ZiefBrief

New Empirical Legal Studies Bibliography

Researchers who are looking for law-related scholarly articles containing substantive empirical studies -- you're in luck!  The Empirical Legal Studies Bibliography is now open for business.  From the Law Librarian Blog (Dec. 5, 2007):

"Not officially launched, but now live is the fabulous Empirical Legal Studies Bibliography. A joint product of UCLA and Cornell law schools (with much of the indexing and literature review to create the database done by librarians at those two schools, namely Matt Morrison, Jill Fukunaga, and June Kim), users can search for ELS articles by author, title, subject, or year.  For those of us who have grappled with requests for ELS articles in a particular subject, we know how difficult these projects can be.  This new product is much needed and provides an important service in this expanding area of legal scholarship."

For a detailed description of the database, click here.

Secret Searching

Ask.com has just announced that you can keep your searches secret on its search engine.  As of today, search engine users can use the AskEraser, located in the top right-hand corner of the Ask.com home page, to delete all search query records.  According to the SF Chronicle's story on the new feature, the AskEraser will eliminate all of your search queries and any related cookies, including IP address and user ID, from Ask.com's servers. Activation of the AskEraser only lasts for 12 months.  After a year, users have to reactivate the AskEraser.

Ask is looking for a way to boost its popularity among search engine users, but I wonder if the AskEraser is the way to do it.  I'm just not sure that the majority of search engine users, particularly those under 30, are super-concerned about search privacy.  According to a recent research study by OCLC, Sharing, Privacy, and Trust in Our Networked World, "the Internet is now an everyday activity like making a phone call or watching TV.  Internet activities are familiar and comfortable and, perhaps as a consequence, are not seen as particularly private."  The study concludes that "privacy matters, but sharing matters more."  The Web is a social experience these days.  For that reason, I think the news about the AskEraser is going to be met with a big shoulder shrug by most searchers.

Life Without Parole for Juvenile Offenders: A Human Rights Report

Today ZiefBrief celebrates Human Rights Day by featuring Sentencing our Children to Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice [PDF; 51 pages], a newly-released report from the Center for Law and Global Justice here at USF.

The report, co-authored by Professor Connie de la Vega and Michelle Leighton, the Center's Director for Human Rights Programs, deals with the practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without the possibility of parole ("LWOP"). It surveys the countries where juvenile LWOP sentences are or may be imposed, argues that international law prohibits such sentences, and explores alternative juvenile justice and rehabilitation models. And for legal researchers, the report's appendix contains a 50-state survey, complete with citations and annotations, on juvenile LWOP laws.

Research Epiphanies

Belle Lettre, who blogs at Law and Letters, has a thoughtful post on her research experiences and the importance of libraries.  She notes that online databases like Lexis, Westlaw, and JSTOR are "not so awesome" and that she's rediscovered the efficiency and usefulness of print resources over the past few months.  Her post reminds me of my "Golden Rule of Research":  if you're searching for particular information, and you don't find what you're looking for within 10-20 minutes in the resource that you're using, it's time to switch research strategies and try something new. Clients hate it when new attorneys rack up lots of billable hours on research that should have taken an hour or two, so it's a good idea to get into the habit of stopping yourself when you're spinning your wheels.  If you have no idea where you should look next, ask a librarian!  We can suggest some alternative research strategies and try them out for you to see if they work. 

USF Professor Honigsgberg Adds Expertise to Guantanamo Coverage

No sooner had USF Law Professor Peter Jan Honigsberg returned from attending the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the Guantanamo Bay detainee cases than he was asked by the local ABC affiliate to comment. Asked if he thought Guantanamo's combatant status review tribunals are fair he said "Absolutely not."

Professor Honigsberg has taken a deep interest in the ongoing controversy around the handling of the prisoners in Guantanamo, having traveled to the prison to witness conditions first hand.

The complete video and text of the story, Supreme Court hearing Guantanamo cases, is available on KGO's web site.

Professor Hoingsberg has also conducted a much longer interview with the local Fox affiliate KTVU. In it he is able to go into much more depth about the situation in Guantanamo. It is available in the continuation of this post below.

A Date to Celebrate

I'm a big fan of the New York Times' "On This Day" feature, and as an oenophile, I found today's legal history entry particularly meaningful.  On December 5, 1933, national Prohibition came to an end when Utah ratified the Twenty-First Amendment.  Woo hoo!

Guantanamo Bay Detainees Cases Heard by the Supreme Court

Intense interest in the Guantanamo detainees' cases of Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196) has led the United States Supreme Court to take the rare step of releasing the audio file of today’s oral argument immediately after the argument.

You’ll find the Boumediene/al-Odah oral argument audio  [RealPlayer required] on C-SPAN's Supreme Court page. Look for the link "Supreme Court Oral Arguments: Boumediene v. Bush & Al Odah v. United States." You can also follow along in the written transcript of the argument [PDF; 92 pages].

For more background on these cases, take a look at the SCOTUSWiki page on Boumediene and al-Odah. This page analyzes the case in detail, and links to key documents, selected news reports, and posts from SCOTUSblog. It will include a recap of the oral argument as soon as the authors pull one together - probably sometime later today.

[Update] SCOTUSblog has posted a round-up of news reports on the Boumediene/al-Odah argument, and Oyez.org now has an MP3 file of the oral argument.