UHLC Nota Bene

Yesterday the National Archives released 2,891 records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The documents are subject to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (JFK Act) , which mandated their release no later than 25 years after its enactment. The documents are available for download here . For some of the highlights from this trove of new information, see this article from Politico.

The Law Library’s subscription to HeinOnline now includes a new resource in its collection of over fifty resource groups for primary and secondary legal sources: Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture, & Law . This collection brings together a vast array of legal content and materials related to slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.  Beyond these primary legal materials the collection every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920 and more than a thousand pamphlets and books on slavery from the 19th century. The collection also word searchable access to all Congressional debates from the Continental Congress to 1880 along with many modern histories of slavery.  Edited by Paul Finkelman, an expert on slavery and American legal history, the colle...

At election time, I am time and time again surprised at the number of judicial races Texas voters decide. While direct election of judges by popular vote in Texas is nothing new, what happened to create so many courts and so many judges in the state? Here is a brief history of how these many courts and judges came to be, and links to the original sources. 1836 : In the 1836 Constitution of the Republic of Texas, allowed for the creation of three district courts, and allowed for up to eight. District judges also served as associate judges of the supreme court. 1845 : As Texas joined the United States, the 1845 Constitution of Texas held that the governor would appoint judges to the district and supreme courts. An amendment made during the 1845 constitutional convention to allow for direct election of judges failed to pass. 1850 : Following a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to allow for popular vote, 75% of Texas voters approved the amendment and dire...

The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History , Ken Gormley, ed. (2016), KF 5053 .P75 2016 Article II of the Constitution, at little over 1000 words, is the provision in which most of the power of the American presidency is housed.  Those words grant the office of the President great power, but its limits and relationship to the judicial and legislative branches is not well defined. In the new book  The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History , Ken Gormely tells the story of America’s forty-four presidents and how each one interfaced with the Constitution.  With a chapter devoted to each presidency, it is a collection of essays focused on the major constitutional issues each president faced. The collection gives each President a compact biography, followed by a discussion of the major issues that President faced relating to the extent of executive power, influence on the judiciary, and the President’s role in foreign affairs. The tightly edited ...

Recently, on the Law Library’s New Titles List , Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance by Anthea Kraut ( KF 3054.C56 K73 2016 ) caught my eye. The book gives, as the author suggests, “what might be considered a counter history of choreographic copyright in the United States,” examining the raced, classed, and gendered aspects of attempts by dance-makers in the United States to control the circulation of their choreography. Not until 1976 did  U.S. federal copyright law officially recognize choreographic works as a protectable class, but efforts by U.S. dancers to exert rights over their choreography began in the 19 th century. The book uses case studies to demonstrate how race, class, and gender have intersected with attempts by choreographers to protect their work at different historical moments. It tells the stories of African American pantomimist Johnny Hudgins in the early decades of the twentieth century, early whi...

The thirteenth edition of The Greenbook was published this fall and it has a few changes of note that Texas lawyers and law students may find useful. The Greenbook ’s editors remind us in the introduction to the new edition that it is neither a complete citation guide nor style guide, but rather a “lens through which Texas legal materials may be cited and understood.”  Or, perhaps, a Texas-sized supplement to the Bluebook , tailored to the Texas practitioner. Some of the more notable changes and additions include: Citation to Opinions on Court Websites:   Rules 2-4 have been supplemented to provide more guidance for citing Texas court opinions appearing on court websites. Acknowledging that recent cases are most reliably accessed through court websites, the rules provide suggestion for pin cites to unpaginated versions of opinions available online. Pet. Pending: You may be surprised to learn that a fourteenth citation form has been added for describing the status o...

Oxford University Press recently launched a free, interactive History of International Law timeline.   It provides information about over 100 major events in the development of public international law including “the signing of major treaties, the foundation of fundamental institutions, the birth of major figures in international law and milestones in the development of some of the field’s best-known doctrines.”   The timeline covers over 500 years, starting with the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 and ending with the Arms Trade Treaty in 2014.      For each event, the timeline allows users to find out more about the topic by providing free access to portions of Oxford University Press resources such as Oxford Historical Treaties and the Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law as well as blog posts and journal articles.   For more information and to explore this resource, see The History of International Law website .  

Here’s a website that will be of interest to librarians and history buffs alike. Elephind.com allows you to search across thousands of digitized historical newspapers from one search box. So far, the site includes over 2.6 million issues from 2,705 titles, and claims to be adding more newspapers every day. In addition to a search engine that allows you to search headlines or full text and to limit your search by country, the site also provides links to the source of each paper, which will often provide more advanced search or browsing features. To learn more, check out Elephind’s “ About ” page.  

Today is Constitution Day, the day we commemorate the signing of the  United States Constitution  in 1787. Since 2004, September 17 has also been the celebration of Citizenship Day, which  “recognize[s] all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become citizens.” In fact, when Senator Robert Bryd shepherded the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 ( Pub. L. No. 108-447 ) into law, he added additional requirements to encourage citizens to learn more about their Constitution. Now the head of every federal agency must provide each employee with educational and training materials concerning the Constitution on September 17  and  any educational institution which receives Federal funds shall hold a program on the U.S. Constitution for students on this day. Beyond reading the Constitution, you may wish to celebrate more thoroughly by studying the   Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation .  This w...

Those who have enjoyed using the LexisNexis Tax Center will be happy to know that Lexis Advance now features a tax research tool that provides access to the Internal Revenue Code, the Treasury Regulations, tax cases, and administrative decisions, all available from one page. There are also numerous secondary sources, including practice guides, treatises, handbooks, and news sources such as the following: Lexis Tax Advisor-Federal Code Reporter Federal Tax Legislative Analysis (Matthew Bender) Rabkin & Johnson, Federal Tax Guidebook Tax Analysts Tax Notes Today Tax  Analysts State Tax Today Tax Analysts Worldwide Tax Daily Browsing under "Treatise & Practice Guides" is the most effective way to peruse the different treatises and practice guides The same search options that are available for Lexis Advance are available to those using the Lexis Advance Tax tool, and search results can be filtered by date and source and can be refined by further searches. Lexis...

In our last entry, we discussed the current legal battle between the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and the State of Texas over the materials archived in the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library. As mentioned in the previous post, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas served as the custodial stewards of the Alamo complex from 1905 to 2011. The uneasy relationship between the State of Texas and the DRT began long ago, at the dawn of the 20th century. The San Antonio de Valero mission was founded in 1718 and the construction of its famous chapel (what most people think of as “The Alamo”) was completed in 1744. After its abandonment in 1794, Spanish soldiers occupied the mission during Mexico’s war for independence. The mission was occupied by Mexican soldiers in 1803 until December 1835, when the company surrendered to Texan forces. The siege of the Alamo began on February 23, 1836 and continued until all Texan combatants had been lost, on March 6, 1836. For the next forty y...

This week the Daughters of the Republic of Texas  (DRT) filed a lawsuit against the General Land Office of Texas. The petition , filed in the 407th Bexar County District Court, alleges that the General Land Office and the State of Texas have illegally claimed ownership of the DRT’s library collection as an unconstitutional  taking of private property.  The dispute arose after the Texas Legislature, in 2011, turned over responsibility for the “preservation, maintenance, and restoration of the Alamo complex,” (Act of May 30, 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., ch. 1046, § 2, 2011 Tex. Gen. Laws 2676 ) from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to the state’s General Land Office (GLO). In June 2010, the Office of the Attorney General began an investigation of the DRT’s management of the Alamo. Once the investigation began, public scrutiny and highly publicized structural problems at the Alamo prompted the Texas legislature to act and end the DRT’s stewardship of the Alamo before th...

This past week UN investigators called for the establishment of a war crimes tribunal to investigate crimes against humanity committed in the Central African Republic (CAR).   The establishment of tribunals to investigate serious crimes in a particular theater of war is not a new concept, and legal and historical researchers investigating the history of major war crimes tribunals may be interested in the following resources: The first such international tribunal was established following the end of World War II.   The International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals, more popularly known as the Nuremberg Trials, was established in 1945 to prosecute the captured leadership of the Nazi party.   Researchers looking for the records of this tribunal can obtain the official records from the Library of Congress, various trial documents from the Yale Law School’s Avalon Project, and trial transcripts from the Hathi Trust. In 1993, the Internati...

Next week, when Governor-Elect Greg Abbott is sworn in as the 48 th Governor of the State of Texas his inauguration will mark the first time in fifteen years that Texas will have a new chief executive.  In December 2000, Rick Perry assumed the office of governor after George W. Bush’s resignation following his election to the U.S. Presidency.  Since taking office, Governor Perry has presided over eight legislative sessions, vetoed 335 bills, and issued 80 executive orders.  Thanks to Texas’ colorful history, it also had numerous presidents during the Spanish Texas period (1691-1821), the Mexican Texas period after Mexico gained its independence from Spain (1821-1835), interim leaders during the Texas Revolution, followed by  five presidents serving as leaders of the Republic of Texas (1836-1846). After annexation into the United States, James Pickney Henderson became the first governor of the State of Texas in 1846. Through the Texas Legislative Reference ...

Today is Election Day.   Texas elections have been the focus of national attention following the Supreme Court’s recent decision not to enjoin Texas’ voter identification law while it waits to hear the case on its merits.   Here are some resources that may be of interest to anyone interested in the legal history behind this case, or interested in election law generally as it will affect Houston today: The law in question, Tex. S.B. 14 , 82nd Leg., R.S. (2011), which amends the Texas Election Code to establish voter identification requirements, was challenged by the Department of Justice in Texas v. Holder .   The Supreme Court declined to block the new law before hearing the case, leaving the new identification requirement in effect for today’s voting.   This case follows last year’s Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder , where the Court held Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, and is only the latest development in the nearly 5...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced yesterday that it has filed a federal court complaint against AT&T Mobility, LLC, for what it alleges are deceptive practices related to the company’s unlimited data plan for smartphones. At issue is AT&T’s practice of “throttling,” or reducing data speeds after customers reach a monthly data limit. In many cases, speeds were reduced by 80 to 90 percent, making functions like audio and video streaming virtually impossible. The complaint charges that AT&T failed to adequately disclose this practice, which effectively imposes a limitation on the company’s “unlimited” data plan. The FTC is seeking “permanent injunctive relief, rescission or reformation of contracts, restitution, the refund of monies paid, disgorgement of ill-gotten monies, and other equitable relief” for practices in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45(a) . Although the FTC was created in 1914 to address widespread concerns about trusts a...

One hundred and thirty-eight years ago today legal research and the way we understand law changed forever. On October 21, 1876 John B. West, founder of West Publishing Company, published his first law reporter, The Syllabi . The eight-page pamphlet was published weekly, delivering to its readers the decisions of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Within a year, the publication enlarged to include the decisions of Minnesota’s federal courts, and notes from Wisconsin cases and other nearby jurisdictions.  Though other case reports had existed in some states, The Syllabi was the first serial publication issued on a regular basis exclusively devoted to the publication of court decisions. West focused on publishing all of the court’s decisions, unlike American Reports , a popular publication featuring only outstanding decisions. This made his product attractive to practitioners, who were able to buy his reports more quickly and cheaply than certified copies from the court. West made his...

Forty-seven years ago today, the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer space including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies," also known as the "Outer Space Treaty" entered into force. This treaty bans any nation's claim of sovereignty over outer space or any celestial bodies and dictates that outer space is free for use and exploration by all nations. It also bars the nations from using celestial bodies for weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons and well as stationing such weapons in outer space. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) has more information along with the full text of the treaty in multiple languages, a treaty status page , and a summary of the treaty's contents. The library has the following sources for those researching this treaty and space law in general: The Little Book of Space Law (ABA), by Matthew Kleiman ( KZD1145.K49 2013 ) The Ultimate Sp...

  Today marks the 101 st anniversary of the federal income tax.   The Revenue Act of 1913 was signed by President Wilson on October 3, 1913, exactly eight months after the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment on February 3, 1913.   Anyone planning to celebrate this anniversary by researching income tax law may be interested in the following resources: Title 26 of the United States Code, the Federal tax code The Internal Revenue Service website , the authoritative source for tax forms, rulings and Internal Revenue Bulletin issues United States Tax Court Opinion Search , a legal opinion database Legalbitstream , a tax law database TaxAlmanac , a database for tax law and tax accounting professionals Tax Policy Center , a source for expert analysis of tax policy TaxProf Blog , a source for current news Additionally, the following resources are available in the O’Quinn Law Library: Dykes, Christopher. Federal Taxation: ...

Popular attention has recently focused on a series of Secret Service mishaps, culminating in the resignation of the Secret Service Director following yesterday’s hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.   Given the media’s focus on the Secret Service’s execution of its duties, readers may be interested in specific details regarding what those duties may be.   The following resources may be of interest to these readers: The Secret Service was created by 18 U.S.C. § 3056A .   Its current powers, authorities and duties are enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3056 .   Originally founded to investigate counterfeiting , the Secret Service’s mission expanded to include presidential protection following the assassination of President McKinley.   It has since been further expanded to include duties such as protecting candidates for office, conducting counterterrorism activities and guarding government buildings . A detailed history o...