Monthly Archives: April 2010

Free Federal Courts Docs on Firefox

The Law Library Blog at Stanford’s Robert Crown Law Library reports that researchers can get around the 8 cents per page that Congress allows the federal courts to charge for printing documents in the PACER database. Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy has developed a Firefox plug-in called RECAP (PACER spelled backward) designed to make more court documents available to the public at no cost. Users who want to install RECAP must use Firefox.

“RECAP helps users exercise their rights under copyright law, which expressly places government works in the public domain. It also helps users advance the public good by contributing to an extensive and freely available archive of public court documents,” Harlan Yu, a Princeton graduate student, said in a blog post marking the public beta release.

It is possible that if RECAP becomes successful and PACER loses revenue, the federal courts could move to ban it. Until then, RECAP is a cost effective research tool. Another potential problem is that the RECAP developers plan to make the source code available so that it may be easy to seed the Internet Archive with “official court documents” that had been modified in some way.

The way it works is simple: when you log in to the federal court system and pay with a credit card to download a document, the RECAP plug-in automatically and transparently forwards a copy to the Internet Archive, where it becomes available for free to the next person who wants to read it. See the video Watch RECAP in Action.

The effort is a collaborative one, with others benefiting from your purchases, while you benefit from theirs. For more information on RECAP see Erika Wayne’s article More than One Document a Minute.

SALDF Hosts Hector the Pit Bull

This week, Hector the Pit Bull was the star attraction at Brooklyn Law School for a humane education lecture about pit bull myths. Hector is one of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick’s dog fighting operation and has the external scars of his former life. Now Hector who just turned 6 years old is a certified therapy dog and humane educator and has been recognized for his efforts in his new home in New York. Hector received a Community Service in Humane Education Award from the Brooklyn Law School Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF).

SALDF, through its President Deborah Diamant, Class of 2010, hosted the event entitled Breed-Specific Legislation: The Pit Bull Placebo featuring speakers Donald Cleary, Director of Communications and Publications for the National Canine Research Council, and Stacey Coleman, Foundation Manager of the Animal Farm Foundation. The presentation included a slide show about the myths surrounding pit bulls. Some jurisdictions, in a frenzy of panic policy making, have outlawed them. Cleary argued the need for changing attitudes toward animal abuse, including toward criminals who fight dogs, and for recognizing the difference between a resident dog and a family dog to foster more enlightened public policy, as well as deepen the human-canine bond. SALDF is one of several studend chapters of the Animal Legal Defense Fund which is dedicated to providing a forum for education, advocacy, and scholarship aimed at protecting the lives and advancing the interests of animals through the legal system, and raising the profile of the field of animal law.

The BLS Library has in its collection several items on the subject of animal rights including Animal Law: Welfare, Interests, and Rights by David S. Favre (Call #KF390.5.A5 F382 2008) with chapters on Animal ownership — Veterinarian malpractice — Damages for harm to pets — State regulation of ownership — Anti-cruelty laws: history and intentional acts — Anti-cruelty laws: duty to provide care — Agricultural animals — Access to courts: standing and legal injury — The Animal Welfare Act — Animal rights: the jurisprudence — Animal rights: the social movement.

Enhanced Sentencing for Persistent Felons Unconstitutional

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Besser v. Walsh ruled on an appeal from the Southern District of NY that a state statute permitting enhanced sentences for persistent felony offenders violates a defendant’s constitutional rights. New York’s Penal Law §70.10 provides that defendants convicted of two previous felonies face sentences of a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of life for conviction of a third felony are eligible for the persistent designation. It also directs the judge to determine if a persistent felony offender declaration would be in the public interest. Citing US Supreme Court case Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004) in the 52 page opinion, Judge Ralph K. Winter concluded that the sentencing scheme vests unconstitutionally broad discretion in judges to set sentences of up to life in prison for offenders deemed to be persistent felons saying:

We hold that the Sixth Amendment Right to a jury trial, applicable to the states as incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the type of judicial fact finding resulting in enhanced sentences under New York’s {Persistent Felony Offender] statute.

The New York Law Journal article, Penalties for ‘Persistent’ Felons Violate Constitution, Circuit Says, stated “The immediate effect of yesterday’s ruling was not clear. Second Circuit rulings on New York law are not binding on the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. The federal panel did not, however that state court rulings upholding the constitutionality of the persistent felony offender statute have been ‘unreasonable’ in light of seemingly contrary U.S. Supreme Court decisions in similar cases.”

The article goes on to say that there are 2,467 inmates now serving sentences in New York as persistent felony offenders. The question of retroactive application was an issue in only one of the five cases decided yesterday by the circuit. The 2d Circuit made its ruling in five cases it heard arguments on at the same time on April 16, 2008. The state solicitor general in Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s office and assistant district attorneys in Brooklyn and Manhattan defended the statute at the circuit. A state spokesman said yesterday Mr. Cuomo’s office is reviewing the decision and would have no immediate comment.

The Brooklyn Law School Library has this recent item on the topic, Three Strikes Laws by Jennifer E. Walsh (Call #KF9685 .W356 2007) with chapters Rising crime rates and the get-tough movement — The three strikes solution — The California controversy — Constitutional challenges to three strikes and you’re out — Implementation and impact of three strikes laws — Effectiveness of three strikes laws — Attempts to reform three strikes laws