Overview of U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Judge Samuel Alito Jr.

The SCOTUSblog (10/28/2005) links to
information about Judge Samuel Alito,
including a biography, a profile on Law.com, and an
annotated list of selected notable opinions.

Commentary on the Libby Indictment

The BeSpacific blog (10/30/2005) has posted a selection
of commentary on the Libby indictment.

Disasters and Law: Katrina & Beyond

The University of California - Berkeley Law Library
has compiled a research guide on the legal
issues surrounding natural disasters such as the recent
devastating hurricanes. Disasters and Law :
Katrina & Beyond, is a well -organized web guide
that points to relevant primary sources of law,
articles, government documents, blog entries
and other information available on the Internet.

Halloween Links - Wanna Preserve a Pumpkin?

The InterAlia blog (10/26/2005) gets us in the
spirit with its list of Halloween links. From
carving and preserving pumpkins to consumer
safety tips, this will help you and your children
face goblins and ghoulies with ease.

UTexas Puts Foreign Judgments on Web

The ContractsProf Blog tells us that the University of
Texas has announced that “nearly 1,000 translated
foreign judgments and statutes” have been posted on
its Institute of Transnational Law website.

The materials are (or will be) from France, Germany,
Israel, Austria, and Italy.

Plamegate Related Updates

Special Prosecutor Launches Website On Plame Investigation
Website of Office of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald

UPI: Plame to Sue White House Officials

Waiting For The Valerie Plame Wilson Grand Jury:
The Big Question Is Whether Dick Cheney Was a Target,
Commentary by John Dean

Profile of "Scooter" Libby from the NY Times
(registration required)

The Miller Mess: Lingering Issues Among the Answers
(NYTimes.com: registration required)

"Bill Keller - Judith Miller Catfight"
Bill Keller's Staff Email About Judith Miller
(from Crooks and Liars Blog)

Judith Miller's Response to Keller Email
(from the NY Times)


Recap of the Cover Up Statutes (from Talkleft.com)

A Guide to Journalist Shield Laws

State-by-state guide to shield laws, which are laws that
protect journalists from revealing confidential information
sources. Provides definitions from the state statutes, links
to the laws pertaining to journalists, and lists of related cases.
From the Poynter Institute.

Bush's Pardon Power in the Context of "Plamegate"

Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin (Balkinization Blog,
10/20/2005) explains the president's power to pardon
in the context of the recent CIA leak investigation.

New Look for Findlaw's Homepage

Robert Ambrogi (LawSites 10/20/2005)
tells us that Findlaw is planning to launch
a new homepage sometime today.

Ambrogi says that "rather than a single page
with sections for lawyers, consumers, small
businesses, students and corporate counsel,
as it has now, the new design will have dual
front pages, one for consumers and one for
legal professionals. A tab at the top of the page
will toggle between the two views."

You can see a preview of the new page here.
Lower level pages have not changed.

U.S. Intelligence Reports : Evidence in Saddam Trial

The Law Librarian Blog (10/21/2005) reports that
"the National Security Archive has posted a series
of declassified U.S. intelligence documents and other
U.S. agency reports on Saddam Hussein's human rights
abuses, one of which is the subject of the first trial of
Saddam, namely the 1982 massacre of 143 Shiites in Dujail.
The Archive's posting gives a preview of the evidence that
the U.S. government may be providing to the trial process."

Harriet Miers's Responses to Questionnaire

Washingtonpost.com has published Harriet
Miers's responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee's
questionnaire.

Yale Law Journal's Online Companion

From the Law Librarian Blog (10/19/2005):

"The Pocket Part is the online companion to The Yale
Law Journal...It features op-ed length versions of Journal
articles and responses from leading practitioners, policy-
makers, and scholars. The Pocket Part also serves as a
forum for readers and authors to discuss legal scholarship."

The Pocket Part has a free mailing list.

Where to Find the Miers Questionnaire

From Robert Ambrogi's LawSites blog (10/18/2005):

"The Senate Judiciary Committee today released four
documents providing additional background on Supreme
Court nominee Harriet Miers, including a 57-page Judiciary
Committee questionnaire and a 1989 Texans United for Life
survey in which Miers reveals her views on abortion. Also
released were a financial disclosure form dated Oct. 17, 2005,
and a financial statement outlining Miers' net worth."

All four documents are available in PDF format through two sources:

Associated Press
NPR

Washingtonpost.com's "Campaign for the Supreme Court" Blog

Campaign for the Supreme Court is a blog
created by washingpost.com to track current,
continuing coverage of the Harriet Miers nomination.

The site features video and background information on
Miers as well as current news stories.

Google Search Tips 2005

Did you know that you can create a Google
search that finds synonyms for your search term
by adding the "~" symbol before the term? For
example, ~house will also search for "housing"
and "home."

The Google Blogoscoped blog (Phillip Lenssen)
has posted a very useful list of tips for making
the most of your Google searches.

Google on!

Declassified Gov't Documents and Reports on 30 Years of Human Rights Abuses in Iraq

From the BeSpacific Blog, 10/18/2005:

From the National Security Archives press release:
"The National Security Archive today posted a series
of declassified U.S. intelligence documents and other
U.S. agency reports on Saddam Hussein's human rights
abuses, one of which is the subject of the first trial of
Saddam which begins tomorrow in Iraq."

The documents span the period from 1975 to 2004.
The final document posted, by the U.S. Agency for
International Development, titled Iraq's Legacy of
Terror: MASS GRAVES, January 2004 (16 pages,
PDF), quotes British Prime Minister Tony Blair's
statement from November 20, 2003, "we've already
discovered just so far the remains of 400,000 people
in mass graves."

Westlaw's Bankruptcy Reform Legislation & Analysis

The Law Librarian Blog (10/17/2005) brings our
attentionto a new database on Westlaw that guides
researchers through the new BankruptcyAbuse
Prevention and Consumer Prevention
Act (which goes into effect today).

The Bankruptcy Reform Legislation & Analysis
database (BAPCPA) contains a practice guide
and:

*provisions of the existing BankruptcyCode with changes marked

*checklists of the new duties of the debtor, creditors, debtor's attorney, case trustee, U.S. trustee, and bankruptcy administrator

*a chart of effective dates

*analysis of the new laws and procedures

Grotian Moment: Saddam Hussein Trial Blog

The Cox International Center at Case Western Reserve
University School of Law has developed the Grotian Moment
blog, which includes Saddam Hussein trial news coverage,
commentary and analysis, and key documents relating to the trial.

David Horowitz Study on Law Faculty Political Ideology

A study by David Horowitz and Joseph Light
(Center for Popular Culture) entitled, Representation
of Political Perspectives in Law and Journalism Faculties,
is now available in PDF at Frontpagemag.com

The study attempts to demonstrate that law school
and journalism faculties lack ideological diversity
"[which] has far-ranging implications for the training
of future lawyers and judges."

I will post reactions to the study as they become
available.

Draft Iraqi Constitution

The full-text of the draft Iraqi Constitution is available
at Washingtonpost.com (10/12/2005). The site
will post amendments to the text as they become
available. See also The Facts: The Iraqi Constitution on the
Washington Post blog.

Thanks to Law Librarian Blog for pointing us to
this material.

NPR Podcast Directory

The NPR Podcast Directory lists dozens of free podcasts
(audio downloads suitable for computers or handheld
computer devices). The list includes podcasts of morning
and evening news, shows such as "Pacific Time," "Michael
Feldman's Whad'Ya Know," "The California Report," and
much more. You can also find reader-friendly explanations
of podcasting. The directory is browsable, with annotations
for each program, but it is not searchable. Thanks to Tom
French for sharing this site with us.

Religious Affiliation of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices

Tom French points us to web site that provides
information about the religious affiliations of
current members of the U.S. Supreme Court
and of all U.S. Supreme Court justices. The site
also includes links to information for members of
the U.S. Congress, presidents and vice-presidents,
and governors.

The information is from Adherents.com, a web site
that provides national and world religion statistics
and "is not affiliated with any religious, political,
educational, or commercial organization."

Harry A. Blackmun Papers at the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has announced that their
Manuscript Reading Room "has made available online
selected materials from the papers of Harry Andrew Blackmun.

Of interest to researchers and academics, the site includes 38
hours of oral history video interviews and the transcript of this
oral history project. The 510-page transcript is only available
as JPEG images of the original print manuscript (not text or PDF),
and the interview videos are similarly copy-protected in their Real
Audio file format. Small samples from the Blackmun Papers
collection are available, including pages from draft opinions
and handwritten notes from case files. These samples are
intended to highlight the collection, and are not provided for
the benefit of research via this webpage."

New International Legal Research Tutorial

The BeSpacific blog (10/12/2005) reports on a new
web-based international legal research tutorial
developed collaboratively by the Duke University School
of Law and the University of California, Berkeley, School of
Law.

The tutorial "is designed to teach students research strategies
and methodology for researching both print and electronic
sources of international legal materials. The tutorial includes
review questions and a final review to give students an under-
standing of how these materials are organized, and to teach
them how to locate international legal documents such as treaties,
agreements and the documentation of international organizations."
(http://www.law.duke.edu/ilrt/about.html).

Barclay Law Library Hosts Lecture on the USA PATRIOT ACT

Mark your calendars! On Friday afternoon, October 21,
the Barclay Law Library will host a lecture featuring
Anne Klinefelter, Associate Director of the Law Library and
Clinical Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina,
speaking on the topic "Librarians, Ethics, and the USA
PATRIOT Act".

The lecture will be held at 1:00 pm in Room 104.

All are welcome.

Government Sponsored News in the Spotlight

On 9/30, the GAO ruled that the Department
of Education illegally used taxpayer dollars to fund
a covert propaganda campaign aimed at boosting
the image of the President's education agenda.

On October 6, 2005 four United States Senators
urged Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to launch a
criminal investigation into whether the Department of
Education (DoE) paid columnist Armstrong Williams
for services he never performed.

Documents relating to the GAO ruling and the
continuing story may be found on the BeSpacific
blog:

GAO Determines Bush Administration Violated Propaganda Policy
Opposition to Government Sponsored News Continues

In a related story, CNN News recently aired a segment
about the Pentagon Channel (a satellite news program aimed
at the armed forces), which some claim violates U.S.
propoganda policy. A transcript of the CNN piece
may be found on Westlaw at: 2005 WLNR 16483883

Chicago Faculty Blog on Law Faculty Political Affiliations

Cass Sunshine addresses law faculty political
affiliation today on the University of Chicago
Law School Faculty Blog.

U.S. Supreme Court Justices from Private Practices

Thanks to the Law Librarian Blog (10/11/2005)
for this post:

"There have been 41 Supreme Court Justices who
had no prior judicial experience before joining the
Court. They include some of the most influential
justices in the history of the Court, such as William
Rehnquist, Earl Warren, Robert Jackson, William O.
Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Louis Brandeis, Salmon
P. Chase, Roger Brooke Taney, Joseph Story and
John Marshall. However, only eight of the 41 justices
came to the Supreme Court from private practice."

A detailed chart of Supreme Court Justices without
prior judicial experience can be found on Findlaw.

Iraqi Special Tribunal

From Librarians' Internet Index, 10/6/2005:

This is the official website of the Iraqi Special Tribunal.
The tribunal was organized in 2003 for the prosecution
of war crimes in Iraq, including those alleged against
Saddam Hussein.

The site features the governing statute, a list of defense counsel,
and news, such as the setting of October 19, 2005, as the trial
date for Saddam Hussein. The site may be viewed in English
and Arabic, but English translations of documents are not official.

NPR.org Harriet Miers Web Site

NPR.org has compiled its stories about the nomination of
Harriet Miers. In addition to articles published on the
NPR web site, this page provides audio files of
broadcasts about Miers legal background and a brief
discussion of justices who had not previously
served in the judiciary.

Professor Arzt on Jurist Forum

Our own Professor Donna Arzt is a guest
journalist on JURIST Forum. Her op ed
piece is entitled, Sound and Fury:Katrina and
the 'Refugees' Debate.

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle on Braveman Inauguration

There is a nice article about former College of Law Dean
Daan Braveman's inauguration as President of Nazareth College
in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle of 10/2/2005.

If you have access to a hard copy, you'll see a picture
of Daan running with a group of students!

University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog

Interested in what University of Chicago law faculty
are talking about? According to the new Chicago
law faculty blog, the authors " hope to use
the blog as a forum in which to exchange nascent
ideas with each other and also a wider audience, and
to hear feedback about which ideas are compelling and
which could use some re-tooling."

Posts are contributed by a mix of Chicago "friends," faculty,
and alumni. Topics addressed to date include Katrina
and Sarbanes-Oxley, Evaluating Supreme Court Nominees,
and Fixing the Patriot Act.

If this site inspires any SU COL faculty to start a similar
blog, I'd be happy to help them get started with the
mechanics of blogging.

New U.S. Supreme Court Resource

The InterAlia blog (9/04/2005) directs us
to the new U.S. Supreme Court Center being
developed by Justia, in conjunction with Oyez
and US Court Firms.

The site, which is still in beta test mode,
offers fast, free searching by citation, party
or keywords of all U.S. Supreme Court
opinions up through the 2004 term. Documents
are currently available in html only. The site
also includes links to Supreme Court or
Constitutional law-related weblogs and
other Supreme Court resources.

About Harriet Miers

What do you know about President Bush's nominee for
United States Supreme Court Justice, Harriet Miers?

Here is a list of materials.

Profiles

Washington Post.com profile

New York Times.com article and profile

Cases

In re Lomas Financial Corp. ,1999 WL 33495524
Bkrtcy.D.Del.,1999.

Perry v. Stewart Title Co. , 756 F.2d 1197
C.A.5 (Tex.),1985.

Articles (available on Westlaw)

American Bar Association Study of
Multistate Practice is on Fast Track,
37-FEB Ariz. Att'y 29 (February, 2001)

Recommended Reading: Issues for the
Multijurisdictional Lawyer Where Pro
Hac Vice Admission Does Not Apply,
2001 Ark. L. Notes 131 (2001)