BLS Library Blog

Each semester, members of the library staff work with Professor Fajans to present a program to help students select, develop, and write an “A” quality paper for their seminars. This semester, the program will be held in Room 504 at 4 pm on February 5, 2009. The first half of the workshop consists of the research portion and Professor Fajans lectures on writing tips and style for the second half of the program.
In the library’s portion of the program, we always offer these tips:

1. Evaluate the time you have to devote to your paper. If you are working, carrying a heavy credit load, have parently obligations, etc., you may not want to choose a topic that will require you to visit an outside library for materials. For example, if you want to write about the economic impact of trade regulation on foreign investment, you may need access to a business library for analytical materials that focus mainly on finance. In that case, you may prefer to write a paper about a recent decision or a circuit court split. We can be quite sure that you will have access to most of your materials online if you choose this sort of paper.
2. Try to focus your topic to a defined issue. Selecting an area – even a discreet area – of law to write about is unproductive. You must select and define an issue within a legal topic. For example, you might want to write about human trafficking; however, this topic is too vague. You will need to learn a little bit more about the legal topic before you define your legal issue. In this example, you might focus on effective tactics to counter trafficking, or focus on child trafficking from a specific region.
3. Pick a topic that will interest you. You should find something in which you have a natural interest, or is of such general interest that it is regularly reported on in the trade press. It is very rewarding to be writing about current legal issues.
4. The process: You should start by picking a topic that interests you. We recommend reviewing legal periodicals and web databases that organize legal news by topic. Then, we encourage you to set up tracking services to alert you should there be a new case, new development, new law, etc… To help you define your issue, you should review books and law review articles. Commentary will really help you learn the lingo and teach you the law.
5. Most important: If you are not sure how to research your topic, make an appointment with a librarian or stop by the reference desk in the library. This is what we do.

Below I have posted links to the handouts that will be provided at the workshop. For those unable to attend, Professor Fajans and I have also placed on reserve a video recording of the workshop and copies of the handouts. You can access these materials at the libraries circulation desk.

Researching Your Paper Topic:

Research Slideshow 

Research Handout

Today, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-2) the first major piece of legislation enacted into law in the new Congress. In his remarks at the signing ceremony, the President said: “It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act – we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness. . . But equal pay is by no means just a women’s issue – it’s a family issue.”

The bill signing comes after lengthy litigation that resulted in the 2007 US Supreme Court 5-4 ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), that reversed a $3 million jury award that found that Goodyear discriminated against her in pay, giving her smaller raises than the male managers. The basis of the Supreme Court ruling was the narrow issue of limitation of actions and that Ledbetter’s claims had to be filed within 180 days of the first time Goodyear paid her less than her peers. The decision became a major issue during the presidential campaign dividing the Democratic and Republican parties. The Democrats viewed the case as an ideologically driven decision — one that tossed aside precedent and logic — and campaigned in Congress to override the decision by enacting corrective legislation. The Republicans (almost united in their opposition to eliminating any time requirement for filing a claim involving pay discrimination and extending an expanded statute of limitations) led a successful filibuster against the bill in 2008 and this year unsuccessfully proposed eight amendments to weaken the legislation.

The passage of the new legislation raises broader questions about congressional overrides of US Supreme Court decisions in general. We generally assume that the courts – and especially the Supreme Court – have the “last word” on the meaning of Congressional statutes. But today’s bill signing makes clear that Congress can act to change or to clarify the legal framework in response to judicial decisions when those decisions have produced outcomes that are not favored by a congressional majority. The BLS library has in its collection a number of items that address the issue of congressional overrides of court cases including these two volumes:

Making Policy, Making Law: an Interbranch Perspective edited by Mark C. Miller and Jeb Barnes (JK305 .M35 2004)

Last term’s US Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm for private use) apparently does not extend to nunchacku or nunchaks, according to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Today, that court issued its opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo which may bring to an end the long battle by the plaintiff in that case, a Port Jefferson attorney, who challenged his arrest for possession in his home of two “chuka sticks,” or “nunchaku.” The case has a long and tortured history which is summarized in a Law.com article entitled N.Y. Attorney Vows to Fight ‘Nunchaku Intolerance’. Today’s decision by the Second Circuit affirms a ruling by Judge Arthur Spatt of the Eastern District of New York that denied Maloney’s claim that §265.01 of New York’s Penal Law violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Subsection 14 of that section of the NY Penal Law defines a “chuka stick” (or “nunchaku”) as:

“any device designed primarily as a weapon, consisting of two or more lengths of a rigid material joined together by a thong, rope or chain in such a manner as to allow free movement of a portion of the device while held in the hand and capable of being rotated in such a manner as to inflict serious injury upon a person bystriking or choking.”

On the issue of whether the Second Amendment applies to the States, the Second Circuit ruled:

It is settled law, however, that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right. [Citations omitted] Heller, a case involving a challenge to the District of Columbia’s general prohibition on handguns, does not invalidate this longstanding principle. . . And to the extent that Heller might be read to question the continuing validity of this principle, we “must follow Presser” because “[w]here, as here, a Supreme Court precedent ‘has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to the Supreme Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.’” [Citations omitted] Thus, N.Y. Penal Law §§ 265.00 through 265.02 do not violate the Second Amendment.

Whether the plaintiff will seek US Supreme Court review is an open question. However, the passion he brings to the topic of Nunchaku Intolerance on his website suggests that such an appeal is likely.

In a victory for historians, researchers and advocates of open government, the Obama Administration issued its first Executive Order entitled Presidential Records on January 21. It revokes Executive Order 13233 issued by George W. Bush in November of 2001 which gave ex-presidents and their families unprecedented powers to block public access to White House records. The effect of this latest Executive Order is to regulate the influence ex-presidents and their heirs can exert to block the release of sensitive documents pertaining to their time in the White House.

To understand what Executive Order 13233 did, some background is needed. As part of the reforms enacted after the Watergate scandal that led to the impeachment of Richard Nixon, the Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 (codified at 44 U.S.C. 2201-2207) changed the legal ownership of the official records of the President from private to public, and established a new statutory structure under which Presidents must manage their records. The records of former President Ronald Reagan were the first Presidential records to be governed by the PRA.

When the presidential papers of Ronald Reagan were due to be made public, the Bush Administration instructed the Archivist to delay release of the Presidential records of former President Reagan. In November 2001, President George W. Bush issued EO 13233 giving current and former presidents, their heirs or designees, and former vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely. Less than a month after EO 13233 was issued, the American Historical Association brought suit against the federal government questioning the order’s legality. In October 2007, US District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued an opinion that gave historians and researchers a partial victory striking the section of the EO that allows a former president to delay indefinitely the release of records. The opinion did not rule on the legality of the sections of the Executive Order allowing heirs and designees of former presidents, and former vice presidents, the authority to control the release of documents, calling them “unripe” since no records had yet been withheld under those provisions, leaving open challenges of these provisions in the future.

Section 5 of President Obama’s first Executive Order removes any question about such challenges for now by stating “Executive Order 13233 of November 1, 2001, is revoked.” Brooklyn Congressman Edolphus Towns has introduced the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2009 (H.R. 35) that would make these new rules permanent law. The House has passed the bill and it is now pending action in the Senate.

Many law students and legal researchers know how to use Hein Online to find older law review articles which are not on Lexis or Westlaw. Hein has added new libraries to its database, including the following, which are available in the BLS Library electronic collection:

• Subject Compilation of State Laws is a way to find out the law in all fifty states. For a particular subject, it lists law review articles, books, court briefs, opinions and websites which cite to statutes in each of the fifty states.
• U.S. Code – Copies of the official U.S. Code published by the government every six years. 1925 through 2006 editions are available.
• National Moot Court Competition – The winning briefs from 1950 on.
• United Nations Law Collection – With exact reproductions of major United Nations legal publications, including the complete collection of the United Nations Treaty Series.

Hein has made these two videos which explain how to use the Subject Compilation of State Laws library and the United Nations Law Collection.

Subject Compilations of State Laws – Getting Started

HeinOnline’s United Nations Law Collection

In time for today’s Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, the collection of M.L.K. papers, books and other items are available to the public at the Woodruff Library at Morehouse College in Atlanta. The website provides archival descriptions and other study aides and describes the collection overview:

The Morehouse King Collection includes approximately 1,000 books from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal library with his handwritten notes throughout. In addition, there are hundreds of handwritten index note cards, possibly used for reference as Dr. King developed his many oratorical speeches and academic assignments, and many more typed and handwritten manuscripts and items, including: a telegram from President Lyndon B. Johnson inviting him to the signing of the voting rights act in 1965; handwritten edits of eulogies delivered on behalf of martyred adults and children of the Civil Rights Movement; drafts of numerous sermons, famous speeches; “to-do” lists for civil rights leaders the Rev. Joseph Lowery, Walter Fauntroy and Andrew Young; credit card receipts; travel coupons; examination blue books from college and even the cosmetics containers of found within a suitcase and briefcase used when he traveled.

More highlights are noted here.

Another collection of material related to Dr. King is the Complete FBI File on Martin Luther King, Jr. consisting of 16,659 pages. The FBI has posted 201 pages in two parts on its web site here. The rest of the file can be found online in a series of zip file on this site posted by The Memory Hole. Documents have been censored and many pages include blacked-out sections.

There are an additional 11,000 plus pages posted on this FBI web page here relating to the FBI file of security investigations of Stanley Levison from the 1950’s through the early 1970’s. Levison was a key advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. LexisNexis Black Studies Research Sources has User Guides relating to both the King and the Levison files.

The FBI’s tracking of King is covered by David Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis (Call # E185.97.K5 G37 1981) available in the BLS Library collection.

The 16,659 pages are just a portion of King’s FBI files. The FBI withheld some pages under exemptions allowed by the Freedom of Information Act. On January 31, 1977, in the cases of Bernard S. Lee v. Clarence M. Kelley, et al. (U.S.D.C., D.C.) and Southern Christian Leadership Conference v. Clarence M. Kelley, et al. (U.S.D.C., D.C.), US District Judge John Lewis Smith, Jr., ordered the FBI to purge its files of all known copies of the recorded tapes relating to Martin Luther King, Jr. Judge Smith also ordered the FBI to deliver the tapes and documents to the custody of the National Archives and Records Service (NARA) to be maintained by the Archivist of the United States under seal for a period of fifty years. Part 1 of the User Guide above has more to read about this.

A recent post in the Law Librarian Blog linked to an abstract of interest to tax researchers. The link is to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) article by three Loyola Law School tax professors entitled The Virtual Tax Library: A Comparison of Five Electronic Tax Research Platforms. The article comparrs five online tax research databases and the primary and secondary resources and features that they offer. The databases, LexisNexis, Westlaw, BNA Tax Management Library, CCH Tax Research NetWork and RIA Checkpoint, are all available on the BLS Library database page. Each of the databases is a virtual tax library offering tax researchers much of the content and functionality of a physical tax library, as well as some useful functionality features (e.g., direct linking of primary and secondary sources) a physical tax library cannot provide.

The Article provides detailed comparisons of the content and features offered by each of the five databases. It also explains how to access various types of primary and secondary tax sources in each database and provides detailed search pathways that will help tax researchers better navigate the databases. The article has two useful appendices to help tax researchers better understand the differences in the databases. Appendix A provides a side-by-side comparison of the primary source content available on the five electronic tax research databases with search pathways and date restrictions for each type of content. Appendix B provides a side-by-side comparison of the functionality features offered by each database. The chart includes quick reference guides for initiating various types of searches, as well as user support information for each platform.

The Federal Evidence Blog recently posted a list of ten potential evidence issues worth watching in 2009. The list, in no particular order, follows and is described in greater detail in the blog post here:

1. Attorney General Confirmation Hearings (the Holder Memo on bringing criminal charges against corporations)
2. Supreme Court: Pending Melendez-Diaz Confrontation Clause Decision
3. New Rule: FRE 502 (Attorney-Client Privilege and Work-Product Doctrine)
4. The Selective Waiver Doctrine
5. Pending Rule Amendment: FRE 804(b)(3) (Declarations Against Interest)
6. Future Rule Amendment: “Restyling” The Federal Rules of Evidence
7. Expert Evidence: Tenth Circuit En Banc Ruling Pending in United States v. Nacchio
8. Legislation: Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Act and Reporter Shield Law
9. Legislation: Reporter Shield Law
10. Pending Circuit Split: Resolving FRE 404(b) Elements Conflict

A look back at the ten evidence issues of 2008 is listed below and is explained in the blog entry here:

1. New Rule: FRE 502 (Attorney-Client Privilege and Work-Product Doctrine)
2. Supreme Court: Underscoring Primary Role of Trial Court in Making Initial Evidence Rulings: Sprint/United Management Co. v. Mendelsohn
3. Supreme Court: Giles v. California Confrontation Clause Forfeiture by Wrongdoing Decision
4. Expert Testimony: What are the Limits of an Expert’s Reliance on Inadmissible or Other Materials under FRE 703?
5. Legislation: Forestalling the Attorney Client Privilege Protection Act
6. Pending Open Issue: Whether Admitting Business Records Certified under FRE 902(11) May Violate the Confrontation Clause?
7. Expert Testimony: Explaining Online Behavior
8. Developing Consensus: Bruton Is Inapplicable in Bench Trials
9. Legislation: Reporter Shield Law
10. Developing Consensus: Enforcing Plea Proffer Waivers under FRE 410