Accessing law online is easy, but can you rely on what you find?

As more laws become available online, it becomes easier for average citizens and lawyers without easy access to Lexis or Westlaw to research legal issues--Maybe. Although many sources of law seem reliable, such as laws and and cases made available on state legislature or supreme court websites, much of what is published online is unofficial and not authenticated. See Ruth Stevens and Jane Edwards, State Primary Law Materials in a Digital Era, MICH. BAR JOURNAL, July, 2009, at 20.

In Michigan, only the Michigan Register, the Michigan Administrative Code, and the Michigan Administrative Code Supplement, which are published on the State Office of Administrative Hearings and Rules ("SOAHR") website, are official, meaning "governmentally mandated" or "approved by statute or rule." See Id. at 22 (quoting the State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources.) Cases published by the Michigan Supreme Court and the Michigan Court of Appeals are not official, and neither are the statutes published on the website of the Michigan Legislature. And none of these resources, including those published by SOAHR, are authenticated, which means that they all may contain transcription errors or otherwise vary from the official print source (except for the Michigan Administrative Code, but only because SOAHR is not required to publish a print version).

One plus? Authenticated laws online are normally marked as authentic in some way. Also, the Federal Government has acknowledged the importance of this issue, and taken positive steps towards authenticating the information it publishes. For example, the U.S. Government Printing Office is now working on an authentication initiative called the Federal Digital System ("FDSys"). Moreover, there is even talk of drafting model legislation to address the authentication issue.

But in the meantime, be careful what you rely on.

Keep Your Pants On (even at school)

In a decision that should please civil libertarians and awkward adolescents alike, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that, in light of the circumstances, a strip search of a junior high student by school officials was unreasonable. Justice Souter wrote for the 8-1 majority in Safford Unified School District #1, Et Al., Petitioners v. April Redding. Referring to the strip search, Souter notes that "Its indignity does not outlaw the search, but it does implicate the rule that the search [be]‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.'" According to the Court, the circumstances failed to justify such extensive intrusion.

On the issue of liability for the school officials who ordered and performed the search, the Court determined that due to the unsettled nature of the law at the time of the search, the officials are entitled to qualified immunity.

Blind justice?

Justice still may be blind, but after last Wednesday it will get a better look at witnesses who appear in court in Michigan. Despite the ACLU's opposition, the Michigan Supreme Court has approved revised Michigan Rule of Evidence 611; judges may exert control over what witnesses wear when testifying in court. Specifically, judges may require Muslim women to remove their veils, or niqabs, thus violating a tenet of their faith, or loose their day in court.

Read more on court room attire. And more about Rule 611 and the confrontation clause.

CREW Sues for Access to White House Visitor Logs.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ("CREW") just filed a lawsuit against the secret Service (Department of Homeland Security) seeking access to the White House visitor logs. CREW's position is that the documents are agency records, not presidential records; this position was the winning argument last year in litigation before U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth.

No Public Access to White House Visitor Logs

Hate to sound like a broken record here at Murphy's Law Library Blog, but it seems that every day brings another disappointment in the realm of government transparency. Today's downer comes in the form of yet another extension of Bush-era policies, this time dealing with public access to information about visitors to the White House. The White House claims that the visitors log maintained by the Secret Service qualifies as presidential records. Presidential records are exempt from FOIA. The exemption from FOIA means that the American people have no way of finding out who is in Obama's ear. That's troubling. MSNBC has a nice article on this issue here.

Transparent Government...Not So Much

Faithful readers of the library's print publication, Murphy's Law, will recall an article in the May issue discussing the Freedom of Information Act. President Obama wowed starry-eyed progressives with his broad pronouncements of the value of FOIA. Owing to its firm dedication to objectivity, Murphy's Law decided to reserve judgment regarding the impact of the President's statements and also the impact of the policy shift for FOIA.

Events and occurrences in the intervening months since that article have cast a decidedly dour pall over Obama's 'sunshine is the best disinfectant' rhetoric. The most recent disappointment stems from the White House support for the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009, co-sponsored by Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. The Act was attached as an amendment to a spending bill. The Act has been removed from the House version of the spending bill at the insistence of House Democrats. The Senate version is in committee. Congressional opposition to the Act prompted Lieberman and Graham to issue a joint statement in which they vow to do everything in their power to bring the wheels of the legislative process to a grinding halt if the Act is not passed.

With every passing day this administration appears more and more to be an extension of its predecessor. Change we can believe in? I'll be reserving my belief for that moment when changes actually occur.

Testing research skills on the bar.

Blair Kauffman, a librarian at Yale Law Library, recently wrote an interesting blog on the importance of teaching new attorneys good research skills, and offered a proposal on how to accomplish this goal. Kauffman's proposal? Test for legal research skills on the bar. Kauffman's idea has garnered some support from others in the legal education community, such as Claire Germain, a law librarian and faculty member at Cornell, although there are naysayers.

Kauffman's proposal does make sense. One reason for requiring all lawyers to pass the bar, after all, is to ensure that new lawyers possess all of of the requisite legal skills, before they test their abilities on a hapless client. But too many don't.

...And this should be cause for concern.

Zotero survives lawsuit

In Murphy's Law, October 2008, the library let you know about a great research tool called Zotero, but with the caveat that it might have a limited lifespan--Thompson Reuters Inc. had sued Zotero's George Mason University makers for allegedly reverse engineering its EndNote software, thereby violating terms of the party's licensing agreement.

Well, the lawsuit's over. Last Friday, a Virginia Circuit Court judge dismissed the action--so feel free to go crazy with Zotero!

More information on Zotero and the lawsuit, including links to court documents, is available here.

A new law for fighting crime in Mexico

Mexico has adopted a new statute that will result in the restructuring of the Office of the Attorney General and its regional units. The new "Organic Law of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic" also, inter alia, grants to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office new powers for conducting criminal investigations.

Don't ask, don't tell for a little while longer

Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays serving their country in the military. Click here to read more on the subject.

Guns and Judges

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008), the Supreme Court held that a District of Columbia ban on handguns was unconstitutional. In National Rifle Association, v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court is taking another look at the Second Amendment. This time the NRA petitioner is arguing that the Second Amendment has been incorporated into the Due Process or Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment; therefore, state bans on handguns are also unconstitutional. If the Court agrees, various state ordinances prohibiting or restricting possession of hand guns will be found unconstitutional, or on shaky constitutional ground.

On a related note, some have characterized Sotomayor as an anti-gun activist due to her recent decision in Maloney v. Cuomo, 554 F.3d 56 (2009) that a New York ban on nunchuka did not violate the Second Amendment.

...Having Easterbrook and Posner on her team should help a little.

Finally, for those of you interested in reading more about the Second Amendment, here are a few titles available in the Law Library:

• The mythic meanings of the Second Amendment : taming political violence in a constitutional republic by David C. Williams [KF4558 2nd .W55 2003]


• Gun violence in America : the struggle for control by Alexander DeConde [ HV7436 .D43 2001]


• The right to bear arms : rights and liberties under the law by Robert J. Spitzer [KF3941 .S68 2001

And some history on this and other NRA petitions, and links to court documents filed around the same time is available on SCOTUS.

Update for anyone following Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama (aka Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Bush)

On May 22, 2009, Judge Walker issued an order to show cause why the government should not be sanctioned for failing to provide to plaintiffs' attorneys (those who qualify for TS/SCI clearances) information pertinent to the action, or agreeing to terms in a proposed protective order (and failing to offer a protective order of its own for consideration). The sanctions would prohibit the government from contesting its alleged liability.

On May 29,2009, the government filed its response arguing that it has not engaged in sanctionable conduct.