Category: Courts

Tune in to PBS tonight for the beginning of a four-part documentary on the Supreme Court. “It is a must-see series that takes the viewer back to the pitifully weak early days of the Court, then all the way forward to its current incarnation as a center-of-the-universe powerhouse,” writes Law.com. See the full article for …

On Their Honor is the title of a Milwaukee Magazine article about judicial conflicts of interest in Milwaukee County. From the article: The [Wisconsin Supreme Court] rule requires that judges disqualify themselves from any case when “a judge has a significant financial or personal interest in the outcome of the matter.” If, however, the financial …

Monday’s New York Times has a very interesting article on courts use of Wikipedia. More than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court thus far has never cited Wikipedia.)… [According to] Stephen Gillers, a professor at …

When looking for his own parking citation in CCAP, a UW-Whitewater faculty member was surprised to find a piece of his son’s confidential adoption record, reports JS Online. [CCAP, officially known as the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA) database, contains the records of Wisconsin county courts.] “I was stunned,” said [David] Munro, who teaches issues …

From the Web site: Criminal Law Decisions Online (CLDO) covers all criminal law decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court and Wisconsin Supreme Court, and published cases of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, from July 1, 1977, through December 15, 2006. This system replicates, in an online format, the Master Compilation of Criminal Law …

According to a government documents listserv email from Judith C. Russell, Superintendent of Documents and Managing Director at the U.S. Government Printing Office, the Judiciary is considering a one year pilot project to assess the effect of offering free public access to PACER through the Federal Depository Library Program. (What’s PACER?) Currently, PACER is available …

Law.com’s Legal Technology section has a useful article by Robert Ambrogi entitled, Superior Legal Web Sites to Watch. There are a number of good sites listed, but one that struck me was Judicial Reports. Ambrogi writes: What Consumer Reports does for appliances and Zagat does for restaurants, a new Web site aims to do for …

TVC Alert reports: The Wisconsin Court of Appeals last week ruled that in accordance with the state’s open access law, PDF copies of information in a database do not substitute for access to the database. Therefore, the municipalities violated public records law when they denied plaintiff access to the information in the format it which …

As of January 1st, the following important change to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure is scheduled to go into effect. Rule 32.1. Citing Judicial Dispositions (a) Citation Permitted. A court may not prohibit or restrict the citation of federal judicial opinions, orders, judgments, or other written dispositions that have been: (i) designated as “unpublished,” …

According to a recent press release form the ABA: Lawyers who receive electronic documents are free to look for and use information hidden in metadata – information embedded in electronically produced documents – even if the documents were provided by an opposing lawyer, according to a new ethics opinion from the American Bar Association. It …