« October 01, 2005 | Main | October 03, 2005 »

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Law - Making electronic voting tamper-proof and reliable

James Fallows' Techno Files column in today's NY Times business section ends with this:

Last month, [Jimmy Carter] and James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, released a report on how to make the electoral system more trustworthy. Mr. Baker has his own kind of expertise, having directed the Bush team in the 2000 Florida recount. Most discussion of the report has centered on its recommendation for a national ID card. Barely noticed have been its proposals for making electronic voting tamper-proof and reliable, as discussed here last fall - especially by requiring paper receipts, like those issued by A.T.M.'s, to create a verifiable audit trail. The report is available on the American University Web site. It deserves close attention.
Here is the page for the COMMISSION ON FEDERAL ELECTION REFORM's Final Commission Report: Building Confidence in U.S. Elections.

See particularly Section 3 -- Voting Technology. It has discussions of, and recommendations on, voting machines, audits, and security for voting machines. It discusses Internet voting, but concludes "that the time for Internet voting has not yet arrived."

The ILB has had a number of entries about electronic voting, mostly before last year's election, including this one from Oct. 25, 2004.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on Sunday, October 02, 2005
Posted to General Law Related

Ind. Decisions - Indiana "Case Clips"

I've added "Case Clips" to the right-hand column of this page, in the Indiana Legal Resources section.

What is "Case Clips"? It is "an archive, going back to January of 2001, of selected decisions of the Indiana appellate courts, abstracted for judges by the Indiana Judicial Center." It comes out nearly every week, although the dates of the cases are a little mystifying. The current issue, dated Sept. 22, 2005, includes cases from 9/13/05 through 9/22/05, plus on outlier from 8/31/05.

At the beginning of each issue are one to two sentence summaries of the selected opinions' holdings. These are linked to longer "summaries" (edited opinions, in much the same style the ILB used to do).

Oddly, the summaries do not appear to be linked to the opinions themselves, although the actual opinions are easy enough to locate. [Or maybe not so oddly, as all the internal links in the summaries are to Lexis (subscribers only), rather than to the opinions on the Court's own website and the statutes on the General Assembly's website.]

One thing that would make these summaries even more useful would be to add a subject categorization to each (eg. "Family Law", "Real Estate") and then put the summaries into a database, sortable and searchable. I made a start on that project last spring, then put it on the back-burner. Time maybe to revive it.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on Sunday, October 02, 2005
Posted to Ind. App.Ct. Decisions | Ind. Sup.Ct. Decisions

Law - Cases pending before U.S. Supreme Court; Life terms

Legal reporter David Savage's article in the LA Times today is headlined "Roberts May Face Early Tests as Court Convenes: A 'right-to-die' case is among the first of a series of divisive issues awaiting the Supreme Court after the new chief justice is sworn in." It begins:

The Supreme Court opens its term this week with a new chief justice, and facing a series of major cases on the "right to die," abortion, free speech and the death penalty.
Adam Liptak of the NY Times has a long article today titled "To More Inmates, Life Term Means Dying Behind Bars." Some quotes:
Just a few decades ago, a life sentence was often a misnomer, a way to suggest harsh punishment but deliver only 10 to 20 years.

But now, driven by tougher laws and political pressure on governors and parole boards, thousands of lifers are going into prisons each year, and in many states only a few are ever coming out, even in cases where judges and prosecutors did not intend to put them away forever.

Indeed, in just the last 30 years, the United States has created something never before seen in its history and unheard of around the globe: a booming population of prisoners whose only way out of prison is likely to be inside a coffin. * * *

The phenomenon is in some ways an artifact of the death penalty. Opponents of capital punishment have promoted life sentences as an alternative to execution. And as the nation's enthusiasm for the death penalty wanes amid restrictive Supreme Court rulings and a spate of death row exonerations, more states are turning to life sentences.

Defendants facing a potential death sentence often plead to life; those who go to trial and are convicted are sentenced to life about half the time by juries that are sometimes swayed by the lingering possibility of innocence.

As a result the United States is now housing a large and permanent population of prisoners who will die of old age behind bars. At the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, for instance, more than 3,000 of the 5,100 prisoners are serving life without parole, and most of the rest are serving sentences so long that they cannot be completed in a typical lifetime.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on Sunday, October 02, 2005
Posted to General Law Related

Law - Still more on running for judge in Kentucky

A 2/5/05 ILB entry, titled "More on running for judge in Kentucky," begins: "Last fall we had a number of stories on conservative groups' national attack against limits (generally via court rules) on judicial candidates stating their positions on topics that might come before them on the bench."

Today the Louisville Courier Journal has a lengthy story headlined: "Judge candidates can state views: New rule may be challenged as vague." Some quotes:

With all but two of Kentucky's 265 judgeships up for election next year, the state Supreme Court has enacted a new rule giving judicial candidates more leeway to announce their views on controversial issues like gay marriage and abortion rights.

But the lawyer for a conservative group that won a federal court ruling throwing out the old rule as unconstitutional says the new one is too vague and might be struck down.

"The question is, will there be compliance or defiance?" asked James Bopp Jr., the attorney for the Family Foundation of Kentucky, which successfully argued that the old rule violated the First Amendment right to free speech.

Bopp told about 100 lawyers and judges in Louisville last week during a judicial forum that voters have a right to know if a judge shares their values. "The personal views of judges are important," he said.

Defenders of restrictions on judicial speech say that they are essential to preserve the impartiality of the courts. Without them, they say, judicial races will turn into gutter campaigns. * * *

The old rule barred judicial candidates from making statements that "commit or appear to commit" to positions on cases they likely would hear. The new rule says judicial candidates must not "intentionally or recklessly" make a statement that could be perceived "by a reasonable person" as committing them to rule a certain way on an issue they could hear.

Lawson said the new rule gives judicial candidates more flexibility because it requires proof that violations are intentional or reckless, and because it eliminated the language that allowed candidates to be sanctioned if they only "appeared" to commit themselves on an issue.

Restrictions on judicial candidates have come under attack in dozens of states since the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 2002 Minnesota case that judicial candidates have a free-speech right to announce their views as long as they don't pledge to vote a certain way on a particular case. Bopp won that case.

The debate recently reverberated in the U.S. Senate hearings for chief justice nominee John Roberts, who was attacked by liberals for failing to disclose his views on abortion and other issues; Roberts said he didn't want to be seen as prejudging cases. (He was confirmed last week and joined the court.)

But conservatives have pushed for rules that ease restrictions on judicial candidates so that voters will know more about their views. In a Louisville Bar Association forum last week, Bopp said that will help voters remove "liberal" judges who "make law," rather than interpret the constitution.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on Sunday, October 02, 2005
Posted to General Law Related | Indiana Courts

Environment - Air Pollution: Hazardous haze worse this year

The Sunday Indianapolis Star's front-page, above-the-fold story today, by Tammy Webber, is headlined "Hazardous haze worse this year: Spike in summer pollution alerts spurs calls for faster action to cut smog." Some quotes from the beginnng of this long piece:

Air quality in Central Indiana took a turn for the worse this summer, underscoring concerns that more must be done to make the air safe for all to breathe.

In all, 17 alerts about unsafe air -- 11 related to ozone levels and six stemming from soot, or fine particles -- were issued in the region. Last year, there was none. * * *

The spike in alerts -- partly the result of warmer temperatures necessary for harmful ground-level ozone to form and partly a reflection of new reporting practices about particles -- prompted renewed calls for greater attention to the problem. * * *

The stakes are high: Smog and fine particles, or soot, are linked to asthma and other respiratory conditions and heart problems. New research indicates that soot can cause health problems at levels lower than currently allowed. * * *

Poor air quality has economic consequences, too.
Regions that fail to comply with federal air-pollution standards must find ways to reduce emissions before allowing construction or expansion of industrial plants. Failure to comply also can result in the loss of federal dollars for roads.

On the other hand, policymakers are worried that too many regulations will strangle economic growth. Jobs, in other words, are directly related to smoggy skies.

The upshot, experts say, is that everyone, from the biggest companies to individuals, needs to help find ways to improve air quality. Doing so may prove unpopular, not just with businesses but with motorists who may be asked to make sacrifices common in smog-choked cities but unusual in Central Indiana.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on Sunday, October 02, 2005
Posted to Environment | Indiana economic development