Articles Posted in Commentary and Opinion

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An Internet Society NYC update with video:

ISOC-NY on May 8 2010, hosted a seminar “dot nyc – How are we doing?” at NYU. NYC Council Member Gale Brewer delivered keynote remarks, then vendor Eric Brunner-Williams of CORE Internet Council of Registrars revealed details of their proposal to the City, and Antony Van Couvering of Minds + Machines and Public Advocate Beill DeBlasio’s earlier comments to the City Council were shown in video. There was a discussion “What’s it for?” about possible applications – civic, community, commercial, and “outside the box” – for a local top level domain. Speakers included Tom Lowenhaupt of Connecting .nyc and Richard Knipel of Wikimedia NYC. Audio/video is available .

http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1515

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Many of us just learned the sad news that Nylink, which has served New York State Libraries for 37 years, is phasing out its operations and will be closing in one year. We understand that Nylink will be closing its operations primarily due to a steep decline in its revenue stream which has seriously degrated Nylink’s ability to remain fully self supporting and continue delivering an acceptable level of service to its members beyond this period. Throughout the years many of us have come to rely on Nylink for its sustained high level of dedicated, personalized service. Nylink will be missed. We wish the employees a good 12 months and every success in the future

David Badertscher

For additional details see:

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May 2010 (Vol. 5)

Excerpt from message of Chair,Charles Hynes:

The ABA Criminal Justice Section is the national entity that brings all the players in the criminal law arena together to address critical issues for the field. The focus of the Section is not only on policy development concerning those critical issues, but also on designing collaborative practical projects that help forge solutions to those systemic problems at the local and national levels. Our work on reentry and on the disparate racial impact of the criminal justice system are but two examples of how the CJS has developed cutting edge policy coupled with consequential project work. We are currently working on a project to address issues raised by the U.S. Supreme Court Padilla decision and have already developed a web resource page to assist attorneys in complying with the decision. Further, former Chair Stephen Saltzburg is forming a Task Force on Padilla which will strengthen resources to support the ability of defense lawyers to comply.

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Many thanks to Luis Acosta of the Library of Congress for forwarding the following:

Elena Kagan Nominated to the Supreme Court: http://go.usa.gov/ieT

On April 9, 2010 Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he would retire after nearly 35 years on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court. President Obama announced the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace Stevens on May 10, 2010. This is President Obama’s second nomination to the nation’s highest court, following his selection of Justice Sonia Sotomayor in May 2009. Notably the first female Solicitor General and first female dean of Harvard Law School, if Kagan is confirmed, she will also be the fourth woman to serve on the Court.

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QUESTION:

On behalf of the California Administrative Office of the Courts, we would like to know if there are any courts in the United States that “sell” delinquent court-ordered fines, fees, penalties, and assessments. In specific, we are looking for criteria, and private vendors used, including pricing structure.

RESPONSES:

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CRS Report No. R41222; 4/30/2010; Posted 5/7/2010 Author(s): Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist in American Public Law Subject(s): Criminal Justice; Law

No. of Pages: 9

Summary Zacarias Moussaoui, members of the Colombian drug cartels, members of organized crime, and some of the former Enron executives have at least one thing in common: they all have federal conspiracy convictions. The essence of conspiracy is an agreement of two or more persons to engage in some form of prohibited misconduct. The crime is complete upon agreement, although some statutes require prosecutors to show that at least one of the conspirators has taken some concrete step or committed some overt act in furtherance of the scheme. There are dozens of federal conspiracy statutes. One, 18 U.S.C. 371, outlaws conspiracy to commit some other federal crime. The others outlaw conspiracy to engage in various specific forms of proscribed conduct.General Section 371 conspiracies are punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years; drug trafficking, terrorist, and racketeering conspiracies all carry the same penalties as their underlying substantive offenses, and thus are punished more severely than are Section 371 conspiracies. All are subject to fines of not more than $250,000 (not more than $500,000 for organizations), most may serve as the basis for a restitution order, and some for a forfeiture order.

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From: Fair Courts E-lert, May 7, 2010 Published by the Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law.

1. Show Me Better Courts, a Missouri organization seeking to replace the state’s merit selection of judges with contested judicial elections, claims to have raised $1.5 million “to gather petition signatures” to put the organization’s proposal for a constitutional amendment on the November ballot. In a conference call with reporters, director of the organization James Harris said he expected “another $2 million to $4 million will be spent on the fall campaign if enough signatures are valid.” Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts, “the group leading opposition to the measure,” and defending the so-called “Missouri Plan” has thus far raised approximately $268,000.

Dave Helling, The Battle Over Missouri’s Courts: A Million Dollar Bash, Kansas City Star, May 3, 2010.

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Jonathan Stock who along with others has been working tirelessly to save six threatened law libraries in Connecticut from closure due to financial constraints. Here is Jonathan’s latest report, received as an e-mail on May 6, 2010.:

The Connecticut General Assembly closed down last night. We now know that the bill, its substance merged with the 2011 Budget, passed. You will find herein as an attachment [ see download link below] the latest bulletin from the Judicial Office of External Affairs. We have saved at least three of the six threatened law libraries: Bridgeport, Litchfield, and Hartford. Depending on the Branch’s negotiations with the Department of Public Works, we may also get back the Willimantic Law Library as well as the Willimantic Courthouse.

The good news Jonathan writes about would not have occurred without his continuing, tireless efforts along with those of many other people and organizations such as the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), Southern New England Law libraries Association (SNELLA).

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