Ellen McGrath of the Charles P.Sears Law Library at the University of Buffalo has forwarded the following announcement from the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). We are posting it here in recognition and appreciation of the importance of NISO’s ongoing work to the library community:
David Badertscher
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:24:09 -0400 From: Cynthia Hodgson
In an earlier posting on this blog we reported that on February 23, 2010 a divided Panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, New York Supreme Court ruled in People v. Correa (2010 NY Slip Op. 01533) that the 2004 merger of the criminal courts in the Bronx into a single court with jurisdiction to handle both felonies and misdemeanors is unconstitutional. That Appellate Division ruling has now been overturned by the New York Court of Appeals in a single 6-0 opinion on June 3, 2010 that decided three cases–People v. Correa, People v. Fernandez, and People v. Mack, upholding administrative experiments that have New York State Supreme Court judges presiding over misdemeanor cases as well as felonies within a merged Bronx Supreme Court Criminal Division and an Integrated Domestic Violence (IDV) Court in Brooklyn.
The high court’s ruling regarding IDV Courts also applies to 44 other IDV Courts throught the State of New York. that centralizes the handling of all aspects of domestic disputes, including criminal charges, in one court. The judges noted that neither the New York Constitution nor its statutes call into question the legality of either court addressed in this opinion.
See also the following articles which discuss this New York Court of Appeals opinion and its implications:
Berghuis v. Thompkins June 2, 2010
United States v. Carr
A Service from the ABA Criminal Justice Section, http://www.abanet.org/crimjust
In a video of an interview with his Fox Business Network, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. Chairman discusses what he considers the future of media and the Company’s plan to charge for content. During the interview Mr. Murdoch said that in order to get people to pay for content online you simply “…turn them off. They’ve got to sign on. They give you their credit card number. And that’s it. And then you e-mail them and say you’re putting the price up or you’re taking it down or whatever.”
Selections from the Fair Courts e-lert May 28, 2010, published by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
State Judicial Elections
1. Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor continues to advocate for states to replace contested judicial elections with merit selection systems. In an op-ed appearing in the New York Times, O’Connor urges individuals to pay attention to the selection of state court judges because “In too many states, citizens are being shortchanged by the way [state court judges] are chosen . . . . When you enter one of these courtrooms, the last thing you want to worry about is whether the judge is more accountable to a campaign contributor or an ideological group than to the law.”
David Badertscher
This posting is essentially a followup of two of our earlier postings on this topic which you can find here and here.
It begins with two statements released by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on May 6, 2010 in partial response to the recent decision in the Comcast case.and continues with a listing of recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports addressing various aspects of the topic:
United States v. Marcus, No. 08-1341, 130 S.Ct. ___(may 24, 2010).
A Service from the ABA Criminal Justice Section, http://www.abanet.org/crimjust
This summary has been created by Professor Rory K. Little (littler@uchastings.edu), U.C. Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, who has long presented “Annual Review of the Supreme Court’s Term” program at the ABA’s Annual Meetings. It represents his personal, unofficial views of the Justices’ opinions. The original opinions should be consulted for their authoritative content.
On Saturday May 22, 2010, Democrat Andrew Cuomo the New York State Attorney General made an official announcement that he will seek the New York governor’s job once held by his father, Mario Cuomo. Below we include two links to documents released along with the announcement. The first link is to the transcript of the announcement The second is to a policy statement which he calls his “New York Agenda: A Plan for Action”. This is an extensive document which focuses on many areas including new education, environment, and energy.
The beginning of the “New York Agenda: A Plan for Action” includes a summary in the form of the following bullet points which collectively provide an overall picture of the agenda being presented.:
1. Clean Up Albany. We must restore honor and integrity to government, with tough new ethics standards, expanded disclosure requirements, independent investigators to root out and punish corruption, and an overhaul of campaign finance laws. We must remove legislative redistricting from partisan elected politicians and place it in the hands of an independent commission that works only for the people. And we must hold a constitutional convention – A People’s Convention – to rewrite the Constitution and make these changes immediately because we cannot wait any longer for the state legislature to act.
An abstract prepared for the Criminal Law Library Blog by Michael Chernicoff.
Are language barriers playing a role in law enforcement? The Justice Department has begun a “routine audit” in New York to determine whether federal civil rights laws were being complied with in police dealing with non‐English speakers. Such reviews have been regular since 2002 when the Justice Department required recipients of grants to provide services to no‐English speakers
CLICK HERE TO SEE COMPLETE ABSTRACT
An Abstract prepared for the Criminal Law Library Blog by Michael Chernicoff.
The Adam Walsh Act [is] currently in place to protect children against abuse and child pornography and promote Internet safety is being used to classify criminals whose crimes were not sexual in nature as sex offenders. The Adam Walsh Act also requires information to be posted in an online sex offender registry.
Criminal Law Library Blog