ZiefBrief

Starting Down the Alito Paper Trail

Whatever else may be said about the Alito nomination (and ZiefBrief is sure there will be no end to the saying of it), here at last is a well-known nominee with a lengthy paper. Pundits, scholars, and U.S. Senators will have much to absorb in the days ahead. Here are some early offerings:

• How Appealing’s Howard Bashman’s columns about the Third Circuit and Judge Alito from the Legal Intelligencer
• NPR's coverage of the Alito nomination
• Vikas Bajaj, "A Look at Alito's Legal Career," from the October 31 New York Times
• [UPDATE 11/9/05] For a look at Alito's judicial temperament in a 2003 Law.com posting check out The Mild-Mannered Scalia

There are also a few readily-available law review articles:

• "Forward," 1 Seton Hall Circuit Review 1 (Spring 2005)
• "Change in continuity at the Office of Legal Counsel." (Executive Branch Interpretation of the Law). 15 Cardozo Law Review 507 (1993)
• "Debate; after the independent counsel decision: is separation of powers dead?" (Second Annual Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society: the Constitution and Federal Criminal Law). 6 American Criminal Law Review 1667 (1989) [With Charles Fried and Paul M Bator.]
• "Documents and the privilege against self-incrimination." 48 University of Pittsburgh Law Review 27 (1986)
• "Equal protection and classifications based on family membership." 80 Dickinson Law Review 410 (1976)

[Update: Nov. 6] Yale Law Journal has just posted a PDF version of Alito's first published piece of legal scholarship: Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Note, The Released Time Cases Revisited: A Study of Group Decisionmaking by the Supreme Court, 83 Yale Law Journal 1202 (1974). The Pocket Part, Yale Law Journal's online companion, has opened an online discussion of the Alito Note. [Thanks to Howard Bashman's How Appealing for the tip!]

The Alito Nomination: SCOTUSblog Is on the Case

SCOTUSblog has wasted no time in covering Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito to serve on the Supreme Court.

SCOTUSblog's coverage began before the nomination. In an October 28 post simply entitled "Alito," Tom Goldstein predicted that Alito would be the nominee, and included a brief biography, a link to law.com's Alito profile, and summaries of some of Alito's major opinions (with links to the full text).

Today, Lyle Denniston's post "President Names Alito" analyzes the nomination and its prospects, and the first many "Blog Round-ups" has appeared. ZiefBrief will be linking to the Blog Round-ups as they appear. Here's the first one:

• Blog Round-up [on the Alito nomination], Monday, October 31st

See the continuation of this post for the (many!) ensuing Blog Round-Ups.

Another Hero Of Montgomery – Librarian and Social Activist Juliette Morgan

The death of Rosa Parks brings to mind another death that took place almost 50 years ago. Juliette Morgan was a white woman who grew up in a position of privilege in Montgomery, Alabama. Unlike many of the Montgomery upper class Morgan used public transportation as a means of getting to her job as a librarian at the Montgomery public library.

Harriet Miers Wrap Up

While the shouting among the pundits is sure to continue for days to come, Ms. Miers today officially withdrew her name from consideration as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The text of her letter to President Bush (with a link to a .pdf copy of the complete letter) is available in the Jurist Gazette item: Miers Supreme Court Nomination Withdrawal Letter.

When it's all said and done, perhaps it is the deathless prose of Miss Emily Litella that best sums up the Miers nomination:

Never Mind.

The Proliferation Security Initiative: An Analysis by Prof. Garvey

In the lead article in the latest issue of the Oxford journal Journal of Conflict and Security Law, USF's own Professor Jack Garvey critiques the U.S. government's Proliferation Security Initiative (a program aimed at interdiction of shipments of weapons of mass destruction).  

An abstract of the article, "The international institutional imperative for countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction: assessing the proliferation security initiative," 10 Journal of Conflict and Security Law 125 (2005), is available online via the Oxford Journals web site. Researchers on the USF campus can also download a PDF version of the full text of the article.

[Books and articles by Professor Garvey are listed on the Zief Library's Faculty Publications page.]

Can a Web Site Predict Indictments? - The Special Counsel's Page

The pundits are getting a lot of mileage out of the recent launch of a web site covering Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation of the alleged unauthorized disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. Why, the pundits ask, launch a web site just days before the deadline for the conclusion of the investigation...unless there are going to be indictments and the ensuing inevitable and interminable legal maneuvering? In the next few days, we shall see.

In Memory of Rosa Parks

The news last night of Rosa Parks's death has inspired Zief Brief to pull together some basic information about Mrs. Parks and her time.

For those looking for an overview of her life, Thomson-Gale has a short, free (!) biography of Rosa Parks.

NPR's obituary, Civil Rights Icon Rosa Parks Dies, links to interviews with Mrs. Parks, stories about the Montgomery bus boycott, and a handful of useful web sites.

Arts & Letters Daily, a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education has collected a number of obituary and memorial articles about Mrs. Parks, including an in-depth overview of Rosa Parks and the part she played in the Civil Rights movement from the Montgomery Advertiser.

Anyone whose travels take them to Alabama might enjoy a visit to the Rosa Parks Library and Museum on the campus of Troy University at the very site where Mrs. Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus.

The USF community can get more in-depth information from Douglas Brinkley's biography, Rosa Parks (New York: Viking, 2000) F 334 .M753 P373 2000 Gleeson Stacks. (Amazon.com has these reviews of Brinkley's Rosa Parks.)

Can't Get Enough of Yale Law Journal? Read the Pocket Part!

The Yale Law Journal this month broke out of its bindings with the launch of The Pocket Part: A Companion to the Yale Law Journal. The Pocket Part prints shorter versions of recent articles from the Yale Law Journal,, and adds responses from leading figures in law, and comments from readers. The goal is to bring more scholarly legal conversation to the web. As the "About" page says,

While full-length scholarly works remain at the center of legal debate, students, professors, and practicing lawyers are increasingly turning to the Internet to read about, and comment on, developments in the law. With The Pocket Part, the Journal hopes to combine the strengths of both print and online media, broadening the readership and influence of traditional legal scholarship while enriching the dialogue among the academy, bench, and bar.

The first issue features Abraham Bell's & Gideon Parchomovsky's "Of Property and Federalism," with responses by Judge Stephen F. Williams of the D.C. Circuit and Professor Robert C. Elliskson of Yale.

[Thanks to the folks at the Law Librarian Blog for the tip!]

A Makeover for FindLaw

The venerable FindLaw legal research portal has unveiled a look for its new home page. The design is cleaner, and tabs at the top allow you to toggle between a page designed "For Legal Professionals" and one created "For the Public."

[Thanks to Robert Ambrogi's LawSites for the head's-up post FindLaw to Launch New Home Page!]

Scriveners Seeeking Shield Sanctuary Should Check This Map

Shield Laws exist to protect Journalists from having to disclose the identity of their sources. Unfortunately, there presently is no federal shield law and protection varies from state to state. That's where this resource from the Poynter Institute comes in handy. The Institute calls itself "a school for journalists, future journalists, and teachers of journalists." It maintains a useful introduction to the shield laws (or lack thereof) for all 50 states. The map links to useful discussions of individual state statutes, cases and regulations intended for journalists, legal researchers and the general public. And the map interface itself is worth a gander for its handsome and functional presentation.

Thanks for this tip to the Librarian's Internet Index.