Articles Posted in United States Federal Resources

Published on:

By

Previous Bites:

Oregon Constitution in Small Bites: Bite #1 and Bite #2 (Bill of Rights, 1-6)
Oregon Constitution in Small Bites: Bite #3 (Bill of Rights, 7-12)
Oregon Constitution in Small Bites: #4 (Bill of Rights, 13-20)
Oregon Constitution in Small Bites: #5 (Bill of Rights, 21-30)
Oregon Constitution in Small Bites: #6 (Bill of Rights, 32-39)
Oregon Constitution in Small Bites #7: Bill of Rights, 40-42)

Today: Oregon Constitution in Small Bites: Bite #8 (Bill of Rights, 43-45):

43. Rights of victim and public to protection from accused person during criminal proceedings; denial of pretrial release
44. Term of imprisonment imposed by court to be fully served; exceptions
45. Person convicted of certain crimes not eligible to serve as juror on grand jury or trial jury in criminal case

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

I thought some of my readers might be interested in this recent post on AALL’s Washington Blawg about Saturday’s New York Times article on the loss of federal online information:

In Digital Age, Federal Files Blip Into Oblivion, by Robert Pear, published: September 12, 2008

“Robert Pear of The New York Times succinctly describes the enormous challenges of preserving the vast array of federal online government information in an article published on September 13, 2008, entitled, “In Digital Age, Federal Files Blip into Oblivion.” The article captures a key concern raised by AALL in a letter to members of Congress last April about the short-sighted and disappointing decision of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) not to harvest agency Web sites at the end of this administration….”(full blog post, linking to NYT article).

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

A complete answer to this question depends on where you live. IF you are in a city with a federal court library or, lucky you, in a city where a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Library is located, you may have a few other options.

You may also have access to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (official name) briefs that are available on Westlaw or Lexis.

In time the briefs may appear on PACER (and a few may be there now, but I’ve not ever seen one there myself).

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

On Wednesday, September 17th, 2008: Get your free pocket U.S. Constitution (3 different selection to choose from!) at Laura the Law Librarian’s Constitution Day celebration. (Yes, once again I’ll be handing out pocket U.S. Constitutions at the Washington County Courthouse, from Noon to 1 p.m.)

(Bring a friend and stay in Hillsboro for lunch. If you haven’t visited downtown Hillsboro recently, you’re in for a treat. Great food, beautiful walks (see more Metro Walks here), great Law Library (!), and much more.)

Once again, I stand [never] alone up against the forces of, uh, Constitution-less anarchy maybe? But as you’ve probably noticed, it’s not enough to HAVE a Constitution, one must be governed by it (not unlike that Seinfeld car rental reservation, here and here, where it wasn’t enough to HAVE the reservation; one had to HOLD the reservation …. 🙂

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

For you non-lawyers out there, yes this sometimes happens. Lawyers really do learn useful things in law school and know things mere mortals don’t! (But not everything, so it doesn’t hurt to do your homework.)

From the OSB Litigation Section Newsletter (and they put it online – thank you!), July 2008 issue, this article by Caroline Harris Crowne & Julia E. Markley: “Federal Arbitration Act Preempts Oregon’s Legislature’s 2007 Amendement to Oregon Arbitration Act.”

Excerpt:

“… In 2007, the Oregon legislature imposed a restriction on certain kinds of arbitration agreements that flies in the face of U.S. Supreme Court case law. ORS 36.620(5), part of Oregon’s version of the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act (“OUAA”), now requires that, in order for an arbitration agreement between an employer and employee to be valid, either the employer must give the employee two weeks’ notice before the first day of employment that an arbitration agreement is required as a condition of employment or the arbitration agreement must be entered into upon a “subsequent bona fide advancement” of the employee….” (full article from here, p. 4)

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

For those who read Susan Nielsen’s column, The Other Gun Ruling, in the Sunday, July 06, 2008, Oregonian, and want to read the full case from the U.S. Supreme Court, the opinion is here, Giles v. California (docket number: 07-6053, decided June 25, 2008).

Excerpt from Nielson’s column:

“The Supreme Court just ruled in favor of a man who shot and killed his ex-girlfriend. The conservative majority did so by relying heavily on case law from centuries ago, when domestic violence was considered more of a private hobby than a crime.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

On my evening commute, while reading “Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire” by Rafe Esquith, another part of my brain was trying to piece together a germ of an idea I have for this year’s Constitution Day…. I then read this in Rafe Esquith’s book:

“To me, baseball is the perfect game. It’s the only game in which the defense holds the ball. It’s the fairest of all sports: One team cannot use the clock to prevent the other team from catching up, and even when you are winning, you have to give your opponent a chance to even the score. With its lineup and batting order, baseball is more democratic than other sports: Each player gets a turn, and a team can’t keep feeding the ball to its best players. It is a game that has moments of stillness and sudden flashes of speed. To a causal observer, not much appears to be happening during a game. But a knowledgeable fan understands the game’s intricate nuances, from the positioning of the defense to the batter’s count.” (“Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire” by Rafe Esquith, Viking Penguin, 2007, page 126. See also the Hobart Shakespeareans.)

If that’s not the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments rolled into a description of a beautiful and (mostly) honorable game, I don’t know what is. Maybe we should have a Constitution Team play baseball on Constitution Day ….hmmmm.

Published on:

By

This post is primarily for reference purposes (mine!): One day, in about 8.17 months, someone’s going to ask for the names of these cases, “you now, those cocaine sentencing cases from a year or two ago” and I’ll say, “we can search the OLR blog for a quick answer.”

Gall v. United States
Decided: 12/10/2007
No: 06-7949

Kimbrough v United States
Decided: 12/10/07
No. 06-6330

Contact Information
The information provided on the Oregon Legal Research website and blog is for research purposes only. We do not provide legal advice, nor do we endorse any person, product, or company

Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail. The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Copyright © 2015 – 2025, Oregon Legal Research
JUSTIA Law Firm Blog Design