Latest & Greatest – Prisoners’ Rights: A Legal Research Guide

By Carol A. Fichtelman

Published by William S. Hein & Co., Inc. (2017)

KF 9371 .F53 2017

The 68th volume in a collection of research guides, Prisoners’ Rights: A Legal Research Guide provides researchers with a resource covering the rights of those who are incarcerated in either a federal or state facility. Author Carol A. Fichtelman focuses her attention on both primary and secondary resources and includes some handy websites that might act as good starting points for research. Of course, the first and foremost primary source when it comes to prisoners’ rights is the United States Constitution, and the author readily directs the user to the pertinent sections. In addition to the Constitution, the author points out applicable federal statutes and regulations. She also devotes a section to listing various federal agencies that deal with the rights of prisoners. Also included in the section detailing primary sources are state statutes concerning the laws on diet, religious beliefs, health care, punishment, and grooming.

The second part of the guide focuses on secondary resources. These include legal encyclopedias, specific volumes of American Law Reports, legal periodical articles, books, and a listing of national and state prisoners’ rights organizations.

Although not meant to be a comprehensive guide, Prisoners’ Rights: A Legal Research Guide provides some of the tools necessary to locate information about the ever-changing area of prisoners’ rights.

The Legacy of Lawrence v. Texas, Fifteen Years Later

Our regular Tech Tuesday feature will return next week. 

Fifteen years ago today, on June 26, 2003, the United States Supreme Court decided Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). This landmark case struck down the Texas sodomy law which criminalized consensual sexual conduct between same-sex partners. The decision effectively recognized the right to privacy for intimate conduct between consenting adults in all fifty states.

Today is also that day that marks the five year anniversary of United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 (2013), which struck down as unconstitutional the federal Defense of Marriage Act's definition of "marriage" as a union between opposite-sex spouses. And just three years ago today, the Supreme Court held in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ___  (2015), that all states must lawfully recognize and perform marriages for same-sex couples throughout the nation.

During the month of June, the Harris County Law Library is recognizing these and other landmark civil rights victories for LGBT people and their families. Our exhibit, LGBT Legal Resources, features landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, historic federal legislation, and resources from the Law Library's print collection. Stop by the Law Library lobby to view the exhibit through the end of June. 

Also, you may wish to visit the digital collection of Lawrence v. Texas resources created and maintained by The Fred Parks Law Library at South Texas College of Law. The Special Collections Department at The Fred Parks Law Library houses the records of the Lawrence case, which were graciously donated by one of the attorneys on the case, South Texas alumnus and Adjunct Professor Mitchell Katine.  

The Sun Also Stands Still

Today is the first day of summer, the longest day of the year with more than 14 hours of sunlight in the Houston area. On this day, the sun will reach its northernmost point, seeming to stand still. People around the world will mark the occasion with feasts, festivals, and other festivities, including rituals that honor the sun. We’re celebrating the day in the way we know best -- by sharing information. We’ve compiled a short list of interesting cases that involve the hallmarks of summer -- sunburn, mosquitoes, ice cream, barbeque, and theme parks. We're also sharing a bit of etymology.

Interestingly, the summer solstice has somewhat of a connection to the law. The word solstice is derived from the Latin solstitium, meaning the point at which the sun stands. It combines sol (sun) with the past participle stem of sistere (to stand, stay, set, or place). The stare in stare decisis derives from the same root. Its literal meaning, let the decision stand, is the basis for establishing legal precedent. In Houston, we feel the blaze of the sun all summer long as it seemingly stands still for three (or more) uninterrupted months. There is definitely precedent for the kind of heat we experience annually, and it is sure to get even hotter. Happy Solstice!

Five Years of Progress at the Harris County Law Library

We here at the Harris County Law Library are proud to present our latest five year report, "Five Years of Progress: 2013-2017." On January 1, 2013, we opened our doors to our new space on the first floor of Congress Plaza here in downtown Houston, and the transformation has been tremendous. Since that day, our foot traffic has doubled, and our digital resource usage has increased more than 400%, while our cost per patron has plummeted. As our robust public education programs continue to grow, we could not be more excited for the next five years - and beyond! 

Check out the report to learn all about our services, programs, and accomplishments. 

Tech Tuesday: Converting Documents to PDF/A for E-filing

The Judicial Committee on Information Technology (JCIT) has established technology standards to ensure the "systematic implementation and integration of technology in Texas' trial and appellate courts." The current JCIT Standard, which is available in its entirety on the website of the Texas Judicial Branch, includes guidelines for proper e-filing in Texas courts and specifically states that documents be submitted as PDF files for long-term preservation. It further states that PDF documents be created with a PDF distiller, thus saving the converted document for preservation and retaining its printed appearance. With this requirement, the JCIT addresses the practice that some attorneys still routinely engage in -- printing a document created in Microsoft Word, for example, and scanning it to create a necessary PDF file. Using a PDF distiller not only allows users to avoid wasting paper, but, by converting the file digitally, the resulting document is JCIT Standards compliant.

To save your MS Word document as a PDF, simply click File > Save As > Save as file type. By default, your document will be saved as a plain Word document with the file extension .doc. Simply click on the Save as type drop-down menu to view your options, and scroll down to select PDF. Just that easily, your document will be saved as a .pdf. Mission accomplished! However, to make your document truly standards compliant, you must take one additional action.

Once you select PDF as your file type, you will see an Options button in the dialog box. Clicking on this button opens yet another small window, which is pictured here. At the bottom of the Options menu is a list of three items related to the saving of PDF documents, including an option to select the ISO 19005-1 compliant (PDF/A) version. Once you've checked the box for this selection, your document will be entirely compliant with the JCIT Standards, which require all documents e-filed in Texas to conform to the specifications of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which has established standards for writing, reading, displaying, and interacting with PDF documents.

To learn more about what makes the PDF/A file type so special, visit the Library of Congress online to read about their use of PDF/A documents for preservation. Two additional sources about the PDF/A format are PDF/A in a Nutshell and PDF/A - the standard for long-term archiving, a white paper published by the PDF Association. Finally, the Harris County Law Library has a new handbook called The Ultimate Guide to Adobe Acrobat DC which is shelved at the Reference Desk in our Legal Tech Collection.

If you ever need assistance with this or any other tech topic, join us on Thursday afternoons at 2:00 in the Law Library's Legal Tech Lab for hands-on legal tech training, brought to you the Legal Tech Institute at Harris County Law Library.