“Presiding Justice Rolando T. Acosta announced that effective Tuesday, September 12, 2017, oral argument of cases before the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department will be broadcast live over the internet. The public may watch the webcasts from most internet connected devices, including smart phones and tablet computers, by visiting the… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Category Archives: Courts
California Sues Over Trump’s DACA Reversal
FindLaw: “The State of California, along with Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security following the Trump administration’s announcement that it would rescind former President Barack Obama’s executive order regarding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The program had provided limited legal protection for individuals brought… Continue Reading
AALL Calls on Federal Courts to Address PACER Fees
News release: “The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) on September 6, 2017] filed an amici curiae brief with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, calling on the judicial body to ensure that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) makes electronic federal court records freely available “to the greatest extent… Continue Reading
Report – Crime in 2017 – A Preliminary Analysis
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law: “Based on new data collected from police departments in the 30 largest cities, this report finds that all measures of crime — overall crime, violent crime, and murder — are projected to decline in 2017. Indicators show that 2017 will have the second lowest rates of crime… Continue Reading
Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge in Supreme Court Amicus Brief on Gerrymandering
“A challenge to a partisan redistricting plan in Wisconsin goes before the Supreme Court this fall in the case of Gill v. Whitford. In the New York Times article “The New Front in the Gerrymandering Wars: Democracy vs. Math,” Emily Bazelon writes of the significance of the case, “The outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision… Continue Reading
Federal Criminal Prosecutions Fall Under Trump
Transactional Records Access Clearinghous: “Despite tough talk on cracking down on crime from the President and from Attorney General Sessions, actual criminal prosecutions and convictions secured by federal prosecutors have dropped. The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during the first ten months of FY 2017 federal criminal convictions were down 12.3… Continue Reading
NYT Investigative Report – Incarcerated Women Who Fight California’s Wildfires
The Incarcerated Women Who Fight California’s Wildfires By choice, for less than $2 an hour, the female inmate firefighters of California work their bodies to the breaking point. Sometimes they even risk their lives. “California’s inmate firefighters choose to take part in the grinding and dangerous work they do. And they get paid for it,… Continue Reading
Immigration Court Backlog Climbs to 617,527 Cases
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “The latest available case-by-case court records show that as of the end of July 2017, the Immigration Court’s backlog continued to rise, reaching an all-time high of 617,527. For the first time, individuals with pending cases from El Salvador surpassed the numbers from Mexico in the court’s pending workload. There were… Continue Reading
New on LLRX – Fingerprint Forensics: From Lore to Law
Via LLRX.com – Fingerprint Forensics: From Lore to Law Notable developments in courtrooms, academia and government institutions, both state and federal, are laying the groundwork for challenges to fingerprint matching. This extensively researched, comprehensive annotated bibliography by Ken Strutin includes new and noteworthy materials such as key opinions, significant articles and online resources concerning accuracy,… Continue Reading
Algorithms in the Criminal Justice System Assessing the Use of Risk Assessments in Sentencing
Algorithms in the Criminal Justice System – Assessing the Use of Risk Assessments in Sentencing, August 25, 2017 Download from DASH Authors: Priscilla Guo, Danielle Kehl, and Sam Kessler. “In the summer of 2016, some unusual headlines began appearing in news outlets across the United States. “Secret Algorithms That Predict Future Criminals Get a Thumbs Up From… Continue Reading
Advanced RECAP – Search our database of millions of PACER documents and dockets
Court Listener – Free Law Project: Advanced RECAP Search – Search our database of millions of PACER documents and dockets. [via Cheryl Niemeier] “The RECAP Archive is a searchable collection of millions of PACER documents and dockets that were gathered using our RECAP Extensions for Firefox and Chrome. This unique archive was created to partially… Continue Reading
Algorithmic Transparency for the Smart City
Brauneis, Robert and Goodman, Ellen P., Algorithmic Transparency for the Smart City (August 2, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3012499 “Emerging across many disciplines are questions about algorithmic ethics – about the values embedded in artificial intelligence and big data analytics that increasingly replace human decisionmaking. Many are concerned that an algorithmic society is too opaque… Continue Reading
