Yesterday President Barack Obama presented his proposed budget for fiscal year 2010. The $3.6 trillion budget as presented represents a significant change in nearly 30 years of governing philosophy. The following are links to the 134 page budget booklet and selected accompanying documents:
President Obama’s Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2010
Tables of Budget Line Items to Accompany President Obama’s FY 2020 Budget
Top Ten Stories of the Week ending February 27, 2009:
Law Practice Management
Attorney Layoff Alternative: Temporary 10% Pay Cut at Much Shelist Feb 23, 2009, 04:42 pm CST
February 2009 Volume 2 Number 2.
CLLB Information Security Newsletter
Monthly Cyber Security Tips NEWSLETTER
QUESTION:
Does anyone have any complaints about the accuracy of court transcripts prepared off-site by transcribers who were not in the court at the time of the recording?
Also, what kind of a certification and qualifications do you require for your court reporters in your area?
QUESTION:
Does any one use electronic signatures for documents? We conduct video arraignments with detention facilities around our county and this would be most helpful and much more efficient. Any information you can provide will be appreciated.
RESPONSE:
QUESTION:
“…We have a defendant charged with child molestation. The child is the defendant’s niece. The defendant is in his 20s, is deaf and mute and family speaks Spanish. The family has created a home sign language to communicate with the defendant. The court has excluded the brother (father of the child molested) as someone to communicate between the court and the defendant due to the obvious conflict. A sister was questioned in court as to her ability to communicate and it was determined that the home sign language was extremely basic information and she did not have the ability to communicate the court process to the defendant nor did she understand the court process. Today we had an certified American Sign Language interpreter who also is a Spanish interpreter. He was able to communicate very basic words i.e. mother, father, Mexico, hospital but did not believe he could communicate well enough with the defendant to explain the court process or the allegations to him.
Have any of you encountered this situation, and if so, how did you handle it?”
The transition of evidence from paper to digital imposes new challenges to ensuring a proper “chain of custody'” in the authentication of digital evidence.
The legal group of Merrill Corporation has recently compiled a report which addresses this and related issues:
Report: AUTHENTICATING DIGITAL EVIDENCE: IDENTIFY AND AVOID THE WEAK LINKS IN YOUR CHAIN OF CUSTODY.
Top Ten Stories of the Week ending February 20, 2009:
Law Practice Management Last Week’s Layoffs Saved Law Firms an Estimated $100M Feb 17, 2009, 06:52 am CST
Law Firms
BY STEVEN ESSIG*
Library Trends Volume 57, issue 1 focuses on “Digital Books and the Impact on Libraries”. Issue Editor Peter Brantley, Executive Director for the Digital Library Federation (DLF), introduces the discussion by summarizing several cataclysmic developments in the library and publishing worlds that are forever changing the production, delivery and acquisition of books and other print materials: namely, the increasing centrality of Google and the resulting uncertainties over the disruption of the traditional relationships between authors publishers and libraries and the disruptive effects of ubiquitous internet technology on people’s everyday lives. Brantley asks whether there are alternatives to Google-shaped agreements for librarians and publishers and what economies would be necessary to sustain these alternative agreements.
Among the articles that follow this introduction, particularly interesting discussions include that of Jason Epstein’s “The End of the Gutenberg Era” (pages 8-16). Epstein, formerly the editorial director of Random House and founder of Anchor Books, foresees a continued place for most current versions of the physical book (though purely reference materials such as encyclopedias will go totally online) but emphasizes a change in the manner of its distribution. Increased digitization will cut back elements of the previous supply chain reducing costs of the physical inventory, packaging etc. and replacing this costly and elaborate setup with a “practically limitless digital inventory”, making it possible to “email an entire book with all necessary metadata as easily as a letter” (15). Epstein then discusses his involvement with “On Demand Books”, a company marketing an “Espresso Book Machine” which prints books on demand from online digital files. He foresees this print-on-demand technology being setup as a sort of “ATM for books” where readers could order a title at their computers (much as they currently do at Amazon.com) and then collect the item at a nearby machine, perhaps located at a Kinko’s, Starbucks or local library or bookstore. For this setup to become widespread, there would need to be cooperation with publishers and other content providers; Epstein sees it as in the latter’s interest in cutting back on the current costly distribution infrastructure as well as in the chance to “exploit new technologies and markets” (16).
From: Resource Desk, Quinlan’s Law Enforcement Enews Alert, February 17, 2008.
Last year was one of the safest years for U.S. law enforcement in decades. The number of officers killed in the line of duty fell sharply in 2008 when compared with 2007, and officers killed by gunfire reached a 50-year low.
Based on analysis of preliminary data, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) and Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.) found that 140 officers died in the line of duty last year. That is 23 percent lower than the 2007 figure of 181, and represents one of the lowest years for officer fatalities since the mid-1960s.
Criminal Law Library Blog