Hat tip to the University of Wisconsin’s Law School Blog for this entry. 

On December 1, 2007, a revised and restyled Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (F.R.C.P.) became effective. The Style Project, as it is called, rewrote the rules using “plain language” with the purpose of making them easier to understand. This project, begun in 1992, resulted in the most extensive revision of the rules since their establishment in 1938.

The new rules may be viewed online at the Federal Judiciary’s website for federal rules of practice, procedure, and evidence, as well as, at Cornell’s Legal Information Institute website.

Baseball star Roger Clemens has filed a defamation suit against his former trainer Brian McNamee. The complaint can be found here.

According to last month’s “Mitchell Report" on illegal steroid use in baseball, McNamee told investigators that he had injected Clemens with illegal steroids.

Both men, along with some other individuals connected to the report, are scheduled to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Read it here.

Actually the reference staff advocates a healthier diet including high fiber.  However, the following is a list of documents that pertain to the U.S. Sentencing Commission and Supreme Court decisions to treat cocaine and crack possession more equally.

The press release of the U.S. Sentencing Commission dated December 11, 2007 that allows for retroactive action on crack sentences.
Kimbrough v. U.S., Docket #06-6330 (U.S. Supreme Court Decision, dated December 10, 2007)
Briefs for Kimbrough v. U.S.
Oral Arguments for Kimbrough v. U.S.
2007 Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual, dated November 1, 2007.
Report of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to Congress dated May 2007 regarding cocaine sentencing.

The Equal Justice Initiative has recently released Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison, a study documenting 73 cases where 13 and 14 year-old children in the United States have been tried as adults and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. 

The Equal Justice Initiative, through the study and an accompanying Fact Sheet, hope to raise public awareness of its litigation campaign to challenge “death in prison” sentences imposed on young children. See Lifers as Teenagers, Now Seeking Second Chance, By Adam Liptak, New York Times, October 17, 2007 (registration required).

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the implementation authority for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has recently called for the abolishment of “all forms of life imprisonment for offences committed by persons under the age of 18” as being “explicitly prohibited under article 37 (a)” of the Convention. See General Comment No. 10: Children’s Rights in Juvenile Justice, ¶¶ 11 and 77, U.N. Doc. CRC/C/GC/10 (Apr. 25, 2007). See also, Amnesty Int’l & Human Rights Watch, The Rest of Their Lives: Life Without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States (2005).

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was modified in 2007 by Public Law 110-55.  This Congressional Research Service report dated August 23, 2007, explains those modifications.

Several reports are now available that assess the current war in Iraq.  All are in pdf format.

Dated September 6, 2007, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a 62-page report entitled, “Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security.” The General Accounting Office (GAO) published a September 2007 report entitled “Securing, Stabilizing, and Rebuilding Iraq.” The Independent Commission on the Security Forces in Iraq also published its own report on September 6, 2007.  Lastly, General Petraeus’s testimony and report to Congress was given on September 10, 2007.  The General’s report includes a separate document of slides.

Major patent reform legislation is quickly moving through the House and Senate.

The Patent Reform Act of 2007 was ordered reported with amendments by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. The House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property passed its own version on Wednesday. The Senate and House versions were identical as introduced in April by now differ due to amendments. See C|Net News.com for further coverage.

Patent Reform Act of 2007, S. 1145, 110th Cong. (As introduced on April 18, 2007) (CRS Summary of S. 1145 as introduced; identical as introduced to H.R. 1908) (Status)

Patent Reform Act of 2007, H.R. 1908, 110th Cong. (As introduced on April 18, 2007) (Status)

Manager’s Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute to S. 1145, the Patent Reform Act of 2007 (From Fish & Richardson web site)

Statement by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy: Senate Judiciary Panel Passes Bipartisan Patent Reform Bill (includes summary of the final manager’s amendment adopted by the Senate Judiciary Committee)

Manager’s Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute to H.R. 1908, the Patent Reform Act of 2007

Markup Transcript of: H.R. 1908, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property (July 18, 2007)

Patent Reform: The Future of American Innovation, Hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 110th Cong. (June 6, 2007)

Hearing on H.R. 1908, The Patent Reform Act of 2007, Hearings before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, 110th Cong. (April 26, 2007)

CRS Report: Patent Reform in the 110th Congress: Innovation Issues (May 7, 2007) (From Fish & Richardson web site)

Over 1100 pages of newly released documents pertaining to the FBI’s misuse of National Security Letters (NSLs) have been made available by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). 

The documents were released July 5, pursuant to court order, after the EFF sued the federal government for failure to respond to its FOIA request seeking the documents.  Other responsive documents are to be released on a 30 day cycle.
According to the EFF’s press release, the documents

show years of chronic problems with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s use of National Security Letters (NSLs) to collect Americans’ personal information and that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has long been aware of these problems. The documents were disclosed after EFF sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) earlier this year for records related to a scathing Justice Department critique of FBI NSL activity. The records detail more than 40 instances of improper, unauthorized collection of information about individuals, including unlawful access to phone records and email. The records show that Gonzales himself was sent several of these problem reports, including one less than a week before he told a congressional committee that no civil liberties abuses have resulted from the USA PATRIOT Act. He also voiced surprise when the Justice Department report on NSL misuse was made public earlier this year.

Two recent reports study the impact of tort litigation on businesses and their decisions.

Both reports are dated May, 2007 and are from the pro-tort reform advocacy group, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform.  The reports are Small Businesses: How the Threat of Lawsuits Impacts their Operations and Tort Liability Costs for Small Business.

Via Scotus.  The opinion is 185 pages long.  The opinion was announced today, along with opinions in Leegin Creative and Panetti.
Subsequent to the announcement of the opinions, the end of the Term was announced and the Court will be recessing for the summer.  The new Term begins Monday, October 1.

Three weeks ago, vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 following his conviction for obstruction of justice.

In the time leading up to Libby’s sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton received scores of letters regarding the sentencing, many of which urged leniency. Just after the sentencing, the letters were made public by the court, and the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy put the letters online here (PDF, 18 MB).

See also my post from February about documents in the trial of U.S. v. Libby.

President Bush, yesterday, June 20th, vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 which was sent to the White House on June 12th after passage in the Senate (63-34) and the House (247-176).

Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, S. 5, 110th Cong. (2007) (CRS Summary)

Senate Roll Call Vote (Yeas 63, Nays 34, Not Voting 3)

House Roll Call Vote (Yeas 247, Nays 176, Not Voting 10)

President Bush Discusses Stem Cell Veto and Executive Order

Report of the Veto of S. 5, The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007—PM 18, 153 Cong. Rec. S8060-8061 (Daily Ed. June 20, 2007)

Expanding Approved Stem Cell Lines in Ethically Responsible Ways, Exec. Order No. 13,435, 72 Fed. Reg. 34591 (June 22, 2007)

Presidential Signing Statements Accompanying the Fiscal Year 2006 Appropriations Acts, GAO Comptroller General Opinion Letter B-308603, June 18, 2007.

As reported in today’s International Herald Tribune, the Blackstone Group recently disclosed how profitable its proposed $4.7 billion initial public offering will be for top executives. 

Many have been watching Blackstone’s IPO because it “offered a glimpse inside the company’s highly profitable operations, which, in addition to private equity funds, also include hedge funds, real estate investments and an investment banking arm.” Blackstone’s (lengthy) prospectus is likely a primary source of information for many of the recent news articles about the IPO.