Category «Courts»

Congress Receives First Report Required by 2005 Bankruptcy Law

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 …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, Legal Research

TRAC Immigration Judge Reports — Asylum

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 …

Subjects: Courts, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

US Courts: Digital Audio Recordings Online – Update

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 …

Subjects: Courts, E-Government, Government Documents, Legal Research

TRAC Study: Surge in Immigration Prosecutions Continues

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 …

Subjects: Courts, Freedom of Information, Legal Research

Court Rules White House E-Mail Not Subject to FOIA

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 …

Subjects: Courts, E-Government, E-Mail, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Opinion of the Court by Justice Anthony Kennedy Grants Certain Habeas Corpus Rights to Detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

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 …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Legal Research

Bankruptcies Soar 30 Percent In Latest 12-Month Period

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.”

Subjects: Courts, E-Government, Government Documents

New on LLRX.com

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 …

Subjects: Courts, Legal Research

FTC Permanently Halts Pretexting’Scheme; Defendants Barred From Obtaining or Selling Consumers' Phone Records to Third Parties

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 …

Subjects: Courts, E-Government, Government Documents, Legal Research