BLS Library Blog

In time for Halloween, the first floor library display case has a number of books from the library collection on the Salem Witch Trials and earlier trials of witches in England. Brooklyn Law School Associate Librarian Linda Holmes has included these items: 



The Salem Witch Trials: A Reference Guide by K. David Goss (Call #KFM2478.8.W5 G67 2008), interpretations of the trials from the earliest historians to late 20th century analysis with relevant and instructive black-and-white photos and illustrations. Fifty court-related primary documents, selectively detailed biographies of key trial figures, an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

Witch-Hunting In Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638-1693 edited by David D. Hall (Call #BF1575 .W62 1999), a collection of court depositions and excerpts from the diaries and letters of contemporaries on witch-hunts seen through the eyes of the accusers, the victims, abd the judges revealing the emotions in communal life and family relationships within New England’s small towns and villages. 



The Salem Witchcraft Trials: A Legal History by Peter Charles Hoffer (Call #KFM2478.8.W5 H645 1997), an examination of the Salem witch trials where the author shows how rights we take for granted today did not exist in colonial times and also demonstrates how these cases relate to current instances of children accusing adults of abuse. 

 

Witch-Children: From Salem Witch-Hunts to Modern Courtrooms by Hans Sebald (Call #BF1576 .S43 1995), a study of the participation of small children and adolescents in witch trials, whether as the accused or as the accusers, determining the fates of many unsuspecting men and women. The author maintains that the classic “Salem syndrome” is not mere past history but often reenacted in modern courtrooms where children accuse others of molesting or seducing them, with or without satanic ritual, with a public mind-set predisposed to believe them.

A Trial of Witches: A Seventeenth Century Witchcraft Prosecution by Ivan Bunn and Gilbert Geis (Call #KD371.W56 G45 1997), a case study of the witchcraft trial of two women in 1662 Lowestoft, England, including a description of the accusers and prosecutors and an analysis of the trial itself, which was cited as a precedent in the Salem witchcraft trials.

Witchcraft & Witch Trials: A History of English Witchcraft and its Legal Perspectives, 1542 to 1736 by Gregory Durston (Call #KD371.W56 D87 2000), a book of scholarship showing that the English persecution of witches was overwhelmingly a secular legal phenomenon, rather than the result of popular or ecclesiastical action.

Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618 by Barbara Rosen (Call #BF1581 .W79 1991), a rare collection of documents – pamphlets, reports, trial accounts, and other material – that describes the experience, interpretation, and punishment of witchcraft in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

With the mortgage crisis spreading throughout the country, major news stories have been reporting on flawed foreclosure paperwork that the nation’s largest banking institutions have allegedly used courts nationwide. Employees of these institutions – “robo-signers” – have submitted misleading affidavits to the courts saying they had examined documents when in fact they had not examined them. In an effort to address the issue earlier this month, the Congress passed H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010. The bill did not become law as the President withheld approval of the bill citing The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655 (1929). A Presidential Memorandum of Disapproval explained the possible unintended impact on consumer protections as the basis for the pocket veto.

Locally, the issue of robo-signing and flawed foreclosure filings has drawn the attention of Brooklyn State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Schack. This week, in Onewest Bank, F.S.B. v Drayton, 2010 NY Slip Op 20429, Judge Schack ruled that the bank, which relied on an admitted “robo-signer” to transfer the $492,000 mortgage on the pro se defendant’s East New York home, failed to prove it owned the property in question. “To prevent the waste of judicial resources, the instant foreclosure is dismissed without prejudice,” Schack wrote. The decision is the latest of several that have turned Judge Schack into a hero of troubled homeowners across the nation.

This video from the October 14 edition of PBS NewHour features Judge Schack and others discussing the flawed foreclosure paperwork that has led attorneys general in every state and the District of Columbia to launch a joint investigation into the issue and to a temporary halt by banks in foreclosure proceedings.

The Brooklyn Law School Library has in its collection the recently published third edition of the National Consumer Law Center’s Foreclosures: Defenses, Workouts, and Mortgage Servicing by John Rao (Call #KF697.F6 R3 2010) described as the best book for in-depth legal research on the subject of foreclosure. The related library record links to the book’s companion website for which the publisher has a description here.

Brooklyn Law School will begin a new LL.M. program for foreign-trained lawyers in the Fall 2011 semester. The new program offers three specializations: Business Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Refugee and Immigration Law. The LL.M. degree requires completion of 24 credits. There are two required courses (Fundamentals of American Law and Legal Writing & Research for Foreign-Trained Lawyers); the remaining credits are taken as electives based on student goals and specializations.

Prior to applying, applicants must register with the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) at it website. To be eligible for admission to the LL.M. program for foreign-trained lawyers, prospective students must hold the equivalent of a J.D. from a foreign university, meet minimum requirements for English language proficiency under TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), and submit at least two letters of recommendation from law school professors, employers, supervisors or other individuals who can the applicant’spotential for successful graduate legal studies. The Early Action application deadline is December 1, 2010 and the Regular Review application deadline is February 1, 2011. More information about the LL.M degree program is on the Brooklyn Law School website.

The Yankees, Rangers, Phillies, and Giants will soon face off in the League Championship Series to determine which team will be the 2010 World Series Champions. It is timely to review items in the Brooklyn Law School Library collection on the subject of baseball. The most recent acquisition, Smart Ball: Marketing the Myth and Managing the Reality of Major League Baseball by Robert F. Lewis, II (Call #GV880 .L55 2010) examines the business of baseball, tracing the history of our national pastime from its pastoral roots as a sport and domestic cottage industry to its position as an economic giant with protected legal status. It also explores the challenges posed by unionization, racial diversity, the steroid scandal, and the international marketing of the business. The chapter on the development of the baseball monopoly is worth reading. 

The author, a Cleveland Indians fan, traces his interest in baseball to the 1948 World Series contest when the Indians defeated the New York Yankees and won its last World Series title. But the 176 page book is not about baseball’s heroes, their statistics, or the strategies of team managers. Instead, Smart Ball looks at the business side of the game. Chapters, following the four bases that are part of the game, are titled: First Base – Baseball as a Sport: Creating Power; Second Base – Baseball as a Domestic Monopoly: Developing Power; Third Base – Baseball as a Neocolonialist Abusing Power; and Home Plate – Baseball as a Global Business: Balancing Power. This book is not for the casual baseball fan but is for those interested in understanding the business of baseball. 

Another item in the BLS Library collection is The Little White Book of Baseball Law by John H. Minan and Kevin Cole (Call # KF3989 .M563 2009). The 226 page book looks at legal disputes from baseball history with an examination of some of the more arcane rules in baseball. The chapters use baseball’s inning structure offering eighteen innings (a double-header as stated in the preface) of legal disputes resolved by the courts. They include cases on ticket scalping, Lainer v. City of Boston, 95 F.Supp.2d 17 (2000), beanball pitches (Avila v. Citrus Community College District, 41 Cal. Rptr. 3d 399 (2006), and Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption, Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972). The authors use an “Umpire’s Ruling” segment after each chapter explaining a legal issue of the game. There is even an explanation of the “infield fly rule”. This book will appeal to both lawyers and sports fans with its short-story format and references to movies, songs, history, and other trivia. 

As for the upcoming World Series, may the best team (the Yankees?) win.