3rd Circuit to Mull Privacy of Cell Phone Data, Shannon P. Duffy: "In a case that could prove to be one of the most important privacy rights battles of the modern era, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear argument this week on the proper legal standard to apply when prosecutors demand cell phone location data. The data, which are recorded about once every seven seconds whenever a cell phone is turned on, effectively track the whereabouts and the comings and goings of every cell phone user. Justice Department lawyers argue that, by statute, they need only show "reasonable grounds" to believe that such records are "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation." But a federal magistrate judge in Pittsburgh strongly disagreed in February 2008, issuing a 52-page opinion that said the prosecutors must meet the "probable cause" standard."

Securities and Exchange Commission Litigation Release No. 21371 / January 11, 2010 - Securities and Exchange Commission v. Bank of America Corporation, Civil Action No. 09-6829 (JSR) (S.D.N.Y.): "The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it seeks to charge Bank of America with failing to disclose extraordinary financial losses at Merrill Lynch prior to a shareholder vote to approve a merger between the two companies. The SEC has asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for permission to amend its pending complaint against Bank of America to include the new charges. The agency earlier charged the bank with misleading investors about billions of dollars in bonuses that were being paid to Merrill executives. That complaint was amended in October to add a charge for Bank of America's failure to comply with certain affirmative disclosure obligations under the federal proxy rules."

"The Federal Judicial Center has posted a monograph providing an introduction to, and overview of, immigration law, with a focus on issues that arise in litigation."

FindLaw: "Rejecting a bid by convicted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to overturn his guilty plea, a federal appeals court affirmed the French citizen's terror conspiracy charges stemming from his role as an admitted terror camp trainee, member of the terrorist organization, and acknowledged flight-school his 'intent to obtain pilot training to further "al Qaeda's plan to use plans to kill Americans."

Report of the Council to the Membership of The American Law Institute on the Matter of the Death Penalty: "On October 23, 2009, the ALI Council voted overwhelmingly, with some abstentions, to accept the resolution of the capital punishment matter as approved by the Institute’s membership at the 2009 Annual Meeting in May. The resolution adopted at the Annual Meeting and now accepted by the Council reads as follows:

For reasons stated in Part V of the Council’s report to the membership, the Institute withdraws Section 210.6 of the Model Penal Code in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.

2009 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary: "Chief Justice John Roberts issued his 2009 year-end report, stating that "courts are operating soundly, and the nation's dedicated federal judges are conscientiously discharging their duties...In 2009, a total of 1,402,816 bankruptcy petitions were filed in the U.S. courts, an increase of 35% over the 1,042,806 filed in 2008. The 2009 total represents the greatest number of bankruptcy filings since 2005, when many debtors rushed to file petitions before October 17, 2005, the date on which the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) took effect."

"A new report by the Federal Judicial Center offers an analysis of all cases that were sealed in federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts in 2006, and describes why and how they were sealed."

Examining the Work of State Courts: An Analysis of 2007 State Court Caseloads. A joint project of the Conference of State Court Administrators, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the National Center for State Courts. 2009
Examining the Work of State Courts is the authoritative analysis of the best available state court case filing and disposition data. Approximately ninety-five percent of all legal cases initiated in the United States are filed in the state courts. Whether the reader’s objective is to assess the current legal landscape, to improve the management of a court or a state court system, to develop public policy, or to gain a better understanding of the work of our third branch of government, this publication provides the independent interpretation of reliable data that will speak to the reader’s need. In fact, without the benefit of this foundational data and its expert analysis, state court leaders and managers, policy makers, and the media are too often left with little more than random anecdote and unsupported opinion as the basis for their work."

The Liberal Tradition of the Supreme Court Clerkship: Its Rise, Fall, and Reincarnation? William E. Nelson, Harvey Rishikof, I. Scott Messinger, Michael Jo | 62 Vand. L. Rev. 1749 (2009)

Surge Driven by Steep Jump in Immigration Filings: "As a result of an unusual flood of immigration prosecutions, the total number of federal criminal filings reached an all time high in the just ended fiscal year, according to timely Justice Department data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). The latest data show that the number of all kinds of federal criminal prosecutions peaked at 169,612 cases in FY 2009, up nearly 9 percent from the previous year's total of 155,694 and 42 percent from five years ago when prosecutions came to only 119,492. The comparisons of the number of defendants charged with offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys."

• Biosurveillance: Developing a Collaboration Strategy Is Essential to Fostering Interagency Data and Resource Sharing, GAO-10-171, December 18, 2009
• Department of Veterans Affairs' Implementation of Information Security Education Assistance Program, GAO-10-170R, December 18, 2009
• DOD Civilian Personnel: Intelligence Personnel System Incorporates Safeguards, but Opportunities Exist for Improvement, GAO-10-134, December 17, 2009
• Overseas Contingency Operations: Funding and Cost Reporting for the Department of Defense, GAO-10-288R, December 18, 2009
• Softwood Lumber Act of 2008: Customs and Border Protection Established Required Procedures, but Agencies Report Little Benefit from New Requirements, GAO-10-220, December 18, 2009
• Juvenile Justice: DOJ Is Enhancing Information on Effective Programs, but Could Better Assess the Utility of This Information, GAO-10-125, December 17, 2009
• UN Office for Project Services: Management Reforms Proceeding but Effectiveness Not Assessed, and USAID's Oversight of Grants Has Weaknesses, GAO-10-168, November 19, 2009

"The Death Penalty Information Center released the The Death Penalty in 2009: Year End Report on December 18, noting that the country is expected to finish 2009 with the fewest death sentences since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Eleven states considered abolishing the death penalty this year, a significant increase in legislative activity from previous years, as the high costs and lack of measurable benefits associated with this punishment troubled lawmakers."

News release: "While the Supreme Court ruling in Boumediene v. Bush established definitively the right of habeas corpus for detainees at Guantanamo, it left many important questions unresolved about how these habeas petitions would be adjudicated. As a consequence, the District of Columbia District Court and Court of Appeals have been charged with deciding such issues as: the substantive scope of the executive’s detention authority; the reach of the suspension clause to Bagram; whether conditions of confinement are open to habeas challenge; standards for admitting hearsay into evidence; and procedures for handling classified intelligence reports. In an effort to document this habeas litigation the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security created a searchable database, containing every Guantanamo and Bagram detainee habeas petition brought before the D.C. courts since the Boumediene ruling."

News release: "Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts for fiscal year 2009 totaled 1,402,816, up 34.5 percent over the 1,042,993 filings reported for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2008, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The federal Judiciary’s fiscal year is the 12-month period ending September 30. The bankruptcies reported today are for October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009."

"The Court entered its Findings of Fact and Conclusion of law in the Robinson matter. The Court ruled that the failure of the United States Army Corps of Engineers to maintain and operate the MRGO properly was a substantial cause for the failure of the Reach 2 Levee. It found that the Corps was not negligent with respect to its failure to construct a surge protection barrier at the "funnel" where Reach 2 merges into Reach 1 and the GIWW and thus was not liable for the flooding of New Orleans East. It also found that the Corps was not entitled to immunity under 702c of the Flood Control Act of 1928 and is not entitled to the protection of the due care, discretionary function, or misrepresentation exceptions under the Federal Torts Claim Act. As a result of these findings, it found that plaintiffs in the St. Bernard Polder were entitled to damages as set forth with more precision in the opinion. (Doc. 19415, Appendix)"

"Welcome to the new Media Alerts on Federal Courts of Appeals Website of the ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judicial Improvements. This website is designed to provide reporters, lawyers, educators, and the public with prompt, accurate, unbiased information about newsworthy and legally significant cases pending in and decided by the Federal Courts of Appeals. Our goal is to assist the media’s efforts to provide timely and extensive reporting about federal court decisions. Use this website to find short summaries of recent opinions of public interest and noteworthy cases pending oral argument."

"The 2009 Guidelines Manual (effective November 1, 2009) is available in HTML and Adobe .PDF formats (large file and broken into chapters), which can be viewed, downloaded or printed via the website."

"The Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in conjunction with the Cornell Law School is committed to helping the Rwanda Tribunal garner more attention world-wide. The lessons and legacy of ground-breaking legal matters related to the unspeakable events in Rwanda should not be forgotten. Humans, whether from rich or poor countries, must remain vigilant in curbing the motivations that lead individuals and groups to violent hatred and barbaric acts against a class of people. Consequently, items about this tribunal, which will end shortly after 2010, will appear from time to time on this news service. Last month, the IWS Colloquium Series, with cosponsorship of the Cornell Law School (represented by Prof. Claire Germain) hosted Sir Dennis Byron, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), who spoke about the Role of the Courts in Protecting and Preserving Human Rights. It was a fascinating evening that touched on both legal and institutional issues, never flinching from some of the moral and social issues. Of particular note are the ground-breaking precedents of the ICTR in regard to sexual violence and the limits of freedom of speech. [Stuart Basefsky]

News release: "The success of the highly regarded Supreme Court Database has been unparalleled. Information from the database is cited in the majority of peer-reviewed articles about the workings of the court. A team including Northwestern University School of Law's Lee Epstein, a specialist in the politics of the Supreme Court, has expanded the database -- with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the latest in today's technology -- to make the resource easily accessible to a wider audience. Now, a streamlined interface allows anyone to go online and pull up cases with ease...By modernizing the Supreme Court Database, Epstein and her team are expanding Michigan State University Law Professor Harold Spaeth's original invention and using technology that wasn't available at its inception. Currently, cases from 1953 to 2008 are available. New funding from NSF means the database can be expanded to include information dating back to the court's first decision in 1792. The Supreme Court Database began with Spaeth's work in the late 1980s. Spaeth was able to collect decades of data on the court and put it together in a comprehensive database available to the public."

"The U.S. Sentencing Commission has issued a report, The History of Child Pornography Guidelines, as a first step in its review of the punishment prescribed for the sexual exploitation of children...The Commission has sought to implement congressional intent in the area of child pornography offenses in a manner consistent with the SRA and subsequent legislation. As discussed in this paper, in amending the child pornography guidelines over the years, the Commission has reviewed sentencing data, considered public comment on proposed amendments, conducted public hearings on proposed amendments, studied relevant literature, and considered pertinent legislative history."

Tort Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts, 2005: "Discusses tort cases concluded by a bench or jury trial in a national sample of jurisdictions in 2005. Topics include the types of tort cases that proceed to trial, the differences between tort cases adjudicated by judges and juries, and the types of plaintiffs and defendants represented in tort trials. The report also covers plaintiff win rates, punitive damages, and the final award amounts generated in tort trial litigation. Lastly, trends are examined in tort trial litigation in the nation’s 75 most populous counties, based on comparable data in 1996, 2001, and 2005."

"One of the federal judiciary's major statistical compilations, Judicial Facts and Figures, recently was updated to include caseload statistics and judgeship totals for fiscal year 2008."

Juvenile Justice: Technical Assistance and Better Defined Evaluation Plans Will Help Girls' Delinquency Programs. GAO-10-133T, October 20, 2009: "...from 1995 through 2005, delinquency caseloads for girls in juvenile justice courts nationwide increased 15 percent while boys’ caseloads decreased by 12 percent.1 More recently, in 2007, 29 percent of juvenile arrests—about 641,000 arrests—involved girls, who accounted for 17 percent of juvenile violent crime arrests and 35 percent of juvenile property crime arrests.2 Further, research on girls has highlighted that delinquent girls have higher rates of mental health problems than delinquent boys, receive fewer special services, and are more likely to abandon treatment programs."

Follow up to October 10, 2009 posting, Mandatory Flu Shots for New York Health Care Workers, the New York Times today reported Thomas J. McNamara, an acting justice of the State Supreme Court in Albany, issued a temporary order halting the enforcement of mandatory flu vaccines for health care workers.

• Contingency Contracting: DOD, State, and USAID Continue to Face Challenges in Tracking Contractor Personnel and Contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, GAO-10-1, October 01, 2009
• Emergency Management: Preliminary Observations on FEMA's Community Preparedness Programs Related to the National Preparedness System, GAO-10-105T, October 01, 2009
• Personnel Security Clearances: An Outcome-Focused Strategy and Comprehensive Reporting of Timeliness and Quality Would Provide Greater Visibility over the Clearance Process, GAO-10-117T, October 01, 2009
• Aviation Security: A National Strategy and Other Actions Would Strengthen TSA's Efforts to Secure Commercial Airport Perimeters and Access Controls, GAO-09-399, September 30, 2009
• Federal Judgeships: The General Accuracy of District and Appellate Judgeship Case-Related Workload Measures, GAO-09-1050T, September 30, 2009
• Federal Student Loans: Audits and Reviews of the Federal Family Education Loan and Federal Direct Loan Programs, GAO-09-992R, September 30, 2009
• Continuing Resolutions: Uncertainty Limited Management Options and Increased Workload in Selected Agencies, GAO-09-879, September 24, 2009
• U.S. Embargo on Cuba: Recent Regulatory Changes and Potential Presidential or Congressional Actions, GAO-09-951R, September 17, 2009
• Equal Employment Opportunity: DHS Has Opportunities to Better Identify and Address Barriers to EEO in Its Workforce, GAO-09-639, August 31, 2009

Contract Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts, 2005: "Presents findings on contract cases disposed of by a bench or jury trial in a nationally representative sample of jurisdictions in 2005. Topics in the report include the types of cases that proceed to trial, differences between the types of cases decided by judges or juries, types of plaintiffs and defendants represented in civil trials, plaintiff win rates, damage awards, and post-trial activity. Information is also presented on contract trial litigation in the nation’s 75 most populous counties from 1996 to 2005. See also Civil Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts, 2005."

"In a case brought by Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice representing a coalition of farmers and consumers, a Federal Court ruled yesterday that the Bush USDA’s approval of genetically engineered (GE) “RoundUp Ready” sugar beets [note: sugar beets produce 30 percent of the world's sugar] was unlawful. The Court ordered the USDA to conduct a rigorous assessment of the environmental and economic impacts of the crop on farmers and the environment. The federal district court for the Northern District of California ruled that the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (“APHIS”) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) when it failed to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) before deregulating sugar beets that have been genetically engineered (“GE”) to be resistant to glyphosate herbicide, marketed by Monsanto as Roundup...Sugar beet seed is grown primarily in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, which is also an important seed growing area for crops closely related to sugar beets, such as organic chard and table beets. GE sugar beets are wind pollinated and will inevitably cross-pollinate the related crops being grown in the same area. Such biological contamination would be devastating to organic farmers, who face debilitating market losses if their crops are contaminated by a GE variety."

Follow up to previous postings on what is becoming the saga of the Google Book Settlement, the following articles, legal documents and commentary today:

• New York Times: Google Working to Revise Digital Books Settlement
  
• Author's Guild: "Beating their midnight deadline by about 90 minutes, the Justice Department on Friday filed a brief calling for modifications to the Authors Guild's class-action settlement with Google over Google's scanning of millions of library books without permission. The Justice Department said the parties to the settlement should modify the settlement to address certain copyright, antitrust, and class-action concerns. While it opposes the settlement agreement as it now stands, the Justice Department "strongly supports" the settlement's goals of creating new markets for out-of-print works and committed itself to working constructively with the parties on a revised settlement.."
  
• Google's Book Search Deal: 5 Pros and 5 Cons, JR Raphael, PC World
  
• ars technica - DOJ: Google book settlement needs major rewrite

Follow up to previous posting on Google book search, this news release today: Justice Department Submits Views on Proposed Google Book Search Settlement: "The Department of Justice today advised the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that while it should not accept the class action settlement in The Authors Guild Inc. et al. v. Google Inc. as proposed due to concerns of the United States regarding class action, copyright and antitrust law, the parties should be encouraged to continue their productive discussions to address those concerns. In its statement of interest filed with the court, the Department stated: "Given the parties’ express commitment to ongoing discussions to address concerns already raised and the possibility that such discussions could lead to a settlement agreement that could legally be approved by the Court, the public interest would best be served by direction from the Court encouraging the continuation of those discussions between the parties and, if the Court so chooses, by some direction as to those aspects of the Proposed Settlement that need to be improved. Because a properly structured settlement agreement in this case offers the potential for important societal benefits, the United States does not want the opportunity or momentum to be lost."

Gallup: "As the U.S. Supreme Court convenes Wednesday with recently sworn-in Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the bench, Gallup finds Americans broadly upbeat about the performance of the high court. Sixty-one percent of Americans approve and 28% disapprove of the job the Supreme Court is doing -- among the most positive ratings the court has received in the past decade."

PACER Spending Survey: Stanford Law School deputy library director Erika Wayne describes an open source document access project focused on improving PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), sponsored by a small group of research savvy and customer service oriented group of law librarians.

Electronic Public Access Fees and the United States Federal Courts’ Budget: An Overview Stephen Schultze, Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard.

"CDT filed a "friend of the court" brief in the Southern District of New York [September 4, 2009] requesting that key privacy requirements be included in the Court's approval of the class-action settlement that would dramatically expand Google Book Search. CDT previously released a report in July analyzing the privacy implications of this settlement and is urging the judge to guarantee strong privacy safeguards for the exciting new services Google will be able to offer. The brief asks that the court approve the proposed settlement of the copyright infringement lawsuit between Google and authors and publishers, but to retain oversight in order to monitor implementation of a privacy plan."

• CDT's Amicus Brief in Google Books settlement
  
• CDT's Report on Google Book Service
  
• Related postings on Google Book Search
  
• New York Times: Google Book Project Coolly Received in Europe
  
• WSJ: Google Curtails Europe Book Plan

AL-KIDD v. ASHCROFT, No. 06-36059 D.C. No. CV-05-00093-OPINION

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press:" The string of FOIA lawsuits for release of records of the government's emergency lending programs finally saw its first victory Monday. The Federal Reserve Board must release to Bloomberg News records identifying the financial firms it loaned bailout funds to as well as the assets or amounts put up as collateral, the news agency reported. Chief Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan federal court issued the first ruling requiring disclosure in a handful of suits in New York federal court brought separately by Bloomberg, Fox News and the New York Times. Bloomberg reported that she rejected the argument that the records were exempt from release under FOIA because they might harm the competitive advantage of the borrowers."

The Third Branch: "The Judicial Conference has issued a series of “suggested practices” to assist courts in the use of Internet materials in opinions. The recommendations follow a pilot project conducted by circuit librarians who captured and preserved webpages cited in opinions over a six-month period...The guidelines suggest that, if a webpage is cited, chambers staff preserve the citation by downloading a copy of the site’s page and filing it as an attachment to the judicial opinion in the Judiciary’s Case Management/Electronic Case Files System. The attachment, like the opinion, would be retrievable on a non-fee basis through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system."

News release: "In the 12-month period ending June 30, 2009, there were 1,306,315 bankruptcy cases filed, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That is a 35 percent increase compared to filings for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2008, when cases totaled 967,831."

WSJ: Justice O'Connor's continuing judicial work [as a substitute judge, Justice O'Connor has heard nearly 80 cases and written more than a dozen opinions] comes in addition to many other activities, from ceremonial functions -- such as serving as grand marshal of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., and as chancellor of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. -- to serious assignments, including the Iraq Study Group that proposed an exit strategy for U.S. forces and panels reviewing policy for the national parks, the U.S. position toward the International Criminal Court and ways to promote research into Alzheimer's disease, which afflicts her husband, John. Justice O'Connor also lectures at law schools, dedicated her old Arizona home as a new center called the O'Connor House for Public Discourse and spearheaded Georgetown Law School's Sandra Day O'Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary. She's written a children's book and pioneered a Web site intended to teach youngsters about the judiciary..."

New York Times: "Justice Sonia Sotomayor took the judicial oath on Aug. 8, 2009, becoming the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the Supreme Court in United States history."

As reported in the Concorde Monitor (New Hampshire), Justice Souter's longtime neighbor said "Souter told him one of the reasons he decided to move was because his Weare house wasn't structurally sound enough to hold the thousands of books that make up his library."

Joel Zand, FindLaw: "A panel of three federal judges ordered the State of California to reduce its inmate population because of prison overcrowding, resulting in the release of approximately 43,000 prisoners during the next two years so that the state's prisons can operate at 137.5% of their design capacity. In a 184-page opinion, the panel ordered California to provide an inmate reduction plan within 45 days to carry out the court's directive "in no more than two years."

"The federal Judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system has reached the one million mark in number of subscribers who have registered since 1991. The system allows users to obtain federal court case and docket information via the Internet."

Overview of Statutory Mandatory Minimum Sentencing: "The Commission has identified at least 171 individual mandatory minimum provisions currently in the federal criminal statutes. In the Commission’s fiscal year 2008 datafile, there were 31,239 counts of conviction that carried a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment.3 Because an offender may be sentenced for multiple counts of conviction that carry mandatory minimum penalties, these 31,239 counts of conviction exceed the total number of offenders (21,023 offenders, as reported below) who were convicted of statutes carrying such penalties. Of these 31,239 counts of conviction, the overwhelming majority (90.7%) were for drug offenses (24,789 counts of conviction, or 79.4%) and firearms offenses (3,527 counts of conviction, or 11.3%)."

"Very timely Justice Department data obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) show that immigration enforcement under the Obama Administration is returning to the unusually high levels that were reached under President Bush. The clearest sign of the administration's current immigration enforcement policy emerged from the monthly growth in such prosecutions -- up from 6,562 in January when the president came into office to 9,037 in April. But the government's initial decision to step up immigration prosecutions goes back to FY 2004 with the launching of a program called "Operation Streamline." While the monthly number of prosecutions varied during President Bush's second term, it hit an all time high of 11,454 in September of 2008. The latest data is here."

Follow up to previous postings on US Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, from today's Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing:

• Witness Testimony - Judge Sonia Sotomayor
  
• Member Statements
  
• NPR - Sotomayor: 'Fidelity To The Law' Guides Me
  
• Senate Committee on the Judiciary: Supreme Court Nomination Hearings (1971 - forward)

Brennan Center for Justice: Language Access in State Courts, Laura Abel

A Guide to the Preservation of Federal Judges’ Papers, Second Edition, Federal Judicial History Office, Federal Judicial Center 2009

"The National Archives Office of Records Services, the William J. Clinton Library, and the George Bush Library released records relating to Judge Sonia Sotomayor."

New York Times: The Place of Women on the Court, interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

CRS - Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Analysis of Selected Opinions, June 19, 2009: "In May 2009, Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced his intention to retire from the Supreme Court. Several weeks later, President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to fill his seat. To fulfill its constitutional advice and consent function, the Senate will consider Judge Sotomayors extensive record compiled from years as a lawyer, prosecutor, district court judge, and appellate court judge to better understand her legal approaches and judicial philosophy. This report provides an analysis of selected opinions authored by Judge Sotomayor during her tenure as a judge on the Second Circuit. Discussions of the selected opinions are grouped according to various topics of legal significance. As a group, the opinions belie easy categorization along any ideological spectrum. However, it is possible to draw some conclusions regarding Judge Sotomayors judicial approach, both within some specific issue areas and in general. Perhaps the most consistent characteristic of Judge Sotomayors approach as an appellate judge has been an adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis, i.e., the upholding of past judicial precedents. Other characteristics appear to include what many would describe as a careful application of particular facts at issue in a case and a dislike for situations in which the court might be seen as oversteping its judicial role. It is difficult to determine the extent to which Judge Sotomayors style as a judge on the Second Circuit would predict her style should she become a Supreme Court justice. However, as has been the case historically with other nominees, some of her approaches may be enduring characteristics."
See also:

• American Bar Assocation Rating Released: Sonia Sotomayor, nominated to be Associate Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court
  
• Comment Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, On The ABA’s Rating Of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, July 7, 2009
  
• Sotomayor Confirmation Hearing To Begin July 13, 2009
  
• Confirmation Hearings: A Timeline That Is Fair To Senators, And Fair To The Nominee

New York Times DealBook: "A federal judge late on Sunday approved a plan by General Motors to sell its best assets to a new, government-backed company, a crucial step for the automaker to restructure and complete its trip through bankruptcy court. The decision by the judge, Robert E. Gerber, of Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, came after three days of hearings to address the 850 objections to the restructuring plan and after he received a revised sale order from G.M.’s lawyers. In his 95-page opinion, Judge Gerber wrote that he agreed with G.M.’s main contention: that the asset sale was needed to preserve its business, in the face of steep losses and government financing that is slated to run out by the end of the week."

• GM news release: GM 363 Asset Sale Approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court
  
• Related postings on General Motor's bankruptcy and the financial system

A Guide to the Preservation of Federal Judge' Papers, Second Edition
Federal Judicial History Office, 2009, 89 pages (Forthcoming)

U.S. Courts: "Bankruptcy filings for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2009, were up 33.3 percent over bankruptcy filings for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2008, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. March 2009 bankruptcy filings totaled 1,202,503, compared to the total 901,927 bankruptcy cases filed in the 12-month period ending March 31, 2008. The largest percentage increase occurred in Chapter 11 filings, a 69.1 percent increase over March 2008 Chapter 11 filings."

"The American Civil Liberties Union today released a report summarizing the civil liberties and civil rights record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated by President Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The report was prepared in accordance with ACLU policy, and will be made available to the public and members of the Senate. The ACLU does not endorse or oppose candidates for elective or appointive office."

"In cases where the DEA is the lead investigative agency, there are significant geographic variations in the rates at which individuals convicted of criminal offenses get sent to prison. According to Justice Department data obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and just published on TRAC's DEA website, in the Northern District of West Virgina (Wheeling) 65.6% of convictions in such cases resulted in prison terms in 2008. In New York West (Buffalo) the rate was 71.1%. On the other hand, in nine districts fully 100% of all convictions in such cases resulted in prison terms. These were: Alabama Middle (Montgomery), Illinois South (East St. Louis), Illinois Central (Springfield), Michigan West (Grand Rapids), Nebraska (Omaha), North Dakota (Fargo), Oklahoma East (Muskogee), Rhode Island (Providence) and Wisconsin West (Madison). Nationally, the rate was 94.6%...For district-by-district DEA enforcement information go here and click on "District Enforcement." There you'll find data on DEA referrals, charges, convictions, prison sentences and much more, for specific districts and the U.S. as a whole."

Follow up to previous postings on GM bankruptcy: "The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York is pleased to announce a pilot project to make digital audio recordings of court proceedings relating to Chrysler LLC, 09-50002, and General Motors Corporation, 09-50026, publicly available online. The audio files are accessible through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. Registration for PACER access may be obtained at www.pacer.psc.uscourts.gov"

Federal Justice Statistics, 2006 - Statistical Tables, 5/09: "Describes criminal case processing in the federal justice system, including arrest and booking through sentencing and corrections. These statistical tables present the number of suspects arrested and booked by the U.S. Marshals Service, suspects in matters investigated and prosecuted by U.S. attorneys, defendants adjudicated and sentenced in U.S. district court, and characteristics of federal prisoners and offenders under federal supervision."

"After several months of declines since reaching all-time highs in September, new immigration prosecutions in February were up 22% from the previous month. According to timely case-by-case data obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), these 8,179 cases represent an increase of about 90% from a year ago, and 250% from February 2004. While immigration cases still account for more than half (53%) of all new federal prosecutions, new filings rose in nearly every other category as well, including drugs (up 49%), weapons (up 19%), white collar crime (up 24%) and government regulation (up 42%). Overall, new criminal cases are at the second-highest level recorded, up 27% from January and up 39% from a year ago."

Law Library of Congress: Supreme Court Nominations - Sonia Sotomayor

New York Times: "President Obama announced on Tuesday that he will nominate the federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, choosing a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in Bronx public housing projects to become the nation’s first Hispanic justice."

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Do Justices Tip Their Hands with Questions at Oral Argument in the U.S. Supreme Court? Timothy R. Johnson, University of Minnesota; Ryan C. Black, Washington University, St. Louis - Department of Political Science; Washington University, St. Louis - Center for Empirical Research in the Law; Jerry Goldman; Sarah Treul - Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, Vol. 29, 2009

In interview, retired justice says a woman should be the choice, Tony Mauro, The National Law Journal

United States v. the Council for Tobacco Research-USA, et al. Appellate Ruling, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, May 22, 2009

Follow up to previous postings on missing White House emails during Bush administrations, today's news release: "Today, in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) v. Office of Administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an opinion upholding the district court's conclusion that the Office of Administration (OA) is not an agency and therefore is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). CREW brought this lawsuit under the FOIA to uncover documents related to OA's response to the discovery that millions of emails had gone missing from White House servers. Although OA had a history of responding to FOIA requests – in fact the office’s own website included regulations for filing FOIA requests with OA – after CREW sued OA suddenly claimed it was not an agency and was not required to produce any of the requested documents. The district court sided with the Bush administration, finding that OA was not an agency because it performed only administrative support functions and did not exercise substantial independent authority. In today's ruling, the D.C. Circuit agreed with that decision."

Criminal Justice Reform Resources 2008-2009: Ken Strutin's guide focuses on select current reports, surveys, legislative proposals and scholarship regarding criminal justice reform. It is only a small sampling of the increasing volume of publications on vital matters of interest to criminal practitioners and the public. Therefore, only a few themes are covered: criminal justice, discovery, forensics, juvenile justice, prosecutorial misconduct, public defense, sentencing and wrongful conviction.

"The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York is pleased to announce a pilot project to make digital audio recordings of court proceedings relating to Chrysler LLC, 09-50002, publicly available online. The audio files are accessible through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. Registration for PACER access may be obtained at www.pacer.psc.uscourts.gov."

• All documents in the Chrysler bankruptcy case should be filed and viewed on http://ecf.nysb-mega.uscourts.gov/.
  
• The lead case is: In re Chrysler LLC, 09-50002; parties filing documents (e.g., notices of appearance) should do so in the lead case only.
  
• Additional case and claims filing information can be found on the Chrysler page
  
• Related postings on Chrysler
Permanent Link

Follow up to May 14, 2009 posting, FTC Files Suit to Stop Illegal Robocalls Pushing Vehicle “Warranty Extensions" - "Today Judge John F. Grady of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued a temporary restraining order stopping telemarketing company Voice Touch, Inc., its principals James and Maureen Dunne, its business partner Network Foundations LLC, and Network Foundations principal Damian Kohlfeld from making any further calls in violation of the Do Not Call Registry and other provisions of the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the FTC Act. The FTC filed the case yesterday, charging that the defendants were operating a massive telemarketing scheme that used random, pre-recorded phone calls to deceive consumers into thinking that their vehicle’s warranty is about to expire."

A Current Glance at Women in the Law 2008 - Women in the Legal Profession, American Bar Association Market Research Department.

News release: "Chrysler LLC today announced that, as a result of the comprehensive restructuring plan agreed to by many of its stakeholders, it has reached an agreement in principle to establish a global strategic alliance with Fiat SpA to form a vibrant new company. It will allow Chrysler and Fiat to fully optimize their respective manufacturing footprints and the global supplier base, while providing each with access to additional markets. Fiat powertrains and components will also be produced at Chrysler manufacturing sites."

• See the Chrysler Restructuring website for Information for Parties of Interest, fact sheets, updates, etc.
  Letter from the Chairman
  
• Chapter 11 Fact Sheet
  
• Via FindLaw - Chrysler's Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Petition - In Re: Chrysler, LLC, April 30, 2009: "Chrysler, one of Detroit's 'Big 3' automakers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief in New York City. The global car company lists billions in debt and liabilities, and has an extensive list of creditors to whom it owes money."
  
• Obama Administration Auto Restructuring Initiative
  Chrysler-Fiat Alliance
  
• Related postings on financial system

"A total of 1,891 applications to federal and state judges for orders authorizing the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications were reported in 2008. No applications were denied. This is a 14 percent decrease in the total of applications reported, compared to 2007. Fewer states—22 states compared to 24 in 2007—reported wiretap activity and the number of applications approved by state judges, 1,505, was down 14 percent from 2007. Federal judges approved 386 applications, down 16 percent from 2007. Orders for 28 wiretaps were approved for which no wiretaps actually were installed. Additional data on applications for wiretaps for the period January 1 through December 31, 2008, is available online in the 2008 Wiretap Report."

News release: "After a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court [Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497], the Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed finding Friday that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare...EPA’s proposed endangerment finding is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis of six gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of intensive analysis by scientists around the world. The science clearly shows that concentrations of these gases are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions, and these high levels are very likely the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate."

The Third Branch: "The Judicial Conference, in its continuing efforts to ensure appropriate public access to court files, has voted to make federal court sealed cases more readily apparent. The Conference, acting at its March 17 meeting, voted to have Internet lists of civil and criminal cases in district courts include a case number and generic name, such as “Sealed vs. Sealed,” for each sealed case. Such lists for each of the 94 district courts are generated by the Judiciary’s Case Management/Electronic Case Files system and are accessible through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system."

News release: "The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), has released the publication High-Priority Criminal Justice Technology Needs. This publication is a description of the research, development, evaluation, and testing process that NIJ goes through to ensure their research portfolios are aligned with the needs of the criminal justice community. The publication also summarizes the high-priority needs for the criminal justice field in the area of technology. These needs are organized into five functional areas—Protecting the Public; Ensuring Officer Safety; Confirming the Guilty and Protecting the Innocent; Improving the Efficiency of Justice; Enabling Informed Decision-Making."

News release - New Jersey Files Suit Against Executives and Directors of Lehman Brothers. Eight-count complaint charges company misrepresentations led to state losing millions on stock investments in 2008.

News release: "The Judicial Conference of the United States today adopted a revised Code of Conduct for United States Judges that will take effect July 1, 2009, the first substantial Code revision since 1992. At its biannual meeting, the Conference also voted to ask Congress to create 63 new federal judgeships — 12 in the courts of appeals (nine permanent and three temporary) and 51 in the district courts (38 permanent and 13 temporary)."

News release: "The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) today asked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to reverse its decision withholding government organizational information on the grounds that the release would violate the privacy of individual employees. TRAC's appeal to OPM concerned a February 23 ruling by Gary A. Lukowski, the manager of OPM's Workforce Information and Planning Group, that contended the release of the requested information about how an agency is organized into units and subunits "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." In its appeal, TRAC said it was impossible for the requested structural information to invade personal privacy because "these records contain no information about any individual." TRAC also noted that the OPM action directly contradicted President Obama's January 21 Transparency and Open Government memorandum pledging his administration to "an unprecedented level of openness."

WSJ: Cough It Up, Bernie: Feds Look to Seize Homes, Boats, Pianos...

US Courts: "Bankruptcy filings in the federal courts rose 31 percent in calendar year 2008, according to data released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The number of bankruptcies filed in the twelve-month period ending December 31, 2008, totaled 1,117,771, up from 850,912 bankruptcies filed in CY 2007. Filings have grown since CY 2006 when bankruptcy filings totaled 617,660, in the first full 12-month period after the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) took effect. An historic high in the number of bankruptcy filings was seen in calendar year 2005, when over 2 million bankruptcies were filed."

US Courts: "President George W. Bush appointed 328 persons to Article III judgeships, the third most of any president."

News release: "Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released today by the Pew Center on the States. The vast majority of these offenders live in the community, yet new data in the report finds that nearly 90 percent of state corrections dollars are spent on prisons. One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections examines the scale and cost of prison, jail, probation and parole in each of the 50 states, and provides a blueprint for states to cut both crime and spending by reallocating prison expenses to fund stronger supervision of the large number of offenders in the community."

"The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during November 2008 the government reported 16 new national internal security/terrorism prosecutions. According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this number is up from 13 in the previous month. These two months' figures are the lowest recorded in this category since September 2001. The comparisons of the number of defendants charged with national internal security/terrorism-related offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys."

Timothy B. Lee: "Speaking at Princeton on Thursday, Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the Association of American Publishers, discussed the landmark settlement in the Google Book Search case. Sarnoff speculated that the agreement could effectively give Google and Amazon a "duopoly" in the online book market."

Update to February 4, 2009 posting, New and Restyled Civil and Criminal Forms Now Online, the reference has been revised to facilitate user access, see Federal Court Forms Now Categorized - A list of 56 new and restyled civil and criminal forms has been posted in a categorized listing.

"FOX Business Network has won a victory against the Treasury Department in its Freedom of Information Act request for details about the government’s bailout plan. Judge Richard J. Holwell of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said in a decision Friday that the government is directed to comply with FOX Business’s request under the FOIA “within 30 days and to produce a Vaughn index with 45 days.”

A Rising Share: Hispanics and Federal Crime: "Sharp growth in illegal immigration and increased enforcement of immigration laws have dramatically altered the ethnic composition of offenders sentenced in federal courts. In 2007, Latinos accounted for 40% of all sentenced federal offenders - more than triple their share (13%) of the total U.S. adult population. The share of all sentenced offenders who were Latino in 2007 was up from 24% in 1991, according to an analysis of data from the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center."

Alternative Sentencing in the Federal Criminal Justice System, United States Sentencing Commission, January 2009.

News release: "The United States Securities and Exchange Commission announced that on February 9, 2009, it submitted to the Honorable Judge Louis L. Stanton, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, the consent of Bernard L. Madoff to a proposed partial judgment imposing a permanent injunction and continuing relief previously imposed in the preliminary injunction order, entered on December 18, 2008. Madoff consented to the partial judgment without admitting or denying the allegations [$50 billion fraud] of the SEC's complaint, filed on December 11, 2008. If the partial judgment is entered by the Court, the permanent injunction will continue to restrain Madoff from violating certain antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. Also, the proposed partial judgment would continue against Madoff the relief imposed in the December 18, 2008 Order, including the order freezing assets. The proposed partial judgment would leave the issues of the amount of disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalty to be imposed against Madoff to be decided at a later time."

"A list of 56 new and restyled civil and criminal forms has been posted. A working group of judges, clerks, and staff members in the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has rewritten the forms in simple, modern English."

US Court: "New poverty guidelines for 2009, needed by persons seeking fee waivers when filing for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, have been posted. Guidelines and Other Bankruptcy Resources."

"The Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics tables for courts of appeals, district courts, bankruptcy courts, and the federal probation system and pretrial services through March 31, 2008 are newly posted."

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission today announced that the agency returned almost $28 million to consumers this week as a result of a settlement with The Bear Stearns Companies, LLC and EMC Mortgage Corporation. Using the defendants’ records, about 86,000 consumers who had mortgage loans serviced by EMC have been mailed redress checks."

CDT news release: "The Supreme Court Wednesday dealt the final blow to the government's 10-year campaign to place onerous restrictions on Internet content. The Court declined to hear the government's appeal of lower court rulings [3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Decision in COPA February 22, 2008] that declared the Child Online Protection Act as unconstitutional. COPA passed in 1998 but was never enforced due to immediate court challenges on First Amendment grounds. Since COPA was passed there have been at least three major commissions or studies that have concluded that education and voluntary technology tools are the most effective way to protect kids online. These approaches are the ones Congress and the President should pursue to enhance Internet safety."

Follow up to previous postings on missing White House emails, today's news release: "At a hearing today concerning the risks posed by the presidential transition to the recovery of millions of missing e-mails from the Executive Office of the President (EOP) in the National Security Archive's lawsuit seeking restoration of those e-mails, the White House acknowledged that it has done little to recover e-mail files from computer workstations and nothing to collect external media storage devices that could hold e-mails. These admissions came despite the issuance of a report and recommendation in April 2008 by a federal magistrate judge calling for the White House to locate and preserve data from the workstations and external media storage devices. Earlier today the court issued an order requiring steps to be taken to secure files from individual computer workstations, memory sticks, zip drives, DVDs and CDs."

"The Federal Judicial Center has posted a monograph that offers a brief introduction to the complexity and nuance in the subject-matter jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, including civil and criminal appeals, extraordinary writs, and federal agency reviews."

2008 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary: "The Judiciary, including the Supreme Court, other federal courts, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, and the Federal Judicial Center, received a total appropriation in fiscal year 2008 of $6.2 billion. That represents a mere two-tenths of 1% of the United States’ total $3 trillion budget. Two-tenths of 1%! That is all we ask for one of the three branches of government—the one charged “to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals.” Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 78."

News release: "The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence today filed suit in federal court asking that the court strike down a last-minute Bush Administration rule change allowing concealed, loaded firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and seeks an injunction to block the rule, which is scheduled to go into effect on January 9, 2009...The rule will allow guns in rural and urban national park areas around the country, from Wyoming’s Yellowstone and California’s Yosemite to Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell. The suit was filed on behalf of the Brady Campaign and its members, including school teachers in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas who are canceling or curtailing school trips to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. now that the Bush Administration will be allowing guns in these national park areas."

U.S. Courts: "Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts totaled 1,042,993 for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2008, up more than 30 percent when compared to the 801,269 filings in Fiscal Year 2007, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The September 2008 filings are the highest of any 12-month period since the 2006 implementation of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, when there were 1,112,542 filings in the 12-month period ending September 30, 2006."

• SEC press release
• FBI press release
• ECF U.S. District Court, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Foley Square), CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 1:08-cv-10791-LLS. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Madoff et al, Assigned to: Judge Louis L. Stanton. Cause: 15:77 Securities Fraud

News release: "In 2008, the Electronic Public Access (EPA) Program celebrates its own coming of age after two decades of expansion and service. Back in September 1988, the Judicial Conference authorized “an experimental program of electronic access for the public to court information in one or more district, bankruptcy, or appellate courts in which the experiment can be conducted at nominal cost.”A dozen courts signed up for the pilot Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system.

It began as an electronic bulletin board system with dial-in modems. The U.S. Party/Case Index was added in 1997, allowing national searches through an index for district, bankruptcy, and appellate court cases. In 1998, PACER began moving to a web environment, so anyone with Internet access could view court cases.

From a dozen participating courts, PACER has grown to include all bankruptcy, district, and appellate courts. From 9,000 registered user accounts in 1994, PACER grew to 900,000 registered accounts by 2008. This fiscal year alone, PACER added 134,000 new users."

United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Anthrax Case Documents.

TRAC news release: "The latest available data from the Justice Department show that in August 2008 the government reported 13,566 new prosecutions. While down slightly (2.3%) from the previous month, this number is still 43% higher than a year ago. The overall growth in federal prosecutions is largely driven by continuing increases in immigration matters, which accounted for 54% of all new cases filed in August in U.S. Federal Court."

News release: In the wake of a February 2008 appeals court decision striking down weak regulations proposed by the Bush Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a new report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project finds that the top 50 most polluting power plants In the U.S. emitted 20 tons of the dangerous neurotoxin mercury into the nation’s air in 2007. While some of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants are reporting reductions in such pollution since 2006, the majority of the worst 50 plants actually increased their mercury emissions through 2007, the most recent period for which data is available."

"Following an EPIC complaint, a federal court has ordered CyberSpy Software to stop selling malicious computer software. In March, EPIC filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that the spyware purveyor engages in unfair and deceptive practices by: (1) promoting illegal surveillance; (2) encouraging "Trojan Horse" email attacks; and (3) failing to warn customers of the legal dangers arising from misuse of the software. The federal regulators agreed, and asked the court for a permanent injunction barring sales of CyberSpy's "stalker spyware," over the counter surveillance technology sold for individuals to spy on other individuals. The court entered a temporary restraining order on November 6, 2008. Further litigation is expected before the court rules on the government's request for a permanent ban. For more information, see EPIC's Personal Surveillance Technologies page and Domestic Violence and Privacy page."

News release: "A court ruled today that the National Security Archive may proceed with its effort to force the White House to recover millions of Bush Administration Executive Office of the President (EOP) e-mail records before the presidential transition. Rejecting the government's motion to dismiss the Archive's lawsuit, the Court ruled that the Federal Records Act permits a private plaintiff to bring suit to require the head of the EOP or the Archivist of the United States to notify Congress or ask the Attorney General to initiate action to recover destroyed or missing e-mail records...The National Security Archive originally filed its case against the Executive Office of the President and the National Archives and Records Administration to preserve and restore missing e-mail federal records in September 5, 2007. A subsequent lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has been consolidated with the Archive's lawsuit. A chronology of the litigation is available here."

Report on Federal Escape Offenses in Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007: "In response to a suggestion in a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, United States v. Chambers, 473 F.3d 724 (7th Cir. 2007), cert. granted, __ U.S. __ , 128 S. Ct. 2046 (2008), the United States Sentencing Commission undertook a data analysis of federal escape cases to inform the legal question of whether the crime of escape qualifies as a "violent felony" for purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), the Armed Career Criminal Act (the “ACCA”). This report summarizes the legal question at issue and describes the methodology and results of the analysis undertaken by the Commission."

News release: "In a striking rebuke to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Judge Gladys Kessler of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday rejected the CIA's view that it - and not journalists - has the right to determine which Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are newsworthy. Reconsidering its earlier decision deferring to the CIA's written assurances that the agency would cease illegally denying the National Security Archive's news media status, the court ordered the CIA to treat the Archive as a representative of the news media for all of its pending and future non-commercial requests. Finding that the CIA "has twice made highly misleading representations to the Archive, as well as to [the] Court," the court explained that the CIA's position "is truly hard to take seriously" and enjoined the CIA from illegally denying the Archive's news media status."

"In EPIC v. DOJ, EPIC, the ACLU, and the National Security Archive are seeking government documents regarding the President's warrantless wiretapping program. Today, a federal court ordered the Department of Justice to provide for inspection copies of legal memos authored by government lawyers. The opinions, prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel, provided the legal basis for the President to wiretap US citizens in the United States without court approval. EPIC began the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in December 2005, after the New York Times first reported the details of the wiretap program. For more information, see EPIC's EPIC v. DOJ page. (Oct. 31)"

Fact Sheet: Major U.S. Export Enforcement Prosecutions During the Past Two Years - "...a snapshot of some of the major export and embargo-related criminal prosecutions handled by the Justice Department over the past two years, beginning in October 2006. These cases resulted from investigations by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), and other law enforcement agencies. This list of cases is not exhaustive and only represents select cases."

News release: "Over 14,000 plaintiff winners received monetary damages in civil trials nationwide in 2005, with less than 5 percent receiving damages exceeding $1 million, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. The BJS study is the first nationally representative measure of general civil (that is, tort, contract, and real property) bench and jury trials in state courts of general jurisdiction."

Processed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests - "The George Bush Library is in the process of updating and adding to the list of finding aids on this page" [which currently includes documents from 1998 to 2005].

• October 16, 2008 - Cost-of-Living Adjustments for Federal Civil Service Annuities
• October 14, 2008 - Potential Offset Supply in a Cap-and-Trade Program
• October 14, 2008 - Federal Personnel: Conversion of Employees from Appointed (Noncareer) Positions to Career Positions in the Executive Branch
• October 14, 2008 - Auction Basics: Background for Assessing Proposed Treasury Purchases of MortgageBacked Securities
• October 06, 2008 - Supreme Court Appellate Jurisdiction Over Military Court Cases

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC): "The latest available data from the Justice Department show that for the first ten months of FY 2008, the federal government reported filing 151 criminal mortgage fraud cases. The DOJ has only recently created a category for tracking such cases. Because of natural court delays, however, the government said that only 37 cases of this type were completed in the same ten-month period. In the months to come, TRAC will be providing regular updates on every referral acted upon by each U.S. Attorney's Office and what the ultimate outcomes are."

TRAC news release: "...the Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday turned over to TRAC thousands of pages of agency statistics on audits of all types, including individual, corporate, partnership and S corporation audits. A strongly worded June 13, 2008 ruling issued by Judge Marsha Pechman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington mandated that the data requested under the Freedom of Information Act be turned over to TRAC, as specified in two court orders issued against the agency in 2006. However, rather than release the information as directed by the Court, the IRS instead filed a motion for a stay pending an appeal to the Ninth Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals.

In denying this motion for a stay, Judge Pechman wrote that "Defendant has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, and [...] enforcement of the Court's June 13, 2008 order will not cause irreparable harm to any party or increase the burden on the IRS and does not impact the public interest."

Despite this ruling, and despite explicit instructions from the Court directing the IRS to immediately comply with the instructions set forth in the June 13, 2008 order, the IRS submitted a second motion for a stay. The denial of this second motion for a stay included the observation that the "Defendant has repeatedly defied this Court's orders" and instructed the IRS yet again to comply with the June 13, 2008 order.

Scott L. Nelson, TRAC's lead attorney in this case, detailed in an October 6 letter to the Ninth Circuit why the Court should not expedite consideration of the IRS' appeal. The next day, the IRS abandoned its request for an expedited ruling, and turned over the requested data to TRAC. The IRS has not however withdrawn its motion for a stay."

Statutory Structure and Legislative Drafting Conventions: A Primer for Judges, M. Douglass Bellis, Deputy Legislative Counsel, United States House of Representatives, Federal Judicial Center 2008

President Bush Discusses Judicial Accomplishments and Philosophy, October 6, 2008

• Fact Sheet: Judges Who Honor the Constitution
  
• In Focus: Judicial Nominations

Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel: Enforceability of Certain Agreements Between the Department of the Treasury and the Government Sponsored Enterprises, (September 26, 2008) (added 10/02/08)

"The U.S. Sentencing Commission reports that from March 3 to August 26 of this year federal courts received 13,170 motions for sentence reductions by offenders convicted of crack cocaine crimes, and granted 9,703 of them." Report. District by District Statistics.

Follow up to previous postings on the government's domestic surveillance program, today news that "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit [full complaint in Jewel v. NSA] against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records. The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance."

News release: "The Bear Stearns Companies, LLC and its subsidiary, EMC Mortgage Corporation, have agreed to pay $28 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they engaged in unlawful practices in servicing consumers’ home mortgage loans. The companies allegedly misrepresented the amounts borrowers owed, charged unauthorized fees, such as late fees, property inspection fees, and loan modification fees, and engaged in unlawful and abusive collection practices. Under the proposed settlement they will stop the alleged illegal practices and institute a data integrity program to ensure the accuracy and completeness of consumers’ loan information."

News release: "The Department today issued a report informing consumers, businesses and policy makers about issues relating to monopolization offenses under the antitrust laws. The report, Competition and Monopoly: Single-Firm Conduct Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, September 2008, U.S. Department of Justice (215 pages, PDF) examines whether and when specific types of single-firm conduct may or may not violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act by harming competition and consumer welfare.

The Department's report draws extensively on a series of joint hearings, involving more than 100 participants, that the Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held from June 2006 to May 2007 to explore in depth the antitrust treatment of single-firm conduct. The 213-page report also incorporates commentary found in scholarly literature and the jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts.

Section 2 of the Sherman Act prohibits a firm from illegally acquiring or maintaining a monopoly, meaning the ability to exclude competitors and profitably raise price significantly above competitive levels for a sustained period of time. Unlike antitrust laws that prohibit anticompetitive mergers or other agreements among firms, Section 2 particularly targets single-firm conduct, such as decisions regarding whether and on what terms to sell to or buy from others. Although possessing monopoly power is not unlawful, using an improper means to seek or maintain monopoly power is unlawful where it can harm competition and consumers."

"The Justice Department and its Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) have failed to complete significant parts of their 22-point plan to improve the performance of the nation's Immigration Courts, according to a detailed analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). While major shortcomings were identified, the study also found areas where the proposed changes were adopted.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issued the improvement plan in 2006 in the wake of a series of federal appellate court rulings that sharply criticized the Immigration Courts. The proposed plan also followed the publication of detailed statistical studies by TRAC and others documenting extraordinary disparities in how individual immigration judges were deciding asylum matters. The studies showed that case outcomes were frequently determined more by the outlook of a particular judge than the underlying facts."

National Law Journal (subscription req'd): "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a $1 billion damages award by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims for the government's breach of oil and gas leases held by 11 companies -- what court watchers say may be the largest single award by the claims court in its 150-year history.

Also, in a trio of cases, a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit resolved a crucial issue largely in favor of nuclear utilities in the spent-fuel battle with the government, which is likely to boost damages awards in the 40 to 50 cases still pending."

"Two newly updated features let you trace the growth of the federal court system over more than 200 years, state by state for the district courts and by each judicial circuit for the courts of appeals."

• Index: Chronological History of Authorized Judgeships in U.S. District Courts
  
• Index: Chronological History of Authorized Judgeships in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

News release: "The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two Wall Street brokers with defrauding their customers when making more than $1 billion in unauthorized purchases of subprime-related auction rate securities...The SEC alleges that Julian Tzolov and Eric Butler misled customers into believing that auction rate securities being purchased in their accounts were backed by federally guaranteed student loans and were a safe and liquid alternative to bank deposits or money market funds. Instead, the securities that Tzolov and Butler purchased for their customers were backed by subprime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), and other non-student loan collateral."

ACLU news release: "A federal judge [U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York] has ordered the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to turn over three memos that authorized the extremely harsh treatment of prisoners in CIA custody or explain by October 3 why these memos can lawfully be withheld. The American Civil Liberties Union called for the immediate release of the May 2005 OLC memos as part of its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit requesting information on the treatment and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody overseas...In another development in the same case, the ACLU obtained Department of Defense (DOD) documents about the treatment of detainees in Iraq. The documents, from the military's Criminal Investigation Division, are from two investigations."

Bureau of Justice Statistics: "Presents 110 tables with detailed data on major variables measured by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)."

Bureau of Justice Statistics: Civil Rights Complaints in U.S. District Courts, 1990 - 2006

U.S. Courts: "In the 12-month period ending June 30, 2008, there were 967,831 bankruptcy cases filed, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That is a 28.9 percent increase compared to filings for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2007, when cases totaled 751,056. Historic data on bankruptcy filings is available on the Judiciary's website under Bankruptcy Statistics."

The Third Branch: "To protect the privacy of litigants, the Federal Rules of Practice and Procedure require that certain personal data identifiers be modified or partially redacted from federal court case files. These identifiers are Social Security numbers, dates of birth, financial account numbers, and names of minor children, and in criminal cases, also home addresses. In all cases, it is the responsibility of the attorney and the parties in the case to redact personal identifiers...

Many courts, such as the District of Arizona and the Northern District of California, have posted information to their websites on effective redaction techniques. For a look at their tips, visit their websites at: https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/faq/tips/redacting.htm or http://www.azd.uscourts.gov/azd/cm-ecf.nsf/docview/files/$file/redaction.pdf"

"Judicial Facts and Figures is a set of tables containing historical caseload data primarily for the fiscal years from 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2002 through 2007. The tables include data on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the U.S. District Courts, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts."

News release: "The Navy’s use of low frequency active sonar will remain restricted to certain military training areas of the Pacific Ocean, according to an agreement approved by a U.S. district court in San Francisco today. The comprehensive agreement between the Navy and conservation organizations follows a court injunction issued early this year against the Navy’s Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar system, which blasts vast areas of ocean with harmful levels of underwater noise. In that decision, the court agreed with a coalition of organizations, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), that the Navy’s proposed LFA deployment in more than 70 percent of the world’s oceans was illegal. A separate lawsuit challenging the U.S. Navy’s use of mid-frequency active sonar is currently under consideration in the U.S. Supreme Court."

• Final Settlement Agreement Outlining U.S. Navy's Use of LFA Sonar in Pacific Ocean, 2008
  
• Related postings on Navy sonar program

U.S. Sentencing Commission Preliminary Crack Cocaine Retroactivity Data Report, August 2008 Data

As part of its ongoing mission, the United States Sentencing Commission provides Congress, the judiciary, the executive branch, and the general public with data extracted and analyzed from sentencing documents submitted by courts to the Commission. Data is reported on an annual basis in the Commission’s Annual Report and Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics. The Commission also reports preliminary data for an on-going fiscal year in order to provide real-time analysis of sentencing practices in the federal courts...This report is another in the Commission's efforts to provide analysis of federal sentencing practices. It provides data concerning recent court decisions considering motions to reduce the length of imprisonment for certain offenders convicted prior to November 1, 2007 of offenses involving crack cocaine."

"As personal information becomes more widely available on blogs, MySpace, Facebook and other social networking Web sites, the Internet has become an important tool for jury consultants and trial lawyers. Such sites are a treasure trove of information about potential and seated jurors that can be used in picking the right jurors, bouncing potential jurors and even influencing jurors during trial and in closing arguments. Jury consultants have begun turning to private investigators, some of whom have started niche businesses offering Internet jury research and "personality profiling" of jurors." [National Law Journal, August 11, 2008 - subscription req'd]

Human Rights Watch - Courting History - The Landmark International Criminal Court’s First Years, July 2008: "This 244-page report examines the ICC’s accomplishments and shortcomings since it began operations in 2003. The court was created to bring justice to the victims of gross human rights violations; so far the court has issued arrest warrants against suspects in four countries, though none have yet been tried."

"In a July 31 amicus brief filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, joined by CDT, ACLU and the ACLU of Pennsylvania, argued that cell phone location information is protected by the Fourth Amendment. The brief argues that a court should require the government to obtain a warrant based on probable cause in order to gain access to cell site location information stored by a cell phone company."

AP - US: Ivins solely responsible for anthrax attacks

Press release: "As the Department indicated last week and has been widely reported, substantial progress has been made in the Amerithrax investigation in recent years. As you know, this investigation into the worst act of bioterrorism in U.S. history has been one of the largest and most complex ever conducted by the FBI. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has also made an extraordinary contribution to this investigation. Over the past seven years, hundreds of thousands of agent-hours have been dedicated to solving this crime.

Ordinarily, we do not publicly disclose evidence against a suspect who has not been charged, in part because of the presumption of innocence. But because of the extraordinary and justified public interest in this investigation, as well as the significant public attention resulting from the death of Dr. Bruce Edwards Ivins last week, today we are compelled to take the extraordinary step of providing first, the victims and their families, as well as Congress, and the American public with an overview of some recent developments as well as some of our conclusions.

Earlier today, several search warrant affidavits were unsealed in federal court in the District of Columbia. Among other things, these search warrants confirm that the government was investigating Dr. Ivins in connection with the attacks, which killed five individuals and injured 17 others in 2001. Dr. Ivins was a resident of Frederick, Maryland, and a long-time anthrax researcher who worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, known as USAMRIID. Dr. Ivins died of an overdose on July 29, 2008, and, at the time of his death, was the sole suspect in the case."

• DOJ webpage with links to Amerithrax Court Documents
• Science Magazine: FBI Releases Documents on Suspected Anthrax Poisoner
• Statement from Venable Attorneys Representing Dr. Bruce Ivins Responding to Justice Department Press Conference Naming Dr. Ivins as Sole Suspect in 2001 Anthrax Attacks

DOJ press release: "United States Senator Theodore F. Stevens of Alaska was charged today in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia with seven counts of making false statements related to Stevens’ financial disclosure forms, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division announced.

The seven-count indictment charges Sen. Stevens, the former chairperson of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, with engaging in a nearly eight-year scheme to conceal his receipt of more than $250,000 in things of value from VECO Corporation, formerly a multi-national oil services company based in Alaska, and Bill J. Allen, the Chief Executive Officer of VECO at the time. According to the indictment, Stevens concealed these things of value from his publicly filed United States Senate financial disclosure forms. The things of value that Stevens allegedly received included: substantial home improvements to property Stevens owns in Girdwood, Alaska; automobile exchanges in which Stevens received new vehicles worth far more than the used vehicles Stevens provided in exchange; and household goods. The indictment also alleges that Sen. Stevens, during the same time that he was concealing his continuing receipt of these things of value from VECO and Allen, received solicitations for official actions from Allen and other VECO employees, and that Sen. Stevens used his position and office on behalf of VECO during that same time period."

• 28 page Indictment
• Press Conference Transcript
• Statement from Alaska Senator Ted Stevens: "I have proudly served this nation and Alaska for over 50 years. My public service began when I served in World War II. It saddens me to learn that these charges have been brought against me. I have never knowingly submitted a false disclosure form required by law as a U.S. Senator."
• Background on the indictment from OpenSecrets.org: Feds Indict Alaska Sen. Stevens

Blume, John H., Johnson, Sheri Lynn and Sundby, Scott E.,Competent Capital Representation: The Necessity of Knowing and Heeding What Jurors Tell Us About Mitigation. Hofstra Law Review, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2008

"This article appears in the Hofstra Law Review symposium issue on the Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams in Death Penalty cases. The complete text of the issue, which also contains the Guidelines themselves, is available online at www.law.hofstra.edu/DeathPenalty

Capital defense counsel have a duty at every stage of the case to take advantage of all appropriate opportunities to argue why death is not a suitable punishment for their particular client. But that duty can hardly be discharged effectively if the arguments are made in ignorance of available information concerning how persuasive they are likely to be to their audience.

Heeding that simple proposition we present lessons from the work of the Capital Jury Project, an ongoing empirical research effort built upon extended interviews with people who have actually sat on capital juries. We find that the standards for mitigation investigations contained in the ABA's Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases reprinted in 31 Hofstra L. Rev. 913 (2003) and in the Supplementary Guidelines that are the subject of this issue are on firm empirical ground, both in their specific aspects and in their overall approach of encouraging counsel to be creative in building a coherent mitigation theory that is advanced consistently throughout the proceedings.

We then describe particular defense themes and approaches that Project data show are likely to resonate favorably with jurors as well as the most potent prosecution arguments for death and how they might be most effectively rebutted. We conclude by describing the current research findings on the demographic and attitudinal characteristics of those jurors most likely to vote for life, and offering pointers on how to best ameliorate the scandalous but well-documented reality that many jurors simply do not understand the task they are being called upon to perform."

"The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a lower court ruling striking down the controversial Child Online Protection Act (COPA) that required Web operators to restrict access to large amounts of constitutionally protected speech. COPA placed severe restrictions on a wide range of legal, socially valuable speech, including content relating to sexual identity, health and art. CDT, which has filed friend-of-the-court briefs opposing COPA and supporting parental empowerment technology, applauds the ruling. July 22, 2008.

• CDT Statement on Ruling July 22, 2008
  
• 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Decision in COPA [PDF] July 22, 2008
  
• CDT Policy Post on COPA March 23, 2007
  
• Related postings on COPA and articles from LLRX.com

US Courts: "The first annual report to Congress containing new bankruptcy statistics mandated by the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was filed by the Administrative Office in advance of the July 1, 2008 deadline.

The 2005 law requires bankruptcy courts to collect statistics on debtors who meet certain criteria. The Judiciary data systems in place when the law was enacted could not capture all the required information. Consequently, a whole new system and software had to be built, and the Judiciary began collecting the mandated data on October 17, 2006."

The 2007 Report of Statistics Required by the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005.

Ruling Invalidates an FCC Decision and Fine in Connection With an Incident During the Halftime Show of the 2004 Super Bowl, Filed 07/21/08, No. 06-3575 CBS Corporation v. FCC Agency (102 pages, PDF)

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: "New reports on the nation's 200-plus immigration judges are now available. The reports, covering how the judges decided asylum matters in the FY 2002 to FY 2007 period, are based on tens of thousands of very detailed records obtained and analyzed by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act. The source was the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an agency within the Justice Department. The reports provide biographic information about the judges, breakdowns on the proportion
of asylum matters they decline, and how their records compare with other judges in the base city and for the nation as a whole. Also available are data on the nationality of those requesting asylum and the percent who were represented by counsel."

EPIC: "Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in NAACP v. Alabama, one of the most important privacy cases of the last century. Professor Anita L. Allen, a leading privacy scholar, author of many books and articles, and a member of the EPIC Board of Directors, wrote an essay to celebrate the anniversary of the decision."

The Third Branch: "In a pilot project that began last August, five federal courts are docketing some digital audio recordings to Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) systems to make the audio files available in the same way written files have long been available on the Internet. The three other courts are the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Maine, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

In each court, the extent of accessibility is determined by individual judges, and not every judge in the five pilot courts is participating. “This is a judge-driven experiment,” said Mary Stickney of the Administrative Office’s Electronic Public Access Program Office. “Because providing digital audio recordings online is done as a convenience for lawyers and the public, each judge has total discretion to decide which proceedings get posted.”

The audio files are accessible through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. Some 840,000 subscribers use PACER to access docket and case information from federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts."

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse [TRAC] Report: "Federal immigration prosecutions in March 2008 continued their recent and highly unusual surge, apparently reaching an all-time high, according to timely data from the Justice Department. The total of 9,350 such prosecutions was up by almost 50% from the previous month and 73% from the previous year.

The dramatic changes in the number of defendants charged with immigration-related charges are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United states Attorneys."

Follow up - related postings on missing White House emails, today's news: News release: "Today, D.C. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued an opinion in CREW v. Office of Administration, finding that the Office of Administration (OA) is not an agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In May 2007, CREW sued OA for records regarding missing White House e-mail and the office’s assessment of the scope of the problem. After initially agreeing to provide records, OA changed course and claimed it was not an agency and, therefore, had no obligation to comply with the FOIA. OA made this claim despite the fact that even the White House’s own website described OA as an agency and included regulations for processing FOIA requests."

SCOTUSblog: "The opinion by Justice Kennedy in Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al-Odah v. United States (06-1196) is available here. Justice Souter issued a concurring opinion joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer. The Chief Justice wrote a dissent joined by Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito. Justice Scalia filed a dissent, joined by the Chief Justice and Justics Thomas and Alito."

The Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004 and the Federal Courts, Jefri Wood
Federal Judicial Center, June 2, 2008. "A newly published paper available on the Federal Judicial Center's web site provides an overview of key provisions of the Crime Victims' Rights Act."

"States that employ sentencing guidelines, a reform effort that encourages judges to take specific legally relevant elements into account during the sentencing process, are found to have more predictability, reduced discrimination, and increased transparency in sentencing, according to a study released [May 22, 2008] by the National Center for State Courts.

Assessing Consistency and Fairness in Sentencing: A Comparative Study in Three States

U.S. Courts: "Bankruptcy filings in the federal courts for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2008, exceeded 900,000, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The 901,927 bankruptcy cases filed represent a 30 percent increase over the 695,575 cases filed in the 12-month period ending March 31, 2007."

The Art of Written Persuasion: The Rise of Written Persuasion - In this column, Troy Simpson writes on persuading judges in writing. This first article in the series surveys the history of written advocacy in three jurisdictions — England and Wales, Australia, and America - to show why good written advocacy is vital to the modern lawyer.

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission has put a permanent halt to an operation that allegedly obtained consumers’ confidential phone records without their knowledge or consent and sold them to third parties. The defendants are barred from obtaining consumers’ telephone records without their consent and court orders impose judgments on the defendants totaling more than $600,000 – the estimated amount of their ill-gotten gains.

Linda Greenhouse, New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that employees are protected from retaliation when they complain about discrimination in the workplace, adopting a broad interpretation of workers’ rights under two federal civil rights laws. By decisions of 7 to 2 in one case and 6 to 3 in the other, the court found that the two statutes afford protection from retaliation even though Congress did not explicitly say so."

• Opinion (Gomez-Perez v. Potter)
  
• Opinion (CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries)

Follow up to previous postings on retroactivity for sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine, from The Third Branch: "Federal district courts generally are coping well with the sudden increase in their workloads that occurred March 3, when a retroactive reduction in penalties for crack cocaine offenders took effect and more than 21,000 inmates became eligible for shorter prison sentences. Three weeks after the Sentencing Guidelines amendment took effect, the sentences of more than 3,000 inmates nationwide had been reduced. More than 1,000 inmates had been ordered released immediately."

Follow up to previous postings on tainted pet food recalls see

"U.S. D.C. Cir., May 20, 2008 - In a 2-1 majority opinion, a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. Treasury Department's continued use of paper money discriminates against blind users by denying them meaningful access to currency, as well as "facially reasonable accommodations that are feasible and efficacious," which would enable non-sighted users access to it." [FindLaw]

"EPIC filed a "friend of the court" brief (pdf) in the United States Supreme Court, urging the Justices to ensure the accuracy of police databases. The brief was filed on behalf of 27 legal scholars and technical experts and 13 privacy and civil liberty groups. In Herring v. US, the Court will be asked to determine whether an arrest based on inaccurate information in a criminal justice database should be upheld. EPIC explained how government databases are becoming increasingly unreliable, according to the government's own studies and urged the Court to “ensure an accuracy obligation on law enforcement agents who rely on criminal justice information systems.” The amici warned that, “to permit a good faith reliance on data that is inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date will actually exacerbate the problem and increase the likelihood of unfair treatment in the criminal justice system.” See EPIC page on Herring v. US

US Courts news release: "In fiscal year 2007, it cost $24,922 to keep someone incarcerated in a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility for 12 months, and $22,871 to keep an inmate incarcerated in a community correction center.

For the same 12-month period ending September 30, 2007, it cost $3,621.64 for a federal offender to be supervised by probation officers.

Those figures translate in daily costs of $68.28 for a Bureau of Prisons facility, $62.66 for a community correction center, and $9.92 for supervised release.

For criminal defendants who had not yet been tried, the daily cost of pretrial detention services was $64.40 and the cost of supervision by pretrial services officers was $5.85."

"The fiscal year 2008 update to the Long Range Plan for Information Technology in the Federal Judiciary articulates five-year directions and objectives for the judiciary’s information technology program. The plan presents the program in terms of five fundamental areas: external participants, court operations, judges and chambers, probation and pretrial services, and information technology infrastructure. This represents a more aggressive effort to identify needs by various constituents. Future updates to the plan will build on this approach and incorporate additional elements."

News release: "The United States Sentencing Commission announced today the formation of a standing advisory group to provide the Commission insight and advice on the operation of the federal sentencing guidelines from the perspective of victims of federal crime. The initial Victims Advisory Group (“VAG”) will be composed of six members representing the spectrum of interest groups and organizations interested in victims’ issues at the federal level."

• April 11, 2008 - District of Columbia v. Heller: The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment - "In Parker v. District of Columbia, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision that provisions of the D.C. Code that prohibit persons from keeping handguns in their home are unconstitutional in that they infringe upon the individual right to keep and bear arms."
• April 11, 2008 - Navy DD(X) and LCS Ship Acquisition Programs: Oversight Issues and Options for Congress
• April 10, 2008 - Tibet: Problems, Prospects, and U.S. Policy
• April 10, 2008 - Food Price Inflation: Causes and Impacts
• April 10, 2008 - Summary of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)
• April 10, 2008 - East Asia's Foreign Exchange Rate Policies
Permanent Link

US Courts: "An interim report on the impact of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 notes a 72 percent increase in class action cases for comparable periods in 2001 and 2007 in 88 federal district courts. Due later this year is a report on the act's impact on judicial activity and resources needed to manage and resolve class actions."

News release: "Bankruptcy filings in the federal courts rose 38 percent in calendar year 2007, according to data released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The number of bankruptcies filed in the twelve-month period ending December 31, 2007, totaled 850,912, up from 617,660 bankruptcies filed in calendar year 2006. Filings rebounded from a 70 percent drop in calendar year 2006, which was the first full 12-month period after the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) took effect."

"A new publication from the Federal Judicial Center discusses methods federal judges have employed to meet the challenges posed by cases related to terrorism."

The Sunshine in Litigation Act: Does Court Secrecy Undermine Public Health and Safety? Senate Judiciary Committee, S. HRG. 110–263 [248 pages, PDF]. Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 110th Congress, 1st Session, December 11, 2007. [via FAS]

"February 2008 Preliminary Post-Kimbrough/Gall Data Report: A set of tables presenting preliminary data on fiscal year 2008 cases sentenced on or after December 10, 2008. The numbers are prepared using data received, coded, and edited by the Commission by February 21, 2008."

In Series of Videos, Supreme Court Justices Make Their Case - Justices' candid observations and pet peeves spill forth in legal writing guru Bryan Garner's video interviews. Legal Times, Tony Mauro
March 11, 2008.

PR Newswire: "Just two days after a new Washington Post national poll found that 59 percent of the American public supports restrictions identical to Washington, DC's gun laws -- which ban handgun possession and require that legally possessed rifles and shotguns be either disassembled or secured with a trigger lock -- the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled tomorrow to hear oral arguments in a case challenging DC's handgun ban, District of Columbia v. Heller. Reiterating the findings contained in its amicus brief filed in the case, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) warned that increasingly lethal handguns being marketed by the gun industry -- ranging from high-capacity semiautomatic handguns to next-generation assault pistols based on AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles -- make the handgun ban today even more of a necessity to protect first responders and citizens in the nation's capital than when it was first enacted in 1976."

"On Tuesday, March 18, 2008, C-SPAN will air the Supreme Court oral argument of District of Columbia v. Heller which the Court is scheduled to hear that day. The immediate release of the audio recording of the Court's argument was in response to a request by C-SPAN (Release time is approximately 11:15 A.M.). The Court will make the recording available to the media soon after the conclusion of the oral argument. The oral argument will air on C-SPAN, and C-SPAN Radio as soon as it is released. The audio recording will also be archived online at www.c-span.org on the “America and the Courts” page."

News release: "The federal courts are well-positioned to address an anticipated increase in immigration-related workload and other challenges facing the Judiciary, thanks to Congressional funding, representatives of the Judicial Conference today told House and Senate appropriations subcommittees. If the Judiciary is to maintain staffing levels in the courts and initiate several program enhancements, however, a 7.6 percent increase over fiscal year 2008 enacted appropriations is needed in fiscal year 2009. The Judiciary seeks $6.72 billion for fiscal year 2009, $4.97 billion of which would fund the courts' Salaries and Expenses account."

News release: "The Judicial Conference of the United States today approved the first-ever binding, nationwide set of rules for handling conduct and disability complaints against federal judges, bringing consistency and rigor to the process."

News release: "For fiscal year 2007, total case filings in the U.S. district courts remained stable, bankruptcy filings grew steadily throughout the year, and persons under post-conviction supervision increased 2 percent. In the same 12-month period ending September 30, 2007, appeals declined 12 percent. These and other statistics on the federal Judiciary for fiscal year 2007 were released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and are available online: 2007 Judicial Caseload Indicators and 2007 Judicial Business."

Follow up to previous postings on the U.S. Attorney firings, this news release today - "the U.S. House of Representatives General Counsel filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of the House Judiciary Committee to enforce subpoenas issued by the committee seeking information on the U.S. Attorney firings. The defendants in the case are former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten who were cited by the House for contempt of Congress last month. Last week, the Justice Department refused to present the House-passed contempt citations to a grand jury, contrary to federal law. Based on the House resolution that also found Bolten and Miers in comtempt, the committee is now filing the civil lawsuit to enforce the subpoenas."

News release: "The Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States seeks public comments on proposed revisions to the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. The proposed revisions are based in large part on revisions adopted by the American Bar Association in February 2007, amending the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct. The proposed revised Code of Conduct for United States Judges is on-line in two versions: proposed new Code of Conduct in its entirety, and the revisions proposed to the current Code of Conduct."

The Third Branch: "Fiscal year 2008 funding for the Judiciary was rolled up with 10 other appropriations bills and passed by Congress on December 19, 2007, as the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act. The President signed the bill into law the day after Christmas. The Judiciary received $6.246 billion in FY 2008, a 4.5 percent increase over FY 2007."

Pew Press Release: "For the first time in history more than one in every 100 adults in America are in jail or prison—a fact that significantly impacts state budgets without delivering a clear return on public safety. According to a new report released today by the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project, at the start of 2008, 2,319,258 adults were held in American prisons or jails, or one in every 99.1 men and women, according to the study. During 2007, the prison population rose by more than 25,000 inmates. In addition to detailing state and regional prison growth rates, Pew’s report, One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008, identifies how corrections spending compares to other state investments, why it has increased, and what some states are doing to limit growth in both prison populations and costs while maintaining public safety."

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: Good Practices for the Protection of Witnesses in Criminal Proceedings Involving Organized Crime, January 2008.

Hearing on Cracked Justice – Addressing the Unfairness in Cocaine Sentencing, House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, February 26, 2008.

Follow up to December 11, 2007 posting Retroactivity Approved for Crack Cocaine Guideline, from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts : "As of March 3, 2008, more than 21,000 inmates serving time for federal crimes involving crack cocaine will be eligible to have their sentences reduced. Federal courts already are preparing to rule on requests from inmates, some imprisoned since 1992...The USSC, an independent agency within the federal Judiciary, amended the Guidelines to lower the base offense level for crack cocaine by two levels. For example, the penalty for a first-time offender found with 10 grams of crack would be reduced by two levels, from a range of 63—78 months in prison to a range of 51—63 months."

Statement of FCC Commissioner Copps in Response to the D.C. Circuit's Decision Vacating the FCC's Denial and Dismissal of the Gulf Coast Migratory Birds Petition: "For years, I have been disappointed with the FCC’s failure to get serious about its environmental responsibilities. Now the D.C. Circuit has affirmed something this agency should have acknowledged a long time ago: that the National Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act require the FCC to take a hard look at the effects of communications towers on migratory birds."

Diversity and Ethnic Fairness in the Jury System, Cheryl Thomas
with Nigel Balmer, Ministry of Justice, June 2007.

FindLaw: U.S. v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, et al. (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Feb. 11, 2008) - "The U.S. Department of Defense announced that six high-value detainees held in Guantanamo Bay were charged, under the Military Commissions Act, with planning and executing the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Specific charges include violations of the laws of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destroying of property in violation of the laws of war, terrorism, and material support to terrorism."

• Update on Detainee Military Commissions - Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, Legal Adviser to the Convening Authority, Department of Defense, Office of Military Commissions, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, DC, February 11, 2008


• DOD Transcript, Sept. 11 Co-Conspirators Charged, February 11, 2008


• CIA Director's Statement on 9/11 War Crimes Charges

Press release: "Tai Shen Kuo, age 58, and Yu Xin Kang, age 33, both of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Gregg William Bergersen, age 51, of Alexandria, Virginia, were arrested today on espionage charges related to the passage of classified U.S. government documents and information to the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Both Kuo and Kang were charged by criminal complaint with conspiracy to disclose national defense information to a foreign government, in violation of 18 U.S.C., Section 794(a) and (c). Bergersen was charged in a separate complaint with conspiracy to disclose national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S.C., Section 793(d) and (g)."

Federal Court Management Statistics-2007: "Fiscal year 2007 statistical profiles for each U.S. court of appeals and U.S. district court – plus national totals for the appellate and district courts – are available online."

Press release: "More than 15 years after Congress required the federal government to set up a national database to allow car buyers to determine whether a vehicle has been stolen or rebuilt after a wreck, the system is still not in place, three consumers groups said Wednesday in a lawsuit filed against the Department of Justice (DOJ). Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety (CARS) and Consumer Action sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The groups want the court to order the DOJ to move forward with creation of the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System...The database would help consumers avoid purchasing a potentially dangerous used car by allowing them to instantly check the validity of a car’s title and mileage and learn whether it had been stolen or was a junk or salvage vehicle. A salvage vehicle is one that was totaled in collision, fire, flood or other event to the extent that its value, plus the cost of repairing it for legal operation, is more than its fair market value immediately before the event that caused the damage."

Follow up to postings on Navy sonar exercises off Southern California coast, this Natural Resources Defense Council press release: "A federal court [February 4, 2008] struck down a waiver issued by the White House purporting to exempt the U.S. Navy from complying with a bedrock environmental law during sonar training exercises off southern California. In nullifying the waiver, the court reaffirmed an injunction issued early in January, requiring the Navy to reduce harm to whales and other marine mammals from sonar training. The Navy has acknowledged that the high-intensity, mid-frequency sonar at issue can injure and kill whales and other marine mammals."

Press release: "A federal judge has barred the illegal operation of an information broker who advertised and sold confidential consumer telephone records to third parties without the consumers’ knowledge or consent. In entering summary judgment for the Federal Trade Commission, Judge William F. Downes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming also required the defendants to give up nearly $200,000 in ill-gotten gains derived from the consumer phone records they sold, and ordered that the individuals whose records were sold be notified."

Case No. 2:08cv00064, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Natural Resources Defense Council, vs. Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior, United States District Court, District of Utah, Central Division, January 23, 2008.

Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, The Department of Justice's Victim Notification System, Audit Report 08-04, January 2008, Redacted for public release (142 pages, PDF).

The Courts Statistics Project (CSP) collects and analyzes data relating to the work of our nation's state courts. This website was updated on Updated on Sunday, January 20, 2008.

Follow up to previous postings on missing White House emails, today's Press release from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW): "Yesterday’s midnight filing by the White House in CREW v. Executive Office of the President, a lawsuit challenging the failure of the White House to preserve and restore millions of missing emails, raises some very troubling questions...The White House has now admitted that it does not have an effective system for storing and preserving emails. This is no mere technicality; it is this failure that led to the likely destruction of over 10 million email. What the White House has not explained is why it abandoned the electronic record-keeping system used by the prior administration -- a system that properly preserved White House email -- but did not replace it with another effective and appropriate system."

"Most federal judges come into contact with classified information infrequently, if at all, but when they do, they are faced with the dilemma of how to protect government secrets in the context of an otherwise public proceeding. This pocket guide is designed to familiarize federal judges with statutes and procedures established to help public courts protect government secrets when courts are called upon to do so. The guide provides information about the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), information security officers, and secure storage facilities. I hope you will find this guide useful in meeting the challenge of protecting government secrets in a public forum. Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, Director, Federal Judicial Center"

National Criminal Justice Reference Service: "Many crime laboratories report high backlogs for forensic services. These backlogs can delay court proceedings and case investigation. Laboratories say they do not have the staff to complete all service requests or the budget to hire new employees. Some laboratories have recently begun addressing these challenges with efficiency techniques—called process mapping, an efficiency forum, and business process management. This NIJ In Short describes how laboratories across the country have successfully used these techniques to reduce backlogs. (NCJ 220336)"

CRS Report - How Crime in the United States Is Measured, January 3, 2008 (via FAS)

Follow up to postings on missing White House E-mail, from the National Security Archive: "In an Order issued today, Magistrate Judge Facciola of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the White House to answer questions about over 5 million missing e-mails generated between 2003-2005. Noting that the need for information the missing e-mails is "time-sensitive" because of the risk that stored copied of the e-mails "are increasingly likely to be deleted or overridden with the passage of time," the Court demanded answers in a sworn declaration by January 13, 2008 about the location of the missing e-mails."

Natural Defense Resources Council press release: "The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued today a preliminary injunction requiring a series of mitigation measures that will govern the use of mid-frequency (MFA) sonar by the U.S. Navy during training exercises in the rich biological waters off Southern California. In its order, the Court considered both the environmental benefits of mitigation and the feasibility of specific measures...The high-intensity MFA sonar system can blast vast areas of the oceans with dangerous levels of underwater noise and has killed marine mammals in numerous incidents around the world. The waters off Southern California have some of the richest marine habitat in the country, and include five endangered species of whales, a globally important population of blue whales, the largest animal ever to live on earth, and as many as seven individual species of beaked whales, which are known to be particularly vulnerable to underwater sound."

2007 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts, January 1, 2008.

US Courts: "A new fee schedule for certified and professionally qualified interpreters and for language skilled interpreters in federal courts takes effect January 2, 2008. Rates. More about Federal Court Interpreter Program."

A Historic Find Behind a Supreme Court Filing Cabinet: "A copy of the Declaration of Independence sat forgotten at the high court. Now it's cleaned up and on display...The copy, one of only 200 made from the 1776 original, would likely fetch $500,000 or more if sold on the open market, according to an expert dealer in historic documents." Tony Mauro, Legal Times, December 28, 2007.

Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries Blog: "We are pleased to announce the availability of all Supreme Judicial Court and Mass. Appeals Court cases from 1986-1996 at http://masscases.com. Cases are accessible by citation, case name, or through a Google custom search on the site. The collection also includes hundreds of the most-cited older Mass. cases."

Courthouse News: "The Federal Circuit renewed patent infringement claims over Google's AutoLink and AdSense programs by tossing out part of a summary judgment ruling for Hyperphrase Technologies LLC. The circuit decision is a setback for the Internet search engine and a victory for Hyperphrase, which challenged the judgment that neither program infringes any of 15 patent claims."

US Courts: "This is the latest working draft of the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct and Disability Proceedings Undertaken Pursuant To 28 U.S.C. §§ 351-364 (50 pages, PDF), adopted by the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability. The draft is a substantial revision of the Rules sent out for Public Comment on July 16, 2007. It is the result of the Committee's efforts to respond to the comments received during the public comment period, including testimony and other submissions at the Public Hearing held on September 27, 2007."

Press release: "The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press asked a federal court in Manhattan [December 21, 2007] to require open access to records in the civil case over liability following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Victims of the attacks and their families filed lawsuits against airline and security companies seeking to determine liability for their injury or losses due to the security breaches that led to the attacks. Documents filed with the court in this case were presumed open, except for a few narrow categories of records Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein deemed could be confidential, including financial and trade secrets data. However, the airline and security companies have been using the narrow protective order to assert that more than 99 percent of the tens of thousands of pages of documents they filed with the court should be covered as confidential under the order. The Reporters Committee argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that is extremely unlikely that nearly all the records contain the information required for confidentiality under the order and asked Hellerstein to require the parties to strictly adhere to the order, only limiting public access to that information allowable under the order...The brief was filed in In re September 11 Litigation, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York."

US Courts: "Filing a bankruptcy case pro se—without the assistance of an attorney—is not for the faint of heart. “Before the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), a pro se debtor could successfully navigate filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy,” said Bankruptcy Judge S. Martin Teel, Jr. (D.D.C.). “But with the new Act and its many technical requirements, it’s really a minefield for pro se filers.” Now the Administrative Office’s Bankruptcy Judges Advisory Group (BJAG), of which Teel is a member, has developed a helpful web page for individuals who are thinking of filing a bankruptcy petition pro se." See Filing for Bankruptcy Without an Attorney.

Capital Punishment, 2006 - Statistical Tables, Tracy L. Snell, BJS Statistician: "Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2006, and of persons executed in 2006 from the NPS-8 data collection. Tables present state-by-state information on the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during 2006, status of capital statutes, and methods of execution. Numerical tables also summarize data on offenders' gender, race, Hispanic origin, age at time of arrest for capital offense, legal status at time of capital offense, and time between imposition of death sentence and execution."

Press release from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: "From its first days, this administration has tried to keep the American public in the dark about what goes on behind closed White House doors. Through a secret agreement and a letter from Vice President Cheney’s counsel, the administration had attempted to permanently hide from view records related to those who visit the White House and the vice president’s residence. Today, a federal judge has cracked open those doors by holding that these are Secret Service subject to public disclosure. As a result of CREW’s lawsuit, District of Columbia District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth has ordered the Secret Service to produce records of certain conservative leaders’ visits to the White House within 20 days."

"The National Center for State Courts has published Future Trends in State Courts 2007, the latest in its long-running “Report on Trends in the State Courts” series. This book, which is produced annually by NCSC’s Knowledge and Information Service, helps to make courts more aware of important trends in society and judicial administration that could affect court operations—and public trust and confidence in the judicial system."

Follow up to previous postings on judicial pay raises, today's Legal Times, 12-13-2007: "The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would give federal judges their first pay raise in two decades, pushing them to the fore of federal earners. The bill, passed by a 28-5 vote, also would increase the workload for senior judges, raise the retirement age for full pension and discourage retired judges from taking work in the private sector...Under the Federal Judicial Salary Restoration Act of 2007, federal district judges would earn $218,000 annually, uncoupling them from members of Congress, who make $165,200 a year. Federal appeals judges would earn $231,000; Supreme Court associate justices $267,900; and the chief justice $279,900."

Follow up to previous postings on sentencing guidelines, today's press release: "The United States Sentencing Commission unanimously voted today to give retroactive effect to a recent amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that reduces penalties for crack cocaine offenses. Retroactivity of the crack cocaine amendment will become effective on March 3, 2008. Not every crack cocaine offender will be eligible for a lower sentence under the decision. A Federal sentencing judge will make the final determination of whether an offender is eligible for a lower sentence and how much that sentence should be lowered. That determination will be made only after consideration of many factors, including the Commission’s direction to consider whether lowering the offender’s sentence would pose a danger to public safety. In addition, the overall impact is anticipated to occur incrementally over approximately 30 years, due to the limited nature of the guideline amendment and the fact that many crack cocaine offenders will still be required under Federal law to serve mandatory five- or ten-year sentences because of the amount of crack involved in their offense."

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has received a second set of records from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) detailing behind-the-scenes briefings for lawmakers working to make substantial changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). EFF requested release of the records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) earlier this year...Last month, a federal judge ordered ODNI to release all documents by December 10. The first batch of records, made public on November 30, detailed contentious negotiations between Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and members of Congress that resulted in the passage of the Protect America Act...The second set of records contains more correspondence between McConnell and members of Congress, as well as heavily redacted versions of classified testimony delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and an FAQ detailing how the National Security Agency performs electronic surveillance. Withheld records include ODNI presentation slides used to brief Congress on foreign intelligence issues, and other classified documents."

Via Scotusblog: "The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the federal guidelines on sentencing for cocaine violations are advisory only, rejecting a lower court ruling that they are effectively mandatory. Judges must consider the Guideline range for a cocaine violation, the Court said, but may conclude that they are too harsh when considering the disparity between punishment for crack cocaine and cocaine in powder form. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the decision in Kimbrough v. U.S. (06-6330).... Ruling in a second Guidelines case, Gall v. U.S. (06-7949), the Court — also by a 7-2 vote — cleared the way for judges to impose sentences below the specified range and still have such punishment regarded as “reasonable.” The Justices, in an opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, told federal appeals courts to use a “deferential abuse-of-discretion standard” even when a trial sets sets a punishment below the range. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., announced the opinion in Stevens’ absence."

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: "In August 2007, there were 62 federal prosecutions of child pornography, according to timely enforcement data from the Justice Department. Though unchanged from the previous month, filings in this category are down by about half (49.7%) from the previous year, and down 20% from five years ago. These declines follow a period of rapid growth for federal child pornography prosecutions which began after President Bush took office. For reports on the latest enforcement trends," see the following links:

Follow up to November 12, 2007 posting, U.S. Sentencing Commission Received 33,000 Letters on Retroactivity, news today that "[t]he U.S. Sentencing Commission, which in November 2007 issued new guidelines for convictions involving crack cocaine, is considering making those guidelines retroactive. The Commission estimates that 19,500 current federal prison inmates would be eligible for a reduced sentence, by an average of 27 months, if the guidelines were made retroactive."

Press release: "The U.S. adult correctional population — incarcerated or in the community — reached 7.2 million men and women, an increase of 159,500 during the year, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today in a new report. About 3.2 percent of the U.S. adult population, or 1 in every 31 adults, was in the nation’s prison or jails or on probation or parole at the end of 2006....The two reports, Prisoners in 2006 (NCJ-219416), and Probation and Parole in the United States, 2006 (NCJ-220218), were written by BJS statisticians Heather Couture, Paige M. Harrison and William J. Sabol and Thomas P. Bonczar and Lauren E. Glaze respectively."

Bureau of Justice Statistics: "Presents findings on the pretrial release phase of the criminal justice process using data collected from a representative sample of felony cases filed in the 75 largest U.S. counties in May during even-numbered years from 1990 to 2004. It includes trends on pretrial release rates and the types of release used. Pretrial release rates are compared by arrest offense, demographic characteristics, and criminal history. Characteristics of released and detained defendants are also presented. Rates of pretrial misconduct including failure to appear and rearrest are presented by type of release, demographic characteristics, and criminal history."

Press release: "Late Tuesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won the speedy release of telecom lobbying records from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The agency was ordered to comply with a new December 10 deadline -- in time for the documents to play a role in the congressional debate over granting amnesty for telecommunications companies taking part in illegal electronic surveillance. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston vacates a hearing on the matter previously scheduled for Friday."

US Courts: "New rules providing privacy protection for case files posted online in the federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts are scheduled to take effect December 1, 2007. Some of the rules represent a change in Judicial Conference policy. Meanwhile, a Judicial Conference committee is studying a related privacy issue: Whether courts should restrict Internet access to plea agreements in criminal cases, which may contain information identifying defendants who are cooperating with law enforcement investigations. The new rules were proposed by the Judicial Conference in accordance with the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires that each court make publicly available online any document filed electronically. The rules require parties to redact certain personal information from each filing. The Act required the Supreme Court to prescribe rules “to protect privacy and security concerns related to electronic filing of documents and the public availability..of documents filed electronically.” The new privacy rules include Civil Procedure Rule 5.2, Criminal Rule 49.1 and Bankruptcy Rule 9037. Appellate Rule 25 was amended to incorporate the new privacy directive. The rules can be found here."

US Courts: "Supreme Court decisions, shifting Administration priorities, new legislation, and numerous other factors caused the composition of the federal courts’ caseload to change over the past decade. Between September 30, 1997 and September 30, 2006, appeals court filings steadily climbed, district court caseloads fluctuated, and bankruptcy filings hit a record high before tumbling following the enactment of sweeping bankruptcy reform legislation. What are the identifiable caseload trends and what are the forces behind the changing nature of the federal courts’ caseload?"

U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, filed November 23. 2007, ACLU v DHS: Proposed Order Granting Defendants’ Motion to Stay Proceeding Pending New Rulemaking.

Access Case Records: "Minnesota Online District (Trial) Case Records - Minnesota District Courts offer an online case inquiry tool for statewide electronic case records, called MPA Remote, which stands for Minnesota Trial Court Public Access Remote view. MPA Remote is a public-view version of the Minnesota Court Information System (MNCIS), the computerized case management system used by Minnesota District Courts to track and manage cases. MPA Remote contains replicated public case data from MNCIS. Upon inquiry, MPA Remote displays case information for public viewing, including register of actions, calendars, judgments, and orders and notices prepared by the court."

Pretrial Release of Felony Defendants in State Courts, November 2007: "Presents findings on the pretrial release phase of the criminal justice process using data collected from a representative sample of felony cases filed in the 75 largest U.S. counties in May during even-numbered years from 1990 to 2004. It includes trends on pretrial release rates and the types of release used. Pretrial release rates are compared by arrest offense, demographic characteristics, and criminal history. Characteristics of released and detained defendants are also presented. Rates of pretrial misconduct including failure to appear and rearrest are presented by type of release, demographic characteristics, and criminal history."

US Courts: "Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts totaled 801,269 for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2007, down 28 percent when compared to the 1,112,542 filings in Fiscal Year 2006. However, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the September 2007 filings are the highest of any previous 12-month period since September 2006."

DOJ FOIA Summaries of New Decisions, September 2007: "OIP provides these case summaries as a public service; due to their nature as summaries, they are not intended to be authoritative or complete statements of the facts or holdings of any of the cases summarized, and they should not be relied upon as such. Set out below are summaries of the court decisions that were received by OIP during the month of September 2007."

Press release: "Today, U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy granted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's (CREW) request for a temporary restraining order to prevent the White House from destroying back-up copies of millions of deleted emails while the lawsuit is pending. CREW brought this lawsuit against the Executive Office of the President and the National Archives and Records Administration challenging their failure to restore and preserve millions of emails deleted from White House servers and to institute an effective electronic record-keeping system. When the White House refused to give adequate assurances that it would preserve back-up copies of the deleted emails -- the only source of these important historical records [see Federal Records Act] -- CREW sought a temporary restraining order."

US Courts press release: "Free public access to federal court records is available at 16 libraries in 14 states [the list is included with this release] under a joint pilot project of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts and the Government Printing Office. The project offers free access, at the participating 16 federal depository libraries, to the federal judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. PACER allows users to obtain case file documents, listings of all case parties, judgments, and other information from district, bankruptcy and appellate courts online, with the data immediately available for printing or downloading."

Press release: "A federal judge today ruled on a preservation motion filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ordering that telecommunications companies must preserve any evidence of collaborating with the government in illegal spying on ordinary Americans. In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ordered the telecommunications companies to halt any routine destruction of documents or to arrange for the preservation of accurate copies. On December 14, each party must provide the court with confirmation that the court's order has been carried out. The court order did not require the government or the carriers to reveal whether or not they had any relevant evidence."

"State Court Organization, 1987-2004 presents trend data from State Court Organization data collections covering the years 1987-2004. The report examines changes in the organization and operations of the Nation’s state trial and appellate courts over this time period. Topics include the selection and educational requirements of judges, regulations of criminal and civil juries, the development of unified court systems, and adjustments in court management and staffing to address growing caseloads."

AP: "The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether Exxon Mobil Corp. should pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages in connection with the huge Exxon Valdez oil spill that fouled more than 1,200 miles of Alaskan coastline in 1989."

Follow up to previous postings on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be Attorney General, today's press release provides additional documents: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Friday released written questions and correspondence submitted for the record to Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey. Consistent with standard committee practice, Senators were given a week to submit written follow-up questions to the nominee. The written queries focus on topics addressed in the two days of Judge Mukasey’s confirmation hearings -- including torture policy and the warrantless wiretapping program – as well as other subjects."

New Study Suggests Veteran Advocates Sway Supreme Court: "Research draws controversial connection between growth of the Supreme Court Bar and the Court's new pro-business tilt." Legal Times, Tony Mauro, October 22, 2007.

Follow up to October 17, 2007 posting, Court Indicates Order on Missing White House Email Forthcoming, from CREW: "Today, in CREW v. EOP, Magistrate Judge John Facciola issued a report and recommendation in which he concluded that a temporary restraining order should be issued by District Court Judge Henry Kennedy preventing the White House from destroying any back-up copies – in whatever medium - created to preserve data. CREW sought this order to ensure that back-up copies of the millions of email deleted from White House servers between March 2003 and October 2005 were preserved pending resolution of CREW's lawsuit challenging as contrary to law those deletions and the failure of the White House to have an effective electronic record-keeping system in place. The court refused to accept the last-minute proffer of the White House to provide a declaration in lieu of a court order, explaining that a declaration is not sufficient because a violation is not punishable by contempt. The White House has 10 days in which to file an objection to this recommendation, after which Judge Kennedy will issue an order."

Grand Jury Handbook, Updated October 2007 (24 pages, PDF)

US Courts: "The updated versions of the various fees for federal court filings – in appellate, district, bankruptcy courts and more – are available online."

Press release, October 4, 2007: "Two conservation organizations, the Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network, filed a lawsuit today against Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne for failing to take into account the latest information on global warming in management decisions affecting polar bears, walrus, sea otters, and manatees. The suit, brought under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, seeks to force the federal government to issue updated stock assessment reports for protected marine mammals ranging from Florida to Alaska. Stock assessments are population estimates that include information on the range of the species and threats to its survival."

US Courts: "The Judicial Conference has expressed concerns about proposed regulations issued by the Department of Justice for states seeking to qualify for expedited federal habeas corpus review procedures in capital cases. Concerns about the certification-implementation regulations proposed June 6, 2007, were aired in an August 1 letter from the Conference to DOJ. In 1996, Congress enacted Chapter 154 of the U.S. Code’s Title 28 as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). Chapter 154 provides for expedited procedures in federal capital habeas corpus cases when a state is able to establish that it has provided qualified, competent, adequately resourced, and adequately compensated counsel in state post-conviction proceedings to inmates facing a capital sentence...In its letter, the Conference urged DOJ to revise the proposed regulations to provide definitions of “standards of competency,” “competent counsel,” “compensation of appointed counsel,” and “reasonable litigation expenses.” The Conference noted that “[s]uch definitions are needed to provide guidance, criteria, or other notice of what a state must do to satisfy the statutory or regulatory requirements."

Press release, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee: "I am glad that Judge Mukasey has now returned the Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire (85 pages) providing important information necessary to begin a complete review of his record. The Committee will conduct the thorough review necessary for this crucial nomination, which comes at such a key juncture for the Department of Justice and for the country. The next Attorney General must be someone who will begin the process of restoring the Department of Justice to its proper mission. The Committee will work to evaluate this nomination as efficiently as possible, while performing fully the Committee’s constitutional role and taking care to ensure that the next Attorney General will answer to the principles of justice and law, not to any political party."

National Security Archive press release: "A District Court in the District of Columbia has ruled that an Executive Order [13,233] issued by President George W. Bush in 2001, which severely slowed or prevented the release of historic presidential papers is, in part, invalid. In a carefully constructed decision, the court held that the Archivist of the United States acts arbitrarily, capriciously, and contrary to law by relying on the Executive Order to delay release of the records of former presidents. The court did not reach the issue of whether it was permissible for President Bush to extend the authority over disclosure of presidential papers to a former president’s heirs or to former vice presidents."

Press release: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is relocating its Internet Web page to its own in-house servers. As part of this process, the court's Web page address and domain name will be changed to www.cafc.uscourts.gov on October 1, 2007. The former Web page address and domain name, www.fedcir.gov, will continue to be kept active through December 31, 2007, in order to redirect users to the new address. The new domain name brings the Federal Circuit into conformance with the Web site naming convention used by the other United States Courts of Appeals. Web site authors and others who have created links to pages inside the www.fedcir.gov Web page should change the URL of those links to the new URL on October 1, 2007."

History of Federal Judgeships: U.S. Courts of Appeals and U.S. District Courts

US Courts, September 27, 2007 — Citing the Judiciary view that camera coverage can undermine the fundamental right of citizens to a fair and impartial trial, a representative of the Judicial Conference of the United States testified today against H.R. 2128, the Sunshine in the Courtroom Act of 2007. The bill was the topic of a House Judiciary Committee hearing, at which Judge John R. Tunheim, the chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, testified. Judge Tunheim is a U.S. district court judge from the District of Minnesota."

EFF: "Today, Judge Ann Aiken of the Oregon Federal District Court ruled that two provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), "50 U.S.C. §§ 1804 and 1823, as amended by the Patriot Act, are unconstitutional because they violate the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution."

US Supreme Court 2007-2008 Case List

U.S. Courts: "This package of First Amendment cases provides examples of the six pillars of the First Amendment considered the foundation of the Constitution. Each freedom – religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, and association – is illustrated by a high-profile case that has an impact on today's teens. These cases are presented in a way that prepares students to explore the issues in a variety of formats in a courtroom – as a civil discussion, an Oxford style debate, a Supreme Court oral argument, or a Supreme Court case conference after oral arguments."

New York Times: September 23, 2007, Meet the Supremes, by David Margolick: "But to anyone who watches the court, or watches those who watch it, Toobin’s descriptions afford something else, arguably even more interesting: the chance to ponder which of those justices talked to him for this book, and which did not. And talk to him some of them clearly did. Without their off-the-record whispers, there would be no “inside” story of any “secret” world to tell in The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court."

U.S. Courts release: "The Judicial Conference of the United States today voted to make transcripts of federal district and bankruptcy court proceedings available online through the Judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. Under the new policy, transcripts created by court reporters or transcribers will be available for inspection and copying in a clerk of court’s office and for download from PACER 90 days after they are delivered to the clerk. Individuals will be able to view, download, or print a copy of a transcript from PACER for eight cents per page."

Press release: "The European Commission welcomes today's ruling by the Court of First Instance upholding the European Commission’s 2004 decision on Microsoft's abuse of its dominant market position and confirming the totality of the fine imposed. In this decision, Microsoft was fined €497 million for infringing the EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82) by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server operating systems and for media players (see IP/04/382 and MEMO/04/70). This conduct hindered innovation in the markets concerned to the detriment of consumers. To put an end to this abusive behaviour, the Commission ordered Microsoft to disclose interoperability information which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers and to offer a version of its Windows operating system without Windows Media Player. The Court’s ruling confirms that the Commission was right to prohibit Microsoft's anti-competitive conduct which harmed competition to the detriment of consumers."

US Courts: "The success of the federal judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is well documented: Hundreds of millions of pages of court documents retrieved online each year by customers who numbers are approaching 750,000. Less attention, however, has focused on PACER's impact on court staffs. "It's definitely changed the way our office does business, and I think it's been a change for the better," said Monica Menier, clerk of the bankruptcy court in the Middle District of Louisiana."

Press release: "The federal Judiciary is seeking comment on the privacy and security implications related to public Internet access to certain documents in criminal case files. The Court Administration and Case Management Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States is studying these issues so the Conference can develop policy guidance for the federal courts. The committee is interested in comments on a proposal to restrict public Internet access to plea agreements in criminal cases, which may contain information identifying defendants who are cooperating with law enforcement investigations. The request for public comment addresses both the privacy and security implications of Internet access to such files and potential policy alternatives."

Summaries of New Decisions -- April 2007: "As part of OIP's feature to provide up-to-date information on new court decisions, we have included below summaries of the court decisions that were decided in April 2007. OIP will continue to post monthly summaries until we are current. Thereafter, summaries of new court decisions will be posted regularly."

AP: "Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 U.S. service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, a federal judge declared Friday in a ruling that left survivors and families shedding tears of joy. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth described his ruling as the largest-ever such judgment by an American court against another country. "These individuals, whose hearts and souls were forever broken, waited patiently for nearly a quarter century for justice to be done," he said."

Tim Stanley: US Federal District Court Opinions with Full Text Search: "We have put online the Federal District Court case opinions and orders that are available using the opinion report in the Federal Courts' ECF. These are updated daily. We have categorized the opinions by state, court, type of lawsuit and judge and combinations of judge and type of lawsuit. You can also subscribe to each of categories through RSS feeds to track a judge or court's decisions on different issues. And we also give the cause of action for each case.

We are using Google's hosted Business Custom Search Engine for the full text search. Google is now OCRing PDF image files, so even PDF files that have images of scanned documents will be in most cases full text indexable and searchable. Like the OCR of Google's Book Search. You will need to look at the cached copy to see the highlighted searched text though, and then find in the original PDF to be 100% that what you are reading is correct. Google should be doing a pretty good job of indexing and ocring these court decisions, although it may take a few days for a new document to show up in the index.

We have also noted on the federal district court case filing database when we have a judge's opinion (you will see a little gavel. The case filings are at here."

Press release: "In a report released [August 29, 2007]...the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) provides the only comprehensive look at the four-year litigation campaign waged by the RIAA against music fans. The report traces the RIAA campaign from its beginnings in 2003 against a handful of students at Princeton, Rensselaer Polytechnic, and Michigan Tech to the current spate of "pre-litigation settlement" letters being sent to universities nationwide."
EFF Report - RIAA v the People: Four Years Later (25 pages, PDF)

Final Technical Report: Habeas Litigation in U.S. District Courts: An Empirical Study of Habeas Corpus Cases Filed by State Prisoners Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, August 2007. Author(s): Nancy J. King J.D.; Fred L. Cheesman Ph.D.; Brian J. Ostrom Ph.D. Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Justice, National Institute of Justice. (128 pages, PDF) (Executive Summary, 14 pages)

"About the Book - "Have fun and learn about the Supreme Court! It's a coloring book with a surprising educational twist. This 32-page coloring book features expertly rendered illustrations depicting significant Supreme Court Justices of the United States to color in--including all current sitting Justices. The U.S. Supreme Court Coloring and Activity Book is perfect for the children of lawyers and judges, or for teachers looking for a new resource for Law Day or Constitution Day."

U.S. Government Manual 2007-2008: "The official handbook of the Federal Government, provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches."

"On June 5, 2007, the FTC authorized its staff to seek a federal district court order to prevent Whole Foods from acquiring Wild Oats. The FTC argued in court in Washington, DC, on July 31 and August 1, 2007 that the merger would violate federal antitrust laws by substantially reducing competition in the market for premium natural and organic supermarkets in several geographic areas throughout the United States. The federal district court decision announced today allows the transaction to proceed, pending the FTC’s filing of a request for emergency stay with the district and appellate courts prior to its appeal being heard. The Commission also has authorized the staff to act on its administrative complaint to permanently enjoin the merger."

"Bankruptcy filings in the federal courts continued a slow upward creep. In the 12-month period ending June 30, 2007, there were 751,056 bankruptcy cases filed, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. This total is a 49.4 percent drop when compared to filings for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2006 when cases totaled 1,484,570. But June's 12-month total is greater than the 12-month totals for March 2007 (695,575 cases) and December 2006 (617,660)."

Related Items:

LA Times: "The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts. The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year's reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges."

Explain Independence of the Judiciary in Words that People Can Understand - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer tells ABA opening assembly, August 11, 2007 - Video / Audio

Memorandum and Decision Order in SCO v. Novell, Civil Case No. 2:04CV139DAK, Dale A. Kimball, United States District Judge, U.S. Distrcit Court for the District of Utah, Central Division, August 10, 2007. (102 pages, PDF - via Groklaw]

AP: "Of the 12 states in the Northeast and Midwest that are part of the E-ZPass system, agencies in seven states provide electronic toll information in response to court orders in criminal and civil cases, including divorces, according to an Associated Press survey."

Press release: "Two federal courts today became the vanguard of a pilot project to make digital audio recordings of courtroom proceedings publicly available online. The U.S. District Court in Nebraska and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina have integrated their recording and Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) systems to make some audio files available the same way written files have long been available on the Internet."

US Courts: "Customers of the federal court’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system now have access, without charge, to district court written opinions. Written opinions have been defined by the Judicial Conference as “any document issued by a judge or judges of the court sitting in that capacity, that sets forth a reasoned explanation for a court’s decision.” The authoring judge determines which documents meet this definition. Only district courts using version 2.4 or higher of the Case Management/Electronic Case Files system will offer this access, but PACER customers also can access opinions via existing reports and queries, such as the docket report. Users will not be billed for accessing the written opinion document itself, but will be billed for the report or query used to identify the document."

Clean Water Act Jurisdictional Handbook [link to free download requiring registration]: "In June 2006 the Supreme Court, in a decision that split 4-1-4, produced a result in Rapanos v. United States that makes federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction over the wetlands, streams, and other waters of the United States confusing and uncertain for citizens, landowners, and regulators alike. Members of Congress have introduced new legislation to restore jurisdiction over many of the waters cast into doubt by the decision; and the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers (the federal regulatory agencies) issued a joint guidance document in June 2007 attempting to guide their respective staffs. Numerous federal courts have attempted to apply the uncertain teachings of Rapanos as well. With the support of the Turner Foundation, and the assistance of numerous experts in wetlands science and law, the Environmental Law Institute has prepared a handbook that analyzes the case law, compiles the relevant scientific studies, and provides a set of jurisdictional checklists. The Handbook will assist anyone faced with a jurisdictional question involving a wetland or stream to understand what factors will allow them to find Clean Water Act jurisdiction."

Other relevant documents include:

Press release: "The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today issued revised regulations on age discrimination in the workplace in accordance with a 2004 Supreme Court decision, General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline. The updated regulations, published in [July 6, 2007] Federal Register. The revised regulations clarify that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) does not prohibit employers from favoring an older employee over a younger one when both are protected by the Act. The EEOC initially proposed these changes in 2006 and, after receiving public comments on its proposal, unanimously voted to approve the revisions. The public comments were largely supportive of the revisions, with both business and labor groups supporting the changes."

The Third Branch: "A new version of OSCAR, the Online System for Clerkship Application and Review, is now available to law schools, clerkship applicants, and judges nationwide. The upgrade incorporates several new features that promise to make the system even easier to use. Nationwide, over 750 federal appellate, district, bankruptcy, and magistrate judges use OSCAR to select their law clerks and approximately 200 law schools provide access to the system for their students and administrators ... Participating judges are posted on the Federal Law Clerk Information System at https://lawclerks.ao.uscourts.gov as well as on the OSCAR website."

EFF press release: "...The FBI's use of NSLs was expanded under the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, allowing federal agents to gather private
records about anyone's domestic phone calls, emails, and financial transactions without any court approval -- as long as an FBI agent claims that the information could be related to a terrorism or espionage investigation. EFF submitted a FOIA request about the reported misuse of NSLs in March, and when no documents were forthcoming, EFF sued the FBI for their immediate release. Last month, a judge held that the FBI was required to release records related to the inspector general's report beginning on July 5, with more documents to be disclosed every 30 days. In all, 1138 pages of NSL records were released to EFF late last week in the first batch of documents complying with the court's order."

Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Court- In an exclusive interview, Justice Kennedy discusses life, center stage, by Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas: "
In 19 cases during the past year, the Supreme Court split down the middle along ideological lines. The court's four conservatives—Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—lined up on one side, and the four liberals—Justices Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter—lined up on the other. Each time, the tie was broken by a fifth vote belonging to Justice Anthony Kennedy. On 13 occasions, Kennedy aligned himself with the conservatives. While the court is clearly moving to the right, it's obvious that Kennedy holds the balance of power."

Follow up to previous postings on domestic surveillance programs, news today that 6th Circuit found none of the plaintiff's had standing against the NSA with regard to the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). See the ACLU press release: "In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals today dismissed a legal challenge to the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. The challenge was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations who say that the unchecked surveillance program is disrupting their ability to communicate effectively with sources and clients."

Follow up to June 24, 2007 posting, Skelton/Conyers Introduce Habeas Reform Legislation, see these additional related government documents:

Follow up to June 20, 2007 posting, Microsoft Complies With Vista Browser Choice Option, see Microsoft's Memorandum in Opposition to Google's Motion for Leave to Participate as Amicus Curiae - July 3, 2007

Press release: "The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has wrongfully withheld data documenting years of toxic exposures to workers and its own inspectors, according to a federal court ruling posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, the world’s largest compendium of measurements of occupational exposures to toxic substances - more than 2 million analyses conducted during some 75,000 OSHA workplace inspections since 1979 - should now be available to researchers and policymakers. Each year, an estimated 40,000 U.S. workers die prematurely because of exposures to toxic substances on the job."

Follow up to previous postings on Plame CIA leak case, news today that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has unanimously denied I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's request to delay his prison sentence.

Grant of Executive Clemency, July 2, 2007 and Statement by the President On Executive Clemency for Lewis Libby

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's Statement on Libby [via National Review]: "...Although the President’s decision eliminates Mr. Libby’s sentence of imprisonment, Mr. Libby remains convicted by a jury of serious felonies, and we will continue to seek to preserve those convictions through the appeals process."

Related government documents and articles on executive clemency:

Press release: "Juries across the country make decisions every day on the fate of defendants, ideally leading to prison sentences that fit the crime for the guilty and release for the innocent. Yet a new Northwestern University study shows that juries in criminal cases many times are getting it wrong. In a set of 271 cases from four areas, juries gave wrong verdicts in at least one out of eight cases, according to Estimating the Accuracy of Jury Verdicts, a paper by a Northwestern University statistician that is being published in the July issue of Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. “Contrary to popular belief, this study strongly suggests that DNA or other after-the-fact evidence is not the only way to know how often jury verdicts are correct,” said Bruce Spencer, the study's author, professor of statistics and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern. “Based on findings from a limited sample, I am optimistic that larger, carefully designed statistical studies would have much to tell us about the accuracy of jury verdicts.” Spencer cautions that the numerical findings should not be generalized to broader sets of cases, for which additional study would be needed, but the study strongly suggests that jury verdicts can be studied statistically. If such studies were conducted on a large scale, they might lead to better understanding of the prevalence of incorrect verdicts -- false convictions and false acquittals, he said."

U.S. Courts press release: "In the 12-month period ending March 31, 2007, 695,575 bankruptcy cases were filed in federal courts, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Compared to filings in the 12-month period ending March 31, 2006, when bankruptcy cases totaled 1,794,795, this was a 61 percent drop in filings. The 12-month period ending March 31, 2006, included the surge in filings that occurred prior to the October 17, 2005, implementation date of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA)."

The Third Branch: "Continuing its efforts to enhance the transparency of courtroom proceedings, the federal Judiciary is about to launch a pilot project to make digital audio recordings publicly available online. Five pilot project participants—three bankruptcy courts and two district courts—will integrate their recording and Case Management/ Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) systems to make audio files available later this summer on the Internet, the same way written files have long been available."

WSJ free feature: When Public Records Are Too Public - Open Records Are an Established Tradition, But Does Internet Access Call for a Change?: "Property deeds, marriage and divorce records, court files, motor-vehicle information and tax documents are increasingly being digitized, and contain a wealth of information that few of us would want online: Social Security numbers, birth dates, maiden names and images of our signatures. Local governments have rushed to put those documents online for a decade or so, often without scrubbing them of such information. And that's made them potentially fertile ground for busybodies, stalkers and identity thieves."

EFF press release: "The government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers, according to a landmark ruling Monday in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court found that email users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored email as they do in their telephone calls -- the first circuit court ever to make that finding."

"A Judicial Misconduct and Disability page explains how to complain about a federal judge, in any of the 13 judicial circuits. It’s one outgrowth of a report in which a committee chaired by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer called for improvements in how complaints are handled."

Follow up to previous postings on the domestic surveillance program and AT&T's alleged participation, this press release today: "More documents detailing secret government surveillance of AT&T's Internet traffic have been released to the public as part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) class-action lawsuit against the telecom giant. Some of the unsealed information was previously made public in redacted form. But after negotiations with AT&T, EFF has filed newly unredacted documents describing a secret, secure room in AT&T's facilities that gave the National Security Agency (NSA) direct access to customers' emails and other Internet communications. These include several internal AT&T documents that have long been available on media websites, EFF's legal arguments to the 9th Circuit, and the full declarations of whistleblower Mark Klein and of J. Scott Marcus, the former Senior Advisor for Internet Technology to the Federal Communications Commission, who bolsters and explains EFF's evidence. Oral arguments in the 9th Circuit appeal are set for the week of August 13."

National Center for State Courts: "More than one-third of all Americans are likely to serve as jurors at some point in their lifetime, according to a newly released study by the Center for Jury Studies of the National Center for State Courts. This is a dramatic increase from 1977, when only 6 percent of Americans served as trial jurors. The increase most likely is the result of more inclusive master jury lists, shorter terms of jury service, and other changes in court policies designed to make jury service more convenient and accessible to citizens, the survey reports."

"The Global Corruption Report offers an annual, systematic analysis of corruption, reporting on the state of corruption around the globe. The Global Corruption Report 2007 focuses on corruption in judicial systems and includes recommendations for practitioners, actors in the judiciary and civil society, on how to fight corruption in the sector." By Transparency International, English, 372 pages. [thanks Peggy Garvin]

Following up on previous postings related to judicial pay, an announcement of a new resources on the issues: "Welcome to the new Judicial Salary Resource Center. The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) has published an annual Survey of Judicial Salaries for more than 30 years, and this Web site reflects a transformation in its systems of data collection and storage to make the data more timely, accessible, and powerful. Please note that the move toward a more-modern Web interface does not mean that NCSC will discontinue its print editions. This Web site is meant to serve as a supplement and continuous update to their content."

According to the National Law Journal, The 50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America.

U.S. Courts: "In a 202-page report to Congress on federal cocaine sentencing policy, the U.S. Sentencing Commission urges legislation to remedy disparities between penalties for crimes involving powder cocaine and crack cocaine."

Follow-up to previous postings on Libby trial and the Plame CIA investigation, today U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton (District of Columbia) sentenced Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to 30 months in prison annd fined him $250,000.

CDT: "...a federal appeals court today limited the Federal Communications Commission's ongoing effort to expand its authority to regulate speech over broadcast media. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the FCC did not adequately explain its decision to reverse thirty years of policy of allowing "fleeting expletives " on broadcast television. Following its main decision, the Court also addressed an issue raised by CDT and others in a friend-of-the-court brief. Echoing the arguments in the brief, the court said that as communications technologies converge and "user empowerment" tools become more available, the very foundation of the FCC's authority over broadcast is diminishing. June 4, 2007.

U.S. Courts: "Extensive information about criminal cases sentenced under the federal sentencing guidelines is contained in the U.S. Sentencing Commission's 2006 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics...In FY 2006, 86.7 percent of all federal offenders were men. The average age of offenders was 34.8 years. Thirty-six percent of all defendants sentenced under the guidelines were convicted of drug offenses...Other common crimes were immigration offenses (24.5 percent), firearms offenses (11.7 percent), fraud (9.7 percent), and non-fraud white collar offenses (4.8 percent)."

Follow up to previous postings on Plame CIA leak, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald stated in a May 25, 2007 court filing that Libby has "expressed no remorse, no acceptance of responsibility, and no recognition that there is anything he should have done differently"..."As a result, Mr Fitzgerald said, he should be sentenced to two-and-a-half to three years in jail."

US Courts: "Administrative agency appeals involving the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) remained a significant part of federal appellate courts’ caseloads in 2006, accounting for 17 percent of 63,676 total appeals."

Administrative Office of the United States Courts: "In fiscal year 2006, it cost up to $24,443.08 to keep a federal inmate incarcerated for 12 months, and $3,535.18 for a federal offender to be released under the supervision of a probation officer for the same period. The annual cost of imprisonment in a Bureau of Prisons facility was $24,443.08, and placement in a community corrections center cost $21,588.47. Those figures were provided by the Bureau of Prisons."

The Wiki of The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit provides Electronic Access to Seventh Circuit Case Information, Rules, Procedures and Opinions. This is the first public wiki launched by the federal judiciary. According to Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, who spearheaded the wiki project, and reported by the National Law Journal, "The wiki will welcome comments from lawyers across the nation because issues of federal practice, especially in the appellate courts, are common ones..."

"The CourTopics database contains resource guides, state profiles, and much more for over 130 court-related topics."

Follow up to April 16, 2007 posting, Fact Sheet: Proposed FISA Modernization Legislation, the following documents from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI):

"EPIC, in cooperation with the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, filed a "friend-of-the-court" brief (42 pages, PDF) in Hepting v. AT&T. This lawsuit alleges that AT&T allowed the government to wiretap calls and e-mails without judicial authority. The U.S. government and AT&T seek to dismiss this case. The EPIC brief states, "The statutes and constitutional provisions relied upon in the complaint are designed to interpose the courts between citizens and the government when government conducts surveillance that it naturally would prefer to conduct in secret and wholly at its own discretion...This litigation should thus proceed, lest the privacy claims here be made effectively unreviewable."

Federal Judiciary News Release: "A total of 1,839 orders were issued by federal and state courts in 2006 authorizing or approving the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications, also known as wiretaps. This is a 4 percent increase over the 1,773 orders issued in 2005, according to The 2006 Wiretap Report. The complete report contains information on interceptions concluded between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2006. A summary of the authorized intercepts reported for calendar years 1996-2006 is availabe in Table 7."

Naitional Center for State Courts, Grand Juries Resource Guide

Follow up to previous postings on judicial pay raises, see How to Pay the Piper: It's Time to Call Different Tunes for Congressional and Judicial Salaries - Issues in Governance Studies, April 2007
"A group of former U.S. Senators and Representatives is preparing to call for Congress to end the practice of linking the salaries of federal judges and those of members of Congress, if Congress is hesitant to raise its own salaries. To assist in this effort, Brookings scholars and their colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research produced this paper to describe the history of interbranch salary linkage and to analyze it as policy. (The group includes former Senators Howard Baker, John Danforth, and Sam Nunn, and former Representatives Richard Gephardt, Henry Hyde, Susan Molinari, Leon Panetta and Louis Stokes.)"

Follow up to previous postings on pay raise for judges, "Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito testified before a House subcommittee, calling for a salary increase for federal judges. Breyer text (pdf). Alito text (pdf). See also this Fact Sheet on Judicial Compensation."

Press release: " Federal courts are handling more class action cases since the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA) was enacted, a study shows. "In the 16 months since CAFA went into effect on February 18, 2005...we find a substantial increase in class action activity based on diversity of citizenship jurisdiction," said the third in a series of interim reports from the Federal Judicial Center."

Press release: "Bankruptcy filings in the federal courts dropped 70 percent in calendar year 2006, according to data released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. However, bankruptcies filed for the last three months of calendar year 2006 were the highest of any quarter in the calendar year. The statistics cover the first full 12-month period in which the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) has been in effect." Please note this press release includes links to statistics by three month period, 12-month period, by month, Business and Non-Business Filings CY 2000-2006, and Total Bankruptcy Filings
by Bankruptcy Chapter Calendar Years, Period Ending December 31, 2000-2006.

Press release: "Nebraska's Court Case One Time Search service provides online access to court case records in all 93 county courts and 92 of the state's 93 district courts (excluding the district court in Douglas County). The service was launched through a collaborative effort between the Nebraska Office of the State Court Administrator and Nebraska.gov.

Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights, hearing - Responding to The Inspector General's Findings of Improper Use of National Security Letters by the FBI, April 11, 2007.

Via American Library Association Washington Office Newsline:

"George Christian, Executive Director of the Library Connection and former plaintiff in John Doe v. Gonzales, testified today (April 11, 2007) before a Senate Subcommittee on the harmful effects of receiving a National Security Letter (NSL), a component of the USA PATRIOT Act, from the FBI. Library Connection is a non-profit cooperative of 27 libraries in Connecticut. In 2005, the group received an NSL from the FBI, along with its accompanying perpetual gag order, demanding library records...Library Connection challenged the constitutionality of the NSL and its perpetual gag and eventually the FBI withdrew its appeal to keep their identities hidden after Federal District Court Judge Janet C. Hall declared the gag order unconstitutional. Christian, spoke on behalf of himself and three others...“Ours is a cautionary story that we hope will provoke serious thought. Though our gag order was lifted, several hundred thousand other recipients of National Security Letters must carry the secret of their experience with NSLs to their graves,” Christian remarked in his opening statement and further added, “When the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law, our Connecticut library community, like the American Library Association and many other librarians, were concerned about the lack of judicial oversight as well as the secrecy associated with a number of the Act’s provisions and the NSLs in particular.” Christian asked Congress “to take special note of the uses and abuses of NSLs, in libraries and bookstores and other places where higher First Amendment standards should be considered,” and “to reconsider parts of the USA PATRIOT Act and in particular, the NSL powers that can needlessly subject innocent people to fishing expeditions of their personal information with no judicial review. Because of the gag order, you, our Senators and elected representatives and the American public, are denied access to the stories and information about these abuses. This is information you need to conduct oversight, work for appropriate changes to current law and seek to protect our constitutional rights.”

Follow up to postings on investigations into FBI use of National Security Letters, this press release: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked a judge to issue an emergency order requiring the FBI to immediately release agency records about its abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs) to collect Americans' personal information. The Department of Justice has already agreed that the records should be disclosed quickly due to the exceptional media attention and the questions the NSL report has raised about the government's integrity. However, despite this recognition, the Bureau has failed to meet the 20-day time limit that Congress set for requests that do not merit fast processing...EFF's FOIA request asks for all FBI records discussing or reporting violations of current law, guidelines, or policies, as well as any communications discussing various potential interpretations of current federal investigative power. EFF also demands copies of the contracts between the FBI and three telephone companies, which were intended to allow the FBI to get rapid access to telephone records."

American College of Trial Lawyers, Judicial Compensation - Our Federal Judges Must be Fairly Paid, March 2007 (16 pages, PDF).

The Supreme Court decision, April 2, 2007, 05-1120 Massachusetts v. EPA (66 pages, PDF).

The Third Branch, March 2007: "Some day in the not-too-distant future, locating and reading a brief filed in a federal appellate case will become as easy as finding an appeals court opinion. And electronic appellate briefs will feature hyperlinks to lower court rulings, statutes, regulations, and other cited materials. “Judges generally are excited about having attorneys file briefs that contain hyperlinks to citations,” said Gary Bowden, chief of the Administrative Office’s Appellate Court and Circuit Administration Division. “And through PACER (the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system) these briefs will be available to everyone.” Until late last year, 10 of the 12 regional appellate courts were using an antiquated system of receiving, storing and tracking their cases, a system that at age 20 was long overdue for retirement." The St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit took a giant step in December when it became the first of those 10 courts to go live with Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF). The rest are to follow by the end of 2007."

An Overview of Recent U.S. Supreme Court Jurisprudence in Patent Law, March 16, 2007

ACLU v Gonzales [originally ACLU v. Reno, then ACLU v. Ashcroft], Final Adjudication on the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, March 22, 2007 (84 pages, PDF)

Press release: "The federal courts requested $6.43 billion from Congress for fiscal year 2008 as Judge Julia Gibbons, chair of the Judicial Conference Budget Committee, and Administrative Office Director James C. Duff testified before appropriations subcommittees in the House and Senate."

AP: "The federal judiciary approved a pilot program this week to make free audio recordings of court proceedings available online. Although a court's participation in the program is voluntary, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the executive committee chairman of the policy-making Judicial Conference, said he expects the system ultimately will be widely used."

"The Judicial Conference of the United States today voted to ask Congress to create 67 new federal judgeships—15 for the courts of appeals and 52 for the district courts. Congress has not increased the number of appellate judges since it last enacted an omnibus judgeship bill in 1990. Since that time, the number of court of appeals judgeships has remained at 179, even though federal appellate court case filings have risen by 55 percent over the same 17-year time period."

Fiscal Year 2006 Caseload Shows Continued Impact of New Laws, Court Opinions - March 13, 2007: "Within an historical context, caseloads in the federal courts remain at high levels, according to statistics released by the Administrative Office. Filings of appeals were at an all-time high in 2005 having risen for 11 consecutive years. Despite a drop in 2006, bankruptcy filings remain well above the one million mark in 2006, after hitting a record level in 2005. In FY 2006, filings in the U.S. courts of appeals fell 3 percent; overall filings in the U.S. district courts rose slightly more than 1 percent; and bankruptcy filings dropped 38 percent. The number of persons under post-conviction supervision remained stable while the number of defendants in pretrial services cases fell 3 percent."

PARKER V. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, 04-7041a, March 9, 2007 (75 pages, PDF)

Follow up to posting on Libby conviction this week, as well as previous links to CIA leak investigation, today news that "Chairman Henry A. Waxman announced a hearing on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. At the hearing, the Committee will receive testimony from Ms. Wilson and other experts regarding the disclosure and internal White House security procedures for protecting her identity from disclosure and responding to the leak after it occurred. The hearing is scheduled for Friday, March 16. In addition, the Committee today sent a letter to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald commending him for his investigation and requesting a meeting to discuss testimony by Mr. Fitzgerald before the Committee. The Oversight Committee will webcast the hearing live at www.oversight.house.gov."

Documents and Links:

Follow-up to related postings on Plame CIA leak trial, press release: "The declassified documents introduced as evidence during the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, provide an almost unprecedented window into Mr. Cheney's own role as the most powerful vice president in history, according to National Security Archive director Tom Blanton this morning on NPR's Morning Edition. To listen, click on http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7750388. This posting also includes the actual documents discussed today. Talking with NPR's anchor Steve Inskeep, Blanton annotated a series of trial exhibits including several in Mr. Cheney's own handwriting, ranging from his scribbles on a New York Times op-ed piece critical of the administration, to his tasking of the White House press operation to defend Libby against charges of leaking classified information."

Follow up to previous postings on the Libby indictment and trial, today the jury returned convictions on four of the five counts, including perjury obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.

Judiciary's FY '07 Budget Authorized by Congress: "A continuing resolution has provided the Judiciary with $5.980 billion in enacted appropriations for the remaining months of fiscal year 2007, a 4.9 percent increase over FY 2006."

Via TalkLeft, a copy of the jury instruction on reasonable doubt.

Follow up to February 23, 2007 posting, County Clerk Property Records Images No Longer Available Online, this updated information: A.G. gives county clerks reprieve on privacy law - "Attorney General Greg Abbott this morning issued a letter that allows county clerks statewide to release public documents with private information on them, such as Social Security numbers."

Implementation of the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980: A Report to the Chief Justice: Stephen Breyer; Sarah Evans Barker; Pasco M. Bowman; D. Brock Hornby; Sally M. Rider; J. Harvie Wilkinson III, September 2006, 183 pages.

"NCSC and members of the court and law enforcement communities are concerned about court security. This is an issue that affects us all. This forum was established as a central point of information about aspects of court security. We hope to provide resources, news, and networking opportunities through the Forum."

Follow up to previous postings on calls for judicial pay raises, "the top lawyers at 60 major U.S. corporations have urged congressional leaders to provide a "substantial increase to the salaries of federal judges." Letter text, February 15, 2007.

A Comprehensive Emergency Management Program - A Model for State and Territorial Courts 2007 , February 2007 (187 pages, PDF).

Press release, February 12, 2007: "Georgetown Law Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff is pleased to announce the establishment of the Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary at Georgetown University Law Center. The project will continue the work of Fair and Independent Courts: A Conference on the State of the Judiciary, held at Georgetown Law in September 2006 and co-chaired by Justices O’Connor and Stephen Breyer."

On February 20, 2007, a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled 2-1 that detainees held at Guantánamo Bay could not challenge their detention, thereby upholding provisions of the Military Commissions Act denying "enemy combatants" the right to file habeas corpus claims in U.S. Court.

Follow up to previous postings on calls for judicial pay raises, "The deans of 130 of the nation's law schools have sent letters to congressional leaders in support of "a substantial increase in the compensation of federal judges."

Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission has asked a U.S. district court to order a permanent halt to operations that deceptively obtained and sold consumers’ confidential phone records without their knowledge or consent. The agency alleges the practice is not only unfair and deceptive in violation of federal law, but could endanger consumers’ safety. The agency also will ask the court to order the defendants to give up their ill-gotten gains."

Senate Judiciary Committee, Full Committee, "Judicial Security and Independence", February 14, 2007

Follow up to a January 1, 2007 postings on the Chief Justice's Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, wherein his primary topic was the need for judicial pay raises, see today's report that the "American Bar Association's House of Delegates, which sets policy for the organization, voted on February 12 to urge Congress to give federal judges a pay raise."

PBS.org intro: "Drawing on more than 80 interviews with key figures in the print, broadcast and electronic media, and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman examines the challenges facing the mainstream news media, and the media's reaction, in "News War," a special four-part series."

Follow up to previous postings on a legal dispute between a group of Belgian newspaper sites and Google over removal of copyrighted materials from the search engine index, news today that the court reaffirmed its decision against Google.

Another terrific project from the Justia team, this database [still under development] of recently filed Federal District Court civil cases allows users to browse by State, Nature of Suit and Cases, as well as seach by Party Name, jurisdiction, type of lawsuit, and within a given date range. According to Tim Stanley, there are currently "over 300,000 case titles since January 1, 2006, and they are updating [the database] daily."

Additional features include:

"Need to check the costs of litigating in federal courts? All district, appellate, and bankruptcy court fees, as well as others, are online."

Alito Recaps First Year on High Court, by Tony Mauro, Legal Times, February 7, 2007 [no fee or registration re'd]

AP: "U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he would make the eight-hour recordings public even though he was worried that jurors could be influenced by outside media buzz."

WSJ free feature: Federal Prosecutors Widen Pursuit Of Death Penalty as States Ease Off: "The growth in federal capital cases, many observers say, results from a heightened effort by the Justice Department to centralize the process for deciding whether prosecutors should push for capital punishment."

Special Master Reports are now posted on the Supreme Court's website, under the link for Dockets, which in turn has a link to Special Master Reports on the bottom portion of the page.

Via AP, Documents From The Trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, updated January 30, 2007.

PBS: "It's known as the court of last resort -- the Supreme Court -- where nine judges appointed for life make monumental decisions that govern our everyday lives, from the contents of the nation's daily newspapers to what we can do in the privacy of our own homes. With immense power and considerable mystery, the court of final appeal has helped author the history of America." Transcript and Video links currently available, via this link for the following episodes:

AP: "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Friday that she dislikes being "all alone on the court" nearly a year after the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor."

On Their Honor - "Wisconsin judges frequently try cases involving companies in which they’ve invested. Who decides if they have a financial conflict? The judges." by Geoff Davidian

From AP, Documents From The Trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, currently underway at the U.S. District Court, District of Columbia. See also this notice, USA v. LIBBY (Criminal No. 05-394): Order filed 1/10/07.

Federal Court Management Statistics - 2006: "Fiscal year 2006 statistics for each of the 12 regional U.S. courts of appeals and 94 U.S. district courts – plus national totals for the appellate and district courts – are now available."

Libby Trial Exhibits: "Due to public interest in this case, the Department of Justice is releasing the government exhibits in the format admitted in the court. The Department recognizes that these documents are in some cases not in an accessible format."

Stanford Center for Internet and Society: " Kahle v. Gonzales - In this case, two archives ask the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to hold that statutes that extended copyright terms unconditionally — the Copyright Renewal Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)— are unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, and that the Copyright Renewal Act and CTEA together create an "effectively perpetual" term with respect to works first published after January 1, 1964 and before January 1, 1978, in violation of the Constitution’s Limited Times and Promote...Progress Clauses. The Complaint asks the Court for a declaratory judgment that copyright restrictions on orphaned works — works whose copyright has not expired but which are no longer available — violate the constitution."

"The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has announced that the English translation of its decision in the case Claude Reyes et al v. Chile is already available at the Court's website: (link to the word document version)...in this case the Inter-American Court upheld that the right to access to information is a human right under the American Convention. [Eduardo Bertoni, Executive Director, Due Process of Law Foundation]

Hass, Douglas A., "Crafting Military Commissions Post-Hamdan: The Military Commissions Act of 2006". Indiana Law Journal, Vol. 82, Spring 2007 Available at SSRN.

In a letter today to Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter, Chairman and Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Gonzales stated, "...a Judge of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) issued orders authorizing the Government to target for collection international communications into or out of the United States where there is a probable cause to believe that one of the communicants is a member or agent of al Qaeda or an associated terrorist organization. As a result of these orders, any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

Related documents and information:

Prepared Remarks of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., January 17, 2007: "...A strong and independent Judiciary is necessary for our republic to remain strong, for our democracy to survive, and for the rule of law to flourish. To understand what I mean by independence, let me first clarify what independence is not. Judicial independence does not mean complete freedom from scrutiny or criticism. Judges' decisions may be criticized, and the nature of the job virtually guarantees it. After all, in every court case there will be a loser. Judges must resist the temptation to craft their opinions to avoid criticism or to seek approval, whether from the press, the public, the academy, or Congress...Under our Constitution, the President has the prerogative to nominate judges who agree with this philosophy. [see this related posting, FOIA Request for Records on Judicial Nominee Blocked by White House.]"

Press release: "President Bush has renominated controversial Peter Keisler to the D.C. Circuit. The White House is still stonewalling the Senate and the American public by blocking the release of relevant public records from Keisler's tenure [see the July 20, 2006 FOIA request] in the Office of Counsel during the Reagan Administration. People For the American Way believes it's critical that the Senate and the public get the material to properly evaluate Keisler's nomination to a lifetime seat on the nation's second highest court."

The Justice Served 2006 Top 10 Court Website Award winners. Among the winners is the Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Libraries.

Follow-up to January 1, 2007 posting on the Chief Justice's Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, 2006 whose sole topic was, "the failure to raise judicial pay," see today's Legal Times article, Judicial Salaries at Top of Court Administrator's Agenda and an Op-Ed: Judicial Pay Crucial to Our Courts' Future, by Karen J. Mathis, President, American Bar Association.

"National Center for State Courts' Gavel to Gavel will help identify trends in legislative activity as it relates to the courts in seven broad areas..."

[FindLaw reg. req'd to view this decision - William Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, January 4, 2007]

Documents prepared by the FBI (1,561 pages) in 1986 detailing Justice Rehnquist's decade long prescription drug pain treatment were obtained by AP through FOIA requests, and released today as follows:

Registration free article in today's Legal Times: Rehnquist FBI File Sheds New Light on Drug Dependence, Confirmation Battles, by Tony Mauro, Legal Times, January 3, 2007.

Maryland Courts Watcher Blog "posts the synopses of all published opinions issued by the Court of Appeals and Court of Special Appeals of Maryland and synopses of all opinions that are openly available on the Internet from other courts in Maryland."

"The Securities Class Action Clearinghouse provides detailed information relating to the prosecution, defense, and settlement of federal class action securities fraud litigation. The Clearinghouse maintains an Index of Filings of 2461 issuers that have been named in federal class action securities fraud lawsuits since passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Clearinghouse also contains copies of more than 18,800 complaints, briefs, filings, and other litigation-related materials filed in these cases."

Chief Justice's Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, 2006 - wherein he discusses only one issue, "the failure to raise judicial pay." [bio of Chief Justice John Roberts], January 1, 2007.

SUMMARY: "The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is
holding a public meeting to gather input to help NARA decide how to
identify post-1970 non-trial civil cases with sufficient historical
value to warrant permanent preservation. Pursuant to the U.S. District Court records schedule issued in 1983, the National Archives preserves all civil cases prior to 1970 and all cases filed after January 1, 1970 that went to trial. Cases filed after January 1, 1970 that did not reach the trial stage are eligible for disposal twenty years after they are transferred to inactive storage. Trial cases are routinely transferred to the legal custody of the National Archives twenty-five years after closure. No non-trial cases in records center storage have been destroyed. NARA must develop a methodology to review a representative portion of the non-trial case files in order to determine which files should be preserved. The meeting is designed to elicit advice from the public, and the legal, judicial, and historical communities on the review methodology." [Federal Register: December 28, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 249][Notices][Page 78226]

Follow-up to a November 7, 2006 posting, Court Grants Appeal in AT&T Spying Case, today, via Wired, "A federal judge in San Francisco declined to decide today whether to unseal documents at the heart of a lawsuit against AT&T for its alleged participation in a warrantless government wiretapping program aimed at Americans' overseas emails and phone calls...Though Wired News independently acquired and published portions of the documents under seal in May, Berenson said the "horse was not out of the barn" and that there were sensitive technical details under seal in documents that total about 120 pages."

Press release: "The National Center for State Courts has published Future Trends in State Courts 2006 [113 pages, PDF], the latest in its long-running “Report on Trends in State Courts” series. This book, which is produced annually by NCSC’s Knowledge and Information Service, helps to make courts more aware of important societal trends that could affect their operations—and public trust and confidence in the justice system."

"Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts series, Presents data from the Census Bureau's Annual Government Finance Survey and Annual Survey of Public Employment. This series includes national and State-by-State estimates of government expenditures and employment for the following justice categories: police protection, all judicial (including prosecution, courts, and public defense), and corrections. Federal data for the same categories are also included, as are data for the very largest local governments (counties with populations of 500,000 or more and cities with populations of 300,000 or more)."

"A four-page fact sheet that describes the Justice for All Act has been provided by the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime."

Related Resources:

U.S. Courts: "As on January 1, 2007, there will be revised fee schedules for the federal Courts of Appeals and Bankruptcy Courts."

U.S. Courts press release: "Nationwide implementation of the federal judiciary's Case Management and Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system is nearly completed in thedistrict and bankruptcy courts. CM/ECF not only replaces the courts' old electronic docketing and case management systems, but also provides courts the option to have case file documents in electronic format, and to accept filings over the Internet. CM/ECF systems are now in use in 98% of the federal courts: 91 district courts, 93 bankruptcy courts, the Court of International Trade, and the Court of Federal Claims. Most of these courts are accepting electronic filings. Almost 27 million cases are on CM/ECF systems, and more than 250,000 attorneys and others have filed documents over the Internet. Under current plans, most of the courts that are not yet using CM/ECF will begin usage by the end of 2006. Each court goes through an implementation process that takes about 10 months."

Relevant websites:

U.S. Courts news release: "Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts tumbled in fiscal year 2006. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, filings for FY 2006, the 12-month period ending September 30, 2006, fell 37.6 percent to 1,112,542, from total filings of 1,782,643 in FY 2005."

Third Branch: "Do you think elected officials should have more control over federal judges and the decisions they make in court cases? A majority of Americans say no. In an October poll conducted for CNN by Opinion Research Corporation, 67 percent of 1,013 Americans interviewed said elected officials should not have more control over federal judges and their decisions. Thirty percent said there should be more control, and 3 percent had no opinion."

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon's ruling stated that "the Bush administration unconstitutionally denied aid to tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and must resume payments immediately."

Eminent Domain: Information about Its Uses and Effect on Property Owners and Communities Is Limited, Full text GAO-07-28, and Highlights, November 30, 2006.

The Third Branch: "...cases involving claims arising out of, resulting from, or relating to the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of September 11, 2001, are being filed in federal court. The plaintiffs—alleging wrongful death, personal or respiratory injury, or property damage—may have lived near or worked on the site, and include city governments, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, private contractors and thousands of firemen, policemen, paramedics and construction workers. It is anticipated that 6,000 cases—all related to September 11, 2001—will be filed in the Southern District of New York, for an estimated 60 percent jump in the district's civil caseload... All of these cases are ultimately the responsibility of Judge Hellerstein, a native New Yorker and eight-year veteran of the federal bench...All Hellerstein's orders, announcements of conferences, and directions to counsel on the filing of correspondence are posted to the court's website, at www.nysd.uscourts.gov/Sept11Litigation.htm."

American Council for the Blind v. Henry M. Pauson, Secretary of the Treasury, November 28, 2006, District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge James Robertson rules, "Treasury Department's failure to design, produce and issue paper currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired" people violates federal law, since paper money effectively precludes them from "meaningful access to U.S. currency."

Televising Supreme Court and Other Federal Court Proceedings: Legislation and Issues, updated November 8, 2006.

November 27, 2006 statement: "Last week, CDT and the ACLU joined a friend-of-the-court brief written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, urging a federal appeals court to extend to e-mail the same constitutional protection accorded to telephone calls and regular mail. Remarkably, the constitutional status of e-mail has never been decided, and the Justice Department claims that opened e-mail and older stored e-mail can be obtained from service providers without a court order and without notice to the e-mail user. In the case, Warshak v. U.S., a lower federal court ruled that government agents could not force disclosure of email from a service provider unless they provided the relevant subscriber notice and an opportunity to object."

Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled that the NSA wiretapping documents are classified and not subject to FOIA.

Barrett v. Rosenthal, California Supreme Court, November 20, 2006: "In the context of defamation, the Communications Decency Act of 1996, codified at 47 U.S.C. section 230, prohibits "distributor" liability for Internet publications. Further, section 230(c)(1) immunizes individual "users" of interactive computer services, and no practical or principled distinction can be drawn between active and passive use."

Understanding The Federal Courts: "This publication was developed by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to provide an introduction to the federal judicial system, its organization and administration, and its relationship to the legislative and executive branches of the government."

Eight Circuit's Website: "Effective December 18, 2006, links to the full text of briefs will only be available through the PACER system. This means that access to briefs will no longer be free, and users must have a PACER account in order to access briefs. Briefs are subject to the $.08 per page charge imposed by PACER, but the total charge for any document may not exceed $2.40. As a result, no brief, regardless of its length, will ever cost more than $2.40 to download or print. Casual users of PACER should note that PACER does not bill if a user's charges are less than $10.00 in a calendar year. This effectively gives a casual PACER user access to four free briefs a year."

Dates of Supreme Court Decisions, 1791-1882: Dates of Early Supreme Court Decisions and Arguments: 2 Dall. Through 107 U.S. (168 pages, PDF), prepared by Anne Ashmore, Supreme Court Library, August 2006 [via Kent Olson].

Following up in general on postings related to the administration's domestic surveillance program, and specifically on, Federal Judge Rules NSA Domestic Surveillance Program Unconstitutional, this news today: "The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan today urged a federal appeals court (6th Circuit, Cincinnati, Ohio) to uphold a lower court ruling declaring the government's warrantless National Security Agency wiretapping program illegal, calling the government's assertion of unchecked spying powers "radical" and a threat to American democracy."

U.S. Courts press release: "A total of 117 languages required interpretation in federal court proceedings in fiscal year 2006 (the 12-month period ending September 30, 2006). The overwhelming majority – 95 percent – of the 205,550 language-interpreting events were in Spanish...Other frequently used languages were Mandarin (1,480 events) Vietnamese (988), Arabic (908), Korean (871), Cantonese (868), Russian (610), Portugese (492), Haitian Creole (447), and Punjabi (375)."

Historical Federal Courthouses: "Information and photographs of nearly 600 historic buildings used as federal courthouses, arranged by state, can now be found online."

Follow up to October 20, 2006 posting, National Community Reinvestment Coalition Files FTC Complaint Against Zillow.com, see Anita Ramasastry's article, Do Zillow.com's Web Property Estimates Violate Federal Consumer Laws? Why the Site Is Wise To Add Disclaimers to Its Home Valuations

Press release: "A U.S. district court has shut down an operation that secretly downloaded multiple malevolent software programs, including spyware, onto millions of computers without consumers’ consent, degrading their computers' performance, spying on them, and exposing them to a barrage of disruptive advertisements. The Federal Trade Commission has asked the court to order a permanent halt to these deceptive and unfair downloads, and to order the outfit to give up its ill-gotten gains."
Federal Trade Commission, Plaintiff, v. ERG Ventures

The New Senate Chiefs, by Will Sullivan, Posted 11/10/06. Includes overviews of new committee chairmen for: Appropriations, Armed Services, Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Budget, Energy and Natural Resources, Finance, Foreign Relations, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Intelligence, and Judiciary.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: "Two cases challenging the constitutionality of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act have reached the Supreme Court, with arguments scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 8."

From the Center for Investigative Reporting and Salon.com: "At least two dozen federal judges appointed by President Bush since 2001 made political contributions to key Republicans or to the president himself while under consideration for their judgeships, government records show. A four-month investigation of Bush-appointed judges by the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that six appellate court judges and 18 district court judges contributed a total of more than $44,000 to politicians who were influential in their appointments. Some gave money directly to Bush after he officially nominated them. Other judges contributed to Republican campaign committees while they were under consideration for a judgeship."

Courts Accepting Electronic Filings as of October 2006