Moritz Legal Information Blog

The online decisions of the Ohio Supreme Court can now be searched using a Google interface. From Ohio Law : The Supreme Court of Ohio now offers a way to search its opinion archive (1992 - present) that promises to be a big improvement over the current system that is used on the Reporter of Decisions page . To access, scroll down to the bottom of the Court's home page and click on "Search." Use the drop-down menu to choose "opinions." An advanced search is also available. Here is a direct link to the search page .

Legally Related reports posted in the last week: Creative Commons Podcasting Legal Guide American Lawyer The Am Law 100 Bureau of Justice Statistics Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2003 U.S. Courts 2005 Wiretap Report Violence Policy Center's American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States (PDF) Harvard Business School Working Papers Winning Legally: The Value of Legal Astuteness (PDF) Harvard Business School Working Papers Deep Links: Business School Students' Perceptions of the Role of Law and Ethics in Business (PDF) Canadian Human Rights Commission Canadian Human Rights Commission: 2005 Annual Report The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst The Impact on New Mexico’s Budget of Allowing Same-Sex Couples to Marry (PDF) Congressional Research Service Tax-Exempt Organizations: Political Activity Restrictions and Disclosure Requirements (PDF) American C

Some new Congressional Research Service ("CRS") Reports have been made available. The Reports cover a wide-range of topics, including: Federal Habeas Corpus: A Brief Legal Overview Lebanon Iraq's Debt Relief: Procedure and Potential Implications for International Debt Relief Topics in Aging: Income of Americans Age 65 and Older, 1969 to 2004 Russia's Accession to the WTO Free Trade Agreements: Impact on U.S. Trade and Implications for U.S. Trade Policy For a more complete list of recent CRS Reports, check out Open CRS .

Internet Legal Research Weekly describes the Oyez - U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia website : Developed by some folks at Northwestern University and others, Oyez, is a multimedia guide to the U.S. Supreme Court. It contains over 2000 hours of Supreme Court audio, from cases dating back to 1995. Here you'll find info on the cases being argued before the Supremes, as well as links to other authoritative Supreme Court sites. Oyez makes good use of other Supreme Court resources, like the Supreme Court Podcast, memos from Mayer, Brown & Platt, and Justia's Supreme Court Center.

The nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released its 10 Most Censored Countries list. The list includes Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Eritrea, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Syria, and Belarus. The top name on the list was North Korea: North Koreans live in the most censored country in the world, a new analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. The world’s deepest information void, communist North Korea has no independent journalists, and all radio and television receivers sold in the country are locked to government-specified frequencies. From ResourceShelf's DocuTicker .

Some potentially big news in the library world. From the OCLC Press Release : Two of the world's largest membership-based information organizations have agreed to come together. The combined organization will offer an integrated product and service line, and will give libraries, archives and museums new leverage in developing services, standards and software that will help them support research and disseminate knowledge online. The RLG Board of Directors and OCLC Board of Trustees have recommended that the two service and research organizations be combined effective July 1, 2006. If approved by RLG member institutions, RLG’s online products and services will be integrated with OCLC products and services, and RLG's program initiatives will be brought forward as a new division of OCLC Programs and Research. Lean more about OCLC and RLG at their websites.

The White House has issued a detailed strategy (PDF) for dealing with a possible pandemic. Appendix C should interest legal researchers because it details the legal authority of the federal government to take the actions outlined in the plan. The plan is also available in PDF from FindLaw .