinion: Judicial Pay Crucial to Our Courts' Future
By Karen J. Mathis
President, American Bar Association
On New Year's Day, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G.Roberts Jr. issued the annual report on the state of the judiciary. Justice Roberts considered one issue so urgent that he made it the sole topic of his remarks: the declining real pay of America's federal judges.
Since 1969, federal judges have been caught in a financial time warp, in which inflation has eroded their real earnings by nearly 25 percent. Where U.S. district judges once earned slightly more than law school deans-a fitting reflection of their responsibility and professional standing-they now are sometimes out-earned by first-year associate lawyers.
Americans have mixed feelings about public service. We want the best and most conscientious people…
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New U.S. State Department Policy Puts Internet Repressive Regimes on Notice
Source: Government Technology Executive News, January 2, 2006.
New State Dept. Policy Puts Internet Repressive Regimes on Notice"Plans to reintroduce the 'Global Online Freedom Act' to expand the government's efforts to promote free expression and a free flow of information on the Internet in every country."
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Why Baltimore Homicide Rate Still Among Nation's Highest
Source: Crime and Justice News, January 2, 2006.
"Despite a seeming revitalization of several neighborhoods, Baltimore's homicide rate remains among the nation's highest, reports the Baltimore Sun. Young black men with lengthy criminal histories - continue to be killed in large numbers by others with similar backgrounds, according to police homicide figures reviewed by The Sun. The number of annual killings but never went down to the 175 that ouotgoing Mayor Martin O'Malley, now Maryland governor-elect, promised would happen by 2002."
"Of the city's 274 victims last year, 82 percent had criminal records - the same as in 2005. David Kennedy of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice said the 'fundamentals' of crime in Baltimore have not changed for years. Baltimore uses a 'quality of life' strategy modeled after New York City's efforts, which…
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Technology: Solving The Issues of Name Recognition
Source: Editor's Pick, Ziff Davis Web Buyers Guide. December 19, 2006.
"Despite many remarkable advances made in other areas of business automation, automated processing and matching of personal names in databases has languished for decades without significant advances. There's a strong need to meet the challenges posed by large, multi-cultural databases in which both predictable and random name-spelling variations are present in a significant number of records. "READ THIS TECHNOLOGY BRIEF
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Four International Working Groups Announced for Digital Government Research
Source: Government Technology Executive News, December 18, 2006.
Four International Working Groups Announced for Digital Government ResearchMade possible through a $1 million grant to CTG from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Digital Research Program (DG) earlier this year
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U.S. Supreme Court OK's Button Photos of Victim In California Murder Trial
Source: Crime and Justice News, December 11, 2006
'Spectators at a California murder trial were free to wear buttons bearing a photo of the victim in front of the jury, the Supreme Court ruled today, reports the Associated Press. The result favored prosecutors who said the buttons were a harmless expression of grief by family members at the trial of Mathew Musladin. Musladin, who is serving a prison term of 32 years to live, had successfully challenged his conviction in the 1994 shooting death of his estranged wife's fiance."
"Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for six justices, said the buttons did not deny Musladin his right to a fair trial. The other three justices also concurred with the court's judgment, but did not join the opinion."
Associated Press/Washington Post
See opinion (Carey v. Musladin, No 05-785) at:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-785.ZO.html
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Possession of Prohibited Gun Parts Can Lead to Severe Punishment Under Federal Law
Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers often deal with cases involving firearms and handguns, and these types of cases come in a variety of shapes and sizes. This blog post is designed to address a few issues arising from possession of prohibited gun parts, including silencers, which is prohibited by 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d). 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d) makes it "unlawful for any person ... to receive or possess any firearm which is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record." A silencer is a type of firearm, according to 26 U.S.C. § 5845(a)(7), and is defined by 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(24) as "any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication." Defenses to violations of these laws based on a silencer being…
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Immigration roundup: Deportation facts and fears
As Grits prepares to moderate a panel tomorrow at UT-Austin's LBJ School on alternatives to pretrial immigration detention, several recent stories caught my eye that merit readers' attention.First, from the New York Times, see "Record number of foreigners were deported in 2011, officials say" (Sept. 7), which reported that "Immigration agents deported 391,953 foreign-born people during the 2011 fiscal year, the department’s Office of Immigration Statistics reported. They included more than 188,000 people who had been convicted of crimes in the United States — an “all-time high” for such deportations, the report found." What's more:In addition to formal deportations, last year Homeland Security Department agents expelled about 324,000 foreigners back to their countries without formal court proceedings, according to the report. Most were illegal immigrants who agreed to leave voluntarily after they were detained, rather than be removed by the…
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On the perils of reentry following solitary confinement and possible solutions
In FY 2011, the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee was told yesterday, 878 individuals who'd been locked up in administrative segregation (commonly referred to as "ad seg," which is Texas' version of solitary confinement) were released directly to the streets without parole supervision of any type after finishing out their full sentence. Most of these individuals left with $100 in their pocket and a bus voucher - usually to their county of conviction - without so much as a photo ID to help them begin the long, difficult path to reintegration into their home communities. Indeed, for mentally ill inmates in ad seg released after serving their full sentence, there is no continuity of care program to ensure they'll continue to receive medication once they're back in the free world. (Such a program exists for inmates released receiving HIV medications, but not for the mentally ill.)Another 469 individuals during FY 2011 were paroled directly from ad-seg, Department of Criminal…
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Austin police say photographers should stay 50-60 feet from arrests
Austin police are "working on guidelines" which would require "people filming the police to stay 50 to 60 feet away," reported the Austin Statesman, after the the second arrest this year of police accountability activist Anthony Bueheler for filming cops while they were arresting someone. In the latest incident, the activist was filming from 15-20 feet away, which seems plenty far enough to avoid any interference. He was arrested because the person being handcuffed and carted away yelled at the photographer to stop filming, allegedly causing an officer to "stumble."In an email to media received by Grits, and which she posted on her Austin Gonzo blog, Austin police accountability activist Debbie Russell posed a series of important questions, not the least of which is: "If random bystanders are 10' from a detainment, as they often are without ANY concern by LEOs, are they going to be arrested if officers are also planning to arrest a videographer 30' away? If not, why? How is …
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Anthony Graves: 'Solitary confinement dehumanizes us all,' creates 'culture of madness'
According to the New York Times, Texas exoneree Anthony Graves gave the most compelling testimony last week at a Congressional hearing on solitary confinement. The article opened:Solitary confinement “is inhumane and by its design it is driving men insane,” a former inmate who spent 18 years in prison in Texas, a decade of that time in isolation on death row before being exonerated, told a Senate panel in a hearing on Tuesday. “I lived behind a steel door that had two small slits in it, the space replaced with iron and wire, which was dirty and filthy,” said Anthony Graves, whose conviction for involvement in multiple murders was overturned in 2006. “I had no television, no telephone and most importantly, I had no physical contact with another human being.”The hearing, held before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, represents the first time lawmakers on Capitol Hill have taken up the issue of solitary confinement, a form of…
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Crime declines too big to attribute to police falsifying stats
Whenever it's mentioned on this blog that crime rates have declined for the past two decades, a slew of anonymous commenters show up who claim that crime is just as high as ever but police are intentionally underreporting their data, or else victims have been scared away by a phantom "stop snitching campaign." Grits certainly doesn't deny that occurs - in fact instances have been well documented in places like New York City and Dallas. (The HBO drama The Wire famously portrayed this phenomenon as a recurring theme at the Baltimore PD.) But some data - like murders - are difficult to fudge. And surveys of crime victims - which are frequently compared to reported crime data to estimate the extent of underreported crime - consistently show crime drops as substantial as the reported numbers.So I was interested to see via CrimProf blog this New York Times piece titled, "Crime report manipulation common among New York police, study finds" (June 28), which reported that "An anonymous…
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