Criminal Law Library Blog

State Advocacy Strategies: The New York Story

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:51:06 -0500

Included below are my introductory remarks delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries on July 23, 2012 as part Program E-1 State Advocacy Strategies: Learning to Connect, Grow and Survive. The material below includes only my introductory remarks and a series of slides (see link below) not included as AALL handouts. See added explanation below.

David Badertscher

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
My role is to discuss briefly library advocacy and strategies with a primary focus on those trial court libraries included within the New York State Unified Court System which have been formally designated as Public Access Law Libraries. When first approached about making this presentation I contacted some colleagues still working in the System for their recommendations as to how I should best proceed. All agreed that in view of the complexity of the New York Court structure I should first provide some historical context to help clarify issues mentioned in the ensuing discussion. I do this by first presenting a quick overview using a historic timeline related primarily to court libraries before continuing with a discussion of advocacy issues and ending with some general observations all incorporated into a series of power point slides prepared specifically for this purpose.

Since these slides were not included in my electronic handouts sent to American Association of Law Libraries and are therefore not otherwise accessible as part of my formal presentation I am posting them here after consultation with AALL personnel at the Annual Meeting. For my complete presentation, including commentaries you will neet to contact the American Association of Law Libraries.at 312-939-4764 or aallhq@aall.org.

Links to Slides:

NY Slide Presentation as PDF

NY Slide Presentation as Powerpoint

The Jury Expert Has a New Look

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:53:13 -0500

The people at The Jury Expert are excited about moving to a new platrorm, Wordpress, where they can incorporate a new look and possibly some new features as well. Below is their e-mail announcing the change and providing links so you can see for yourselves. Take a look:

The e-mail:

We are too excited to wait until our next issue to get this announcement out! The Jury Expert has moved to a WordPress platform and we are ready for our close-up. We invite you to visit and see how much easier it is to find what you're looking for on our new site. One of the benefits of our new platform is we can use categories (see the right-hand side of the webpage for the category drop-down menu) to help you find what you need.

Want witness preparation? Visit our witness preparation category and find everything we've published from basic how-to's, to the implications of the Cendant ruling, or to preparing tough witnesses like narcissists. http://www.thejuryexpert.com/category/witness-preparation/

Want voir dire? We have everything in our voir dire category from best practices for paper and pencil organization to cognitive organization strategies or to the new iPad apps. http://www.thejuryexpert.com/category/voire-dire-and-jury-selection/

Want technology? Visit our technology and visual evidence categories for everything from forensic animations to the iPad to RSS to persuasive ways you can use visuals to communicate your message. http://www.thejuryexpert.com/category/technology/ or http://www.thejuryexpert.com/category/visual-evidence/

Want the latest on bias, gender, race, the internet? You know where to go. We have categories on all those topics and more. http://www.thejuryexpert.com/category/bias/ or http://www.thejuryexpert.com/category/gender/ or http://www.thejuryexpert.com/category/internet-social-media/

Visit us now at http://www.thejuryexpert.com/. We are still sprucing things up and uploading images but we are 95% of the way done and wanted to share it with you now. We'll have to bring the comments over bit by bit so don't worry, they will definitely be back but they are not in place now.

Visit. Read. Admire the work of our designer and programmer. And marvel at the fact that with The Jury Expert, you can improve your day-to-day practice without increasing your overhead. It's the gift of litigation advocacy from the American Society of Trial Consultants to all of you.

We publish our March/April issue the end of this month with pieces on the 'nerd' defense that made so many headlines in late February (i.e., put glasses on your criminal defendant and the jury will acquit); ADD jurors; questions about Powerpoint presentations in an article called "Beyond Bulletpoints"; new ideas to address social media's presence in the deliberation room; two new pieces on voir dire; online jury research; and a new video review of dueling iPad jury selection apps. You won't want to miss it!

In the meantime, bookmark our new address (http://www.thejuryexpert.com) and come visit!

Findlaw Case Summaries: Criminal Law and Procedure March 21-25, 2011

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:34:49 -0500

To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw

March 21-25, 2011.

United States First Circuit, 03/22/2011
US v. Werra, No. 09-1593
Conviction and sentencing of defendant is reversed because stop-and-frisk conducted on him after law enforcement officers forced their way into a house occupied by a group of unrelated individuals to execute an arrest warrant violated the Fourth Amendment rights of defendant, where he was not the subject of the warrant.

United States Fourth Circuit, 03/25/2011
US v. Masciandaro, No. 09-4839
Conviction and sentencing of defendant for carrying or possessing a loaded handgun in a motor vehicle, under 36 C.F.R. section 2.4(b), is affirmed where the general federal savings statute, 1 U.S.C. Section 109, denies defendants an automatic entitlement to the benefit of post-arrest changes in the law.

United States Ninth Circuit, 03/21/2011
Smith v. Almada, No. 09-55334
In an appeals arising out of the arrest and trial of the appellant for arson, summary judgment in favor of the appellee is affirmed where failure to disclose evidence during criminal trial did not prejudice appellant.

Findlaw Case Summaries: Constitutional Law March 21-25, 2011

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:21:26 -0500

To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw

March 25, 2011.

United States First Circuit, 03/24/2011
Decotiis v. Whittemore, No. 10-1242
In a First Amendment dispute involving allegations of retaliation through adverse employment action, Rule 12(b)(6) dismissals by district court is affirmed in part and vacated in part where plaintiff failed to make a constitutional claim against all defendants.

United States Third Circuit, 03/21/2011
Tri-M Group v. Sharp, No. 10-2365
In a dormant commerce clause challenge to a state regulatory scheme for the training and compensation of apprentices on construction projects, summary judgment in favor of plaintiff is affirmed where refusal to recognize out-of-state registered apprentices facially discriminated against out-of-state contractors without advancing a legitimate state interest.

United States Ninth Circuit, 03/22/2011
Young v. Honolulu, No. 09-16034
In a constitutional dispute on whether a city repeal ordinace violated the Contracts Clause of the United States Constitution, summary judgment is affirmed where ordinance did not breach any of preexisting contractual obligation.

United States Ninth Circuit, 03/22/2011
Hunt v. Los Angeles, No. 09-55750
In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 dispute challenging the constitutionality of several city ordinances aimed at preventing vending on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, judgment by district court is affirmed in part and remanded in part where court did not abuse discretion but improperly failed to address one of the challenges in the first instance. .

United States Ninth Circuit, 03/25/2011
Stewart and Jasper Orchards v. Salazar, No. 10-15192
District court judgment that application of Sections 7 and 9 of the Endangered Species Act to the California delta smelt does not violate the Commerce Clause is affirmed. ..

Findlaw Case Summaries: New York Court of Appeals

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:07:33 -0500

To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw

March 25, 2011.

Civil Procedure, Labor & Employment Law
In the Matter of Madeline Acosta, No. 36
In a dispute over the scope of Correction Law Section 75, dismissal by trial court is modified and affirmed because defendant acted arbitrarily in denying application for security clearance by petitioner where it failed to comply with the requirements of the Correction Law.

Civil Procedure, Intellectual Property, Copyright
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. v. American Buddha, No. 7
In a question involving the scope of long-arm jurisdiction under CPLR 302 (a)(3)(ii) as applied to a federal copyright infringement action, the situs of injury for purposes of determining long-arm jurisdiction is the location of the copyright holder.

Criminal Law & Procedure, Sentencing
The People v. Cornell, No. 119 SSM 61
Conviction and plea of defendant are vacated in the absence of a postallocution motion where the record is unclear that at the time defendant entered his plea, he was aware that the terms of his sentence included a period of postrelease supervision.

Civil Procedure, Health Law, Injury & Tort Law
Goldenberg v. Westchester County Health Care Corp., No. 50
In a a special proceeding on a notice of a late claim for medical malpractice against defendant, judgment of dismissal by trial court is affirmed where ultimate complaint dramatically differed, substantively and materially, from the proposed complaint which the plaintiff filed in the prior, special proceeding.

Government Law, Property Law & Real Estate
In the Matter of Mercedes Casado, No. 32
In a challenge to the validity of two orders of the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) making a distinction between low-rent apartments in which there has been no recent vacancy and other apartments, allowing larger rent increases for the former, judgment of trial court is reversed where the RGB has the power to make such distinction.

Criminal Law & Procedure, Sentencing
The People v. Beasley, No. 53
Conviction and sentencing of defendant for possession of a controlled substance in the second degree and other, lesser offenses is upheld where ground for appeal was not properly preserved at trial.

Criminal Law & Procedure, Sentencing
The People v. Kelly, No. 58
Conviction and sentencing of defendant for robbery in the first degree and burglary in the first degree are upheld where a brief, momentary separation of a juror from deliberations was not the type of violation contemplated by the continuously kept together language of CPL 310.10.

Criminal Law & Procedure, Sentencing, Evidence
The People v. Rodriguez, No. 44
Conviction and sentencing of defendant on charges of manslaughter is upheld where a justification charge was not warranted under the particular facts and circumstances of the case, but warranted on less serious offenses.

Book Review: The Fears Within: Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 18:53:06 -0500

TITLE: The Fear Within
SUBTITLE: Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial
AUTHOR: Scott Martelle
PUBLICATION DATE: May 2011
PUBLISHER: Rutgers University Press
PAGE COUNT: 320 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-8135-4938-5 (Cloth)
PRICE: $26.95 (Cloth)

The author is a freelance journalist and writer with expertise in American history. Martelle details the 1948 arrest and trial of twelve members of the Communist Party USA who were accused of espionage and conspiracy in violation of the Smith Act, which prohibited inciting acts of force and violence against the government. He carefully describes the primary defense argument, namely, that these twelve men did nothing more than teach a doctrine and therefore the government’s case amounts to political repression. The author underscores the defense argument that the Smith Act’s constitutionality is suspect because of its inherent conflict with the First Amendment, because the allegations against the men involved no acts and therefore did not constitute a clear and present danger to the government. The Smith Act was hastily crafted during the pressure of wartime, the author notes, and was not intended to be used against those exercising their First Amendment right of free speech. Nevertheless, eleven of the men were convicted, and the author concludes that the judge’s charge to the jury was the deciding factor, as guilt rode on the defendants’ intent to overthrow the government and their use of words as a rule for action. Aimed at an academic audience and well-documented, the book is replete with analysis of the legal and political issues involved, and is thus recommended for academic, law, and larger public libraries.

Philip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Library, First Judicial District, New York, New York

Conference: Women Legal 2011

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:17:52 -0500

Described by ARK Group USA a primary sponsor as a highly-interactive forum connecting law firms and their clients to advance the increasingly-important dialogue on gender diversity

June 8, 2011 ~ New York, NY CLE approved in most states!

Is the "business of law" itself a detriment to the retention and succession of women leadership? Gender-based discrimination that equates to marginalized access to resources and decision-making continues to plague women in law firms. There should be far more women serving as managing partners, executive and compensation committee members and filling additional critical leadership roles than there are today. Yet with increasing frustration, we continue to bring attention to the institutional impediments to women's success and advancement...

This conference provides candid perspectives from:

Marianne D. Short, Managing Partner, Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Dorian S. Denburg, General Attorney, AT&T and President, NAWL (National Association of Women Lawyers)

Carol A. Clayton, Assistant Managing Partner, WilmerHale

Sherry L. Jetter, Esq., Vice President, Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs, Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation

Deidra L. Byrd, Vice President, Employee Relations, Walgreens Co.

Audra Dial, Partner, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP

Judith McKay, Vice-President and General Counsel, Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc (a subsidiary of DuPont)

Mary Huwaldt, Deputy General Counsel, Armstrong World Industries

Emilie Bakal-Caplan, Esq., Partner, Mound Cotton Wollan & Greengrass

Thomas A. Delancey, Partner. Sedgwick LLP

Kathleen A. Flynn, Chief Marketing Officer, Sedgwick LLP

Randi W. Singer, Litigation Partner, Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP

Heidi B. Goldstein, Partner, Chair Firmwide Women's Initiative, Thompson Hine LLP

Phyllis Weiss Haserot, President, Practice Development Counsel

Margaret A. Keane, Partner, Chair, Employement Dispute Resolution, Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP

Sonia M. Alvarez-Robinson, SPHR, Cultural Transformation Solutions Advisory Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers

and many others!

For more information, including registration information, click here.

Gangs in a New Jersey County

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:59:39 -0500

The following is a link to a a listing of towns in Union County New Jersey and the number of gangs reported to be established in each town, even many of the smaller ones. One reason for publishing this post is that we suspect this particular article may point to a very small representation of a much larger problem throughout the nation that should concern us all.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/01/nj_gangs_have_presence_in_all.html?appSession=82694619262727

David Badertsher

Book Review: The Eichmann Trial

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:41:10 -0500

TITLE: The Eichmann Trial
AUTHOR: Deborah E. Lipstadt
PUBLICATION DATE: March 2011
PUBLISHER: Schocken Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
PAGE COUNT: 272 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-8052-4260-7
PRICE: $23.95

The author is a professor of Jewish Studies at Emory University and has written extensively about the Holocaust. In her new work, she details the Israeli capture and trial of fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann fifteen years after his escape from U.S. custody at the end of World War II. Lipstadt carefully shows how Attorney General Gideon Hausner called witness after witness who had directly observed the most brutal and murderous aspects of Eichmann's evil objectives and were thus able to bring the tragedy alive. She concludes the verdict was a forgone conclusion, but the sentencing was more complicated, and thus followed a contentious debate about the death penalty in a society that preaches love and compassion. Arguments for and against Eichmann's execution are described in detail, with the author noting the Court's referral of the matter to the Prime Minister and Israeli Cabinet for ultimate resolution. Aimed at an academic audience, the book is replete with references to primary source material and thus constitutes an authoritative analysis of the historical and legal issues involved in a trial of international significance. Highly recommended for students, scholars, and researchers analyzing actions and motives of war crimes perpetrators and their victims during periods of political conflict and courtroom confrontation.

Philip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Library, First Judicial District, New York, New York

Book Review: Cross Examination Handbook: Persuasion, Strategies, and Techniques

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:37:47 -0500

We are pleased to presnet the following review of Cross Examination Handbook: Persuasion, Strategies and Techniques by Ronald H. Clark and others as acknowledged below. The review was prepared by our Senior Law Librarian for Public Access, Theodore Pollack

Title: Cross-Examination Handbook: Persuasion, Strategies, and Techniques

Author: Ronald H. Clark, George R. Dekle, Sr., William S. Bailey

Publisher: Wolters Kluwer: Law & Business

Series: Aspen Coursebook Series

Published: 2011

Price: $39.50

“The Cross-Examination Handbook“ is a useful volume for any law student or litigator. The book and accompanying dvd are provide a trial techniques class on cross-examination and examine various cross-examination techniques and the different trial situations in which they arise (e.g. runaway witnesses or recalcitrant witnesses). To deal with these situations in court or in deposition is often a difficult task and to have a guide which provides strategies, model examinations, and sample questions is of potential great assistance to a practitioner.

This book was written by Ronald H. Clark (Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Seattle University School of Law), George R. Dekle, Sr. (Legal Skills Professor, University of Florida Law School), and William S. Bailey (Adjunct Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law). The authors provide a readily read and highly useable aid which is useful to new and experienced trial attorneys. Perhaps it is of greatest utility to new practitioners as they enter trial practice and reduce the need to learn under combat situations and consequently increase their effectiveness.

“The Cross Examination Handbook” is recommended for law libraries, litigators, and law students.

Ted Pollack, Sr. Law Librarian, New York Supreme Court, New York County Public Access Law Library

AALL: Network Neutrality Update - January 2011

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:29:45 -0500

David Badertscher

Network Neutrality (Net neutrality) is a principle that expresses the concept that all Internet traffic must be treated equally regardless of possible economic and other incentives to do otherwise. The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) strongly supports Net neutrality and is a member of Save the Internet Coalition and the Open Internet, both working to bring together individuals, non-profit organizations, businesses, and bloggers who strongly support this priciple.

As part of its leadership role in raising and clarifying issues related to Network Neutrality, AALL prepared a Newwork Neutrality Issue Brief, published in December 2008. Since that time there has been sufficient debate, discussion, rule changes (both actual and proposed), and litigation surrounding this issue to make it necessary for AALL to update its 2008 Network Neutrality Issue Brief, resulting the 2011 AALL Network Neturalty Issue Brief linked to below.

The updated AALL Network Neutrality Issue Brief (January 2011), was prepared by Ryan Saltz, AALL Government Relations Committee (2008-2010) and Ryan Harrington, Reference Library at Yale Law School under the auspices of the Government Relations Office and the Government Relations Committee, both of AALL. This update contains important current information and commentary on Network Neutrality and is recommended reading by all who have any involvement, no matter how minor, in internet related issues.

AALL Network Neutrality Issue Brief 2011 Update

For more information on the background of Network Neutrality see the posting "Network Neutrality: Some Background and Perspectives", posted August 20, 2010 on this blog.

Internet Society Statement on Egypt's Internet Shutdown

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:22:16 -0500

Source: The Internet Society Newsletter Volume 10 Number 1 January 2011.

On 28 January, Lynn St.Amour President and CEO, and the Internet Society Board of Trustees issued a statement on the Egypt's Internet shutdown:

"We are following the current events in Egypt with concern as it appears that all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic has been disrupted. The Internet Society believes that the Internet is a global medium that fundamentally supports opportunity, empowerment, knowledge, growth, and freedom and that these values should never be taken away from individuals.

"The Internet Society considers this recent action by the Egyptian government to block Internet traffic to be an inappropriate response to a political crisis. It is a very serious decision for a government to block all Internet access in its country, and a serious intrusion into its citizens' basic rights to communicate. If the blockage continues, it will have a very detrimental impact on Egypt's economy and society. Ultimately, the Egyptian people and nation are the ones that will suffer, while the rest of the world will be worse off with the loss of Egyptian voices on the net"

For the complete statement, see:

http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=3091&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=txt&utm_campaign=201101

For a Q&A on the shutdown, its impact, and implications see:

http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=3100&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=txt&utm_campaign=201101

New BJS Study: U.S. Prison - Probation - Parole Population Drops in 2009

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:24:31 -0500

A recently released U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics Study presents data on the number of adults under some form of correctional supervision at the end of the year 2009. The Report discussing the Study was released on December 21, 2010; it is part of the Correctional Population of the United States Series, published annually. For more information see the Bureau of Justice Statistics Press Release accompanying the Report For additional information including links to accompanying spread sheet data click here.

Library Announcement: Online Access to Temporary Comission on Revision of New York Penal Law and Criminal Code (1961-1970) Papers Held by Library

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 09:55:21 -0500

David Badertscher

The New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library (New York County) is pleased to announce a major enhancement regarding access to those Temporary Commission on Revision of New York Penal Law and Criminal Code (1961-1970) papers held by the New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library (New York County). During the past year we in the library have been working with professional interns, archivists, and especially Philip Yow and his web design team at the State of New York Unified Court System to find ways to preserving these materials, many of which were beginning to deteriorate significantly. After confronting various obstacles, technical and otherwise, we settled on digitizing the material as a number of separate and searchable pdf files and then placing all of them on the library website with an overlay of google searchability. Although this may not be perfect it does make the documents accessible on the web in a cost effective manner.

A word of further explanation. these papers primarily consisting of documents submitted to and documents produced by the Temporary Commission on Revision of Penal Laws and Criminal Code (1961-1970) were collected by our former Administrative Judge Peter Mcquillan who served on the staff of the Commission. Justice Mcquillan left the Papers in my custody when he retired and we first put up an index to the papers on the web and now the full text of these materials. In addition we have included The Proposed New York Criminal Procedure Law of 1969 because in addition to the text of the proposed law, it includes valuable additional materials related to the work of the Commission and derivation tables for use in comparing the current Code with the earlier Code. Special permission was obtained from Thomson Reuters before publishing the latter segment.

To see the new site of the library website from which this material can be searched online, go to:

http://www.nycourts.gov/library/nyc_criminal/library_resources.shtml and scroll down if necessary to the search box under the first entry under this Section: Penal Law Records Search.

In order to resolve various format and other issues alluded to earlier, most searches will need to consist of two parts. Entering a search term or terms in the search box provided at this location will bring up various pdf documents where the terms entered are mentioned. Some of these pdf documents are very large. To determine exactly where in these pdf documents the terms are referenced you will need to enter your search a second time in the pdf search box at the upper right side of the document. This search should identify and highlight exactly where in the document the search terms you entered are highlighted.

Finally, for those people who need additional information about documents included in this collection prior to searching, we have preserved the original index or finding aid which is located at http://www.nycourts.gov/library/nyc_criminal/Temporary%20Commission.pdf

White House: Middle Class Task Force - Equal Access to Justice

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 11:02:41 -0500

Richard Zorza has reminded us that the White House is conducting an event on access to Justice today with Vice President Biden as one of the featured speakers. The event started at 10:30AM. You should be able to listen in on the proceedings by clicking here. For those of us concerned with equal access to legal services, including legal information, this is an important event.