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May 3-7, 2010
U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, May 04, 2010 Estate of Oliva v. Dep’t of Law & Pub. Safety , No. 09-2082 In an action by the estate of a now deceased state trooper who committed suicide, claiming harassment by numerous individuals connected with the State Police for his objections to what he believed was a State Police practice to profile motorists when making traffic stops, a grant of summary judgment to defendants and denial of plaintiff’s leave to amend his complaint is affirmed as plaintiff is not entitled to relief as he has failed to establish that his section 1981, 1985(3) and other various statutory causes of action can be sustained according to their requirements or establish that the district court abused its discretion in denying him leave to amend his complaint. …

U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, May 06, 2010 Dique v. New Jersey State Police, No. 05-1159 In plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment claim for selective-enforcement, arising from his 1990 traffic stop that led to his conviction for drug related offenses which was vacated in 2002 on the ground that colorable issues of racial profiling existed at the time of the arrest, district court’s dismissal of the claim as time barred is affirmed where: 1) under Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007), in a case of selective-enforcement, it will no longer be required that the complainant have been convicted and have had that conviction reversed, expunged or invalidated, and the statute of limitations begins to run at the time the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process; and 2) plaintiff asserted his selective-enforcement claim over two years after July 2001, when his attorney became aware of the extensive documents describing the State’s pervasive selective enforcement practices, that plaintiff discovered, or by exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered that h! e might have a basis for an actionable claim. .

U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, May 06, 2010 Flanory v. Bonn , No. 09-1161 In a pro se prisoner’s section 1983 suit against various prison officials and others claiming violation of his Eighth Amendment right, dismissal of the complaint for failure to state a claim is reversed and remanded as plaintiff has made allegations which satisfy the objective and subjective components required for an Eighth Amendment violation as he has alleged that he was completely denied certain hygiene items and that he specifically was without toothpaste for a period of 337 days, and he also alleged that defendants were aware that he was without toothpaste and were deliberately indifferent to his hygiene needs.
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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.

The following is being posted as an urgent message at the request of a law librarian colleague :

As I am sure you know this year is on track to produce a budget disaster for libraries in New York City. The cuts currently proposed will result in massive layoffs and cuts in public service. A small group of library workers and concerned citizens has started a postcard campaign to highlight support for public libraries and ask the City Council to restore as much funding to library budgets as possible.

The idea is that we are going back to an old fashioned postcard writing campaign. Individuals are encouraged to write postcards in support of libraries and mail them to the offices of City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer. His office will collect the postcards and present them to the City Council, en masse as a sort of Miracle on 34th Street statement. Any postcards will do. We suggest being creative, but inexpensive postcards, ten for a dollar in Time Square, work great too.

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.

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).

NYLINK reports that on May 30, 2010 OCLC plans to discontinue access to the NetLibrary database on WorldCat.org, WorldCat Local and WorldCat Local “quick start” on May 30. This database of NetLibrary metadata was released in July 2009 to facilitate discovery of NetLibrary eBooks and eAudiobooks through WorldCat.org-based services. Discontinuation of the discrete NetLibrary database is a result of the March 2010 acquisition of NetLibrary by EBSCO Publishing. For more information, please see the NYLINK Status Line blog at http://nylink.org/SL/?p=1325&preview=true.

By Joni L. Cassidy Cassidy Cataloging Services, Inc,

On March 17, 2010, my post about www.theSkyRiver.com and OCLC included the following statement:

“OCLC and Cassidy Cataloguing Services, Inc. may finally reach a compromise. OCLC may grant permission to allow a WorldCat Local institution that has purchased Cassidy MARC record sets to view the records as part of its WorldCat Local subscription.”

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