Courtney Minick

In response to the increasing number of states that have authorized medical marijuana use during the past two years, the U.S. Department of Justice recently issued a memorandum to its field offices regarding federal enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in such states. Many fear that the memo signals an impending federal crackdown on the production, distribution and possession of marijuana in these states, in contrast to the previously relaxed stance toward prosecution. To better understand the situation, here’s a background on the law.

State Laws

State laws regulating marijuana use can be divided into two categories: decriminalization laws and those that authorize medical use of marijuana. De-criminalization refers to the reduction of penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. Decriminalization statutes do not legalize possession, but treat it as a civil offense that subjects an offender to a monetary fine, instead of incarceration.

We told you about our nice free case law summaries. Then we blogged that we were adding more. Well, today, my friends, we are done. We have all fifty states!

Now you can sign up and receive free summaries of court opinions for all state supreme courts, the US Supreme Court and all Federal appellate courts. Just go to http://daily.justia.com to register and sign up!

We also have over 60 practice area digests to choose from.

Note: I wrote this post to help explain the concept of metadata and how it can be used to improve free primary law sources. This post focuses on statutes, next week I will discuss applying these principles to opinions.

The simplest way to explain metadata is “data about the data.” Metadata can describe, among other things, the purpose, date of creation, location, means of creation, and standards used in the data. For example, when you take a picture with a digital camera, the image also contains information about the camera used to take the picture, the time and date, image resolution, etc. When you upload that picture to, say, Picasa, you’ll see this information. Picasa knows what type of camera you used because that data is embedded in the image itself.

The Dewey Decimal System is an example of metadata. Along the spine of a book is a number. That number is associated with a classification system – placing it within a catalog of records that contains “data about the data” (subject, author, title, number of pages, publisher, ISBN number, etc.) which in turn helps patrons find what they’re looking for.

Folks, it’s pledge week here at the Justia Blog. Want to support free law? Donate to the Cornell Legal Information Institute!

The LII was the first law site on the Internet. It is dedicated to educating citizens and providing them with access to the laws that govern the United States. The LII provides federal law, editorial materials that help interpret and explain it, and technological support and innovation to help expand access. You have probably used the LII to look at the US Code–it presents a much easier, cleaner interface than the official government site. It also provides the Constitution,  C.F.R., Federal Rules, the U.C.C., and access to World Law. The site is well designed and organized, with excellent search features and true ease of use. It is both consumer and lawyer friendly.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Illinois announced that it will adopt a vendor-neutral citation system. According to the press release, the official citation of Illinois Supreme Court and Appellate Court opinions will change to a public-domain numbering and paragraph scheme.

Concurrently, the Illinois Supreme Court will also be discontinuing official printed volumes for Illinois state case law. “The official body of Illinois court opinions will now reside on the website of the Illinois Supreme Court, readily available  to lawyers, judges and law clerks for official citation and to any member of the public who wishes to read them.” This will save private lawyers as well as the court system quite a fair amount of money now that judges, law libraries and law firms will no longer have to purchase and store hundreds of printed volumes. For those concerned about authentication issues surrounding online case law, this should quiet your fears since the opinions will come directly from the courts themselves.

The Administrative Office of the US Courts issued a press release last week announcing that a “New Pilot Project Will Enhance Public Access to Federal Court Opinions.” According to the statement, select federal appellate and district courts will make their published opinions available on FDSys, as “FDSys can provide the public with a robust search engine that can search common threads across opinions and courts.” FDSys is run by the Government Printing Office (GPO), which issued a similar statement.

Let me start by saying I think this is a good thing. PACER has a lot of limitations, and moving opinions into a better search engine that is free to use and search is quite helpful. I like the idea of putting the bulk of government legal material (cases, codes, memos, etc.) into one database. It helps that the database will have the imprimatur of government on it, which will quiet the concerns about authentication that always pop up in these discussions.

CALI (Computer Assisted Legal Instruction) introduced the Free Law Reporter this week.  The FLR is a database housing published (official) legal opinions that provides a simple search interface for research.  According to CALI, “The goal of FLR is to develop a freely available, unencumbered law reporter that is capable of serving as a resource for education, research, and practice.”

The FLR is populated with opinions from the RECOP service. There’s been a little bit of controversy over whether the opinions are being used or adopted. The archive itself is not designed for caselaw research, it’s just a repository. The goal is to make the data freely accessible in bulk access. RECOP is not a research tool, in other words. It’s where sites that run research tools get the opinions.

Hi Friends!

Today Cicely and I are pleased to announce Justia’s newest free law offering:   FREE Daily Opinion Summaries of all Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal and select State Supreme Courts!

Our Daily Opinion Summaries deliver clear, concise summaries of breaking court opinions right to your in-box. The summaries are tagged by practice area so that readers can quickly identify which opinions are relevant to their practice. This is a powerful tool for attorneys, journalists, and others looking to keep up with latest developments in the law. All summaries are written by licensed attorneys.

How to subscribe

To subscribe, visit the Justia Subscriptions Page at Daily.Justia.com. If you already have a Justia account, sign in to subscribe right away. If you are not yet registered, it’s fast and free!  Once registered, simply choose the jurisdictions and practice areas of interest to you.

The High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University and the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Institute at UC Berkeley School of Law have teamed up on a new site, DoctoredReviews.com. The site was formed to provide consumers with information about medical contracts that purport to censor or prevent negative patient reviews online. If you have been presented with one of these contracts, this site is a great resource to understand your rights. It’s an interesting legal issue, where HIPAA intersects with Section 230 and the First Amendment.

According to DoctoredReviews, doctors are using a company called Medical Justice to source the “anti-review” contracts. Medical Justice bills itself as “Relentlessly Protecting Physicians from Frivolous Lawsuits.” They offer a variety of services, including those designed to “Prevent Internet defamation.”

I’m sure you’ve heard by now: the government is going to run out of money and “shut down” if Congress can’t agree on a budget before midnight tonight. Yes, Courtney, but how will it affect me?

Plenty of outlets are covering how this will affect the general public. Let’s talk about what our readers care about.