The Goodson Blogson

Since the presidential inauguration on January 20, a flurry of executive orders from the Office of the President has generated dozens of legal challenges. The President is on track to break the previous record for executive orders issued in the first 100 days, currently held by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On February 25, Law360 launched Trump's Legal Battles , a free public database tracking the status of current challenges to executive activity, as part of its dedicated coverage of Trump's First 100 Days . While links to news and analysis about each case will require additional access to  Law360 (including some docket features that are beyond even Duke Law's subscription), the dashboard itself is free to review, sort, and browse. Convenient links to specific executive orders are also provided to the White House website, and docket numbers provide sufficient information to locate additional case information on the free CourtListener Advanced RECAP Search or in Bloomberg...

Last week, the talk of the Internet was an essay called "The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger." The Cut's financial-advice columnist Charlotte Cowles details the elaborate telephone scam that led her to withdraw five figures of savings and surrender the cash to someone she believed to be an undercover CIA agent. Social media chatter debated whether Cowles's predicament was the relatable reaction of a frazzled mom who had been targeted by experienced con artists, or the public admission of a surprising lapse in common sense. However one may feel about Cowles's particular experience, one thing is certain: she is hardly alone in falling for a scam. Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that American consumers lost more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023 . While almost half of these losses came from investment fraud, imposter scams (like the one Cowles faced) represented nearly $3 billion of this figure. The FTC news r...

The end of 2022 also marked the end of a long-running government publication series, when the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register published a rule announcing the discontinuation of the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States . The Public Papers book series began in 1957, after the National Historical Publications Commission recommended the creation of an official government publication that brought together the various speeches, remarks, and writings for a particular presidential administration. Prior to the Public Papers , access to presidential materials was less consistent and less timely, with some materials published decades later at the direction of Congress (such as Richardson's 20-volume set A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789 – 1897 ), and other materials privately published (such as the Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt ). The Public Papers has covered the administration of every U.S. preside...

Today marked the inauguration of 46th President of the United States Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. and Vice President Kamala Harris. The new administration is already taking action on several campaign promises, including the signing of seventeen Executive Orders on a diverse array of topics. Some, such as the United States rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and reversing course on the Keystone XL pipeline project, are direct reversals of executive actions from the previous administration. Others are aimed at tackling the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The first 100 days of a new administration are considered to be a critical benchmark in measuring a new president’s productivity. How can you keep up with the latest developments from the executive branch? We’re glad you asked! The White House Briefing Room will link to key speeches and statements, as well as presidential actions. Executive orders are published in the daily Federal Register , which has a page just for orders ...

Yesterday, the White House announced the presidential pardons of 15 individuals and sentence commutations for 5 others. While several involved the more typical clemency for non-violent drug offenders, other recipients of a pardon have generated headlines and controversy: two were connected to the Robert Mueller investigation that resulted in the impeachment of President Trump, three more were former GOP congressmen convicted of financial wrongdoing, and four were former Blackwater contractors convicted of killing 14 civilians in Iraq. These latest acts of clemency have not yet been posted to the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney website , which includes information about petitions granted and denied during this presidential administration. It seems likely that the list may continue to grow during President Trump's remaining four weeks in office, as news sources have reported the president is considering preemptive pardons for his adult children and for close...

Law students who are finishing up the Legal Research Bootcamp sessions have likely already completed the module on Congress.gov and Regulations.gov . The session on Regulations.gov mentioned that the content of the "classic" site was being migrated to a new "beta" site, which would launch officially at some time in the future. Well, as is true for many of us during these times, it appears to be officially "Blursday" for Regulations.gov. Starting recently, Thursday is "Beta Day," meaning that the only version of Regulations.gov that you will be able to access every Thursday is the beta. If you try to access the classic site on Thursdays, you will automatically be redirected to the beta one. This will be true even if you click on "For the official site, visit www.regulations.gov " link at the top of the beta site. Although you can easily access the classic site on any other day of the week, if you did attempt to use it on a Thurs...

The Goodson Law Library has recently added Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S. to its collection of libraries in HeinOnline . This library includes more than 2,600 primary and secondary sources related to immigration law in America, including historical editions of the U.S. Code and Code of Federal Regulations , legislative history materials, administrative law decisions, U.S. Supreme Court briefs, scholarly articles, and books. Topics covered include the history of immigration law and international extradition policy. A particularly useful feature of this library is the index to BIA Precedent Decisions , which provides quick subject access to Board of Immigration Appeals decisions. The decisions themselves are available here as full-text PDF scans from 1940-present. This Hein library joins other Duke Law Library resources pertaining to immigration, such as the AILALink database and the seminal treatise by Gordon & Mailman, Immigration Law and Procedure (KF4815 .G663 ...

Yesterday's New York Times contained an article on the legal battles surrounding the labeling of plant-based food products . As meatless patties like the Impossible™ Burger and Beyond Burger™ continue their gains in popularity, lobbying groups for the beef industry have ramped up efforts to block the use of certain words in the products' labeling through legislation. A number of states already have passed laws that regulate whether vegan, vegetarian, or lab-grown meat products can use terms like "meat," "burger," or "sausage." An NPR story rounds up the existing state laws . One proposed bill , still pending in the Washington state legislature, would make the production and sale of lab-grown meat a misdemeanor if enacted. Why the concern? Lawmakers cite the potential for consumer confusion, which food labeling laws are designed to prevent. Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations contains hundreds of definitions of various food products, spe...

At the close of business on Friday, news broke that Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III had filed the results of a nearly two-year-long investigation, " Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election ," to Attorney General William P. Barr. Today, Barr submitted a letter to the House Judiciary Committee which briefly summarized the report’s conclusions. As reported in various news outlets, the report summary is divided into two parts: Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and obstruction of justice. The investigation described two elements of Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, but "did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." The obstruction portion reviewed various actions by the President that had raised potential obstruction concerns. Notably, Barr's letter states...

Happy New Year! The beginning of a new year usually brings some new laws, as previously enacted legislation often takes effect on January 1, unless otherwise specified in the act itself or in the jurisdiction's laws on effective dates . Some of the highest-profile state law changes around the country include California's legalization of recreational marijuana sales and New York's sweeping family leave plan for businesses. Additional highlights of state law changes can be found on CNN and NPR . In North Carolina, the legislature provides a PDF of 2017 legislation , sorted by effective date, with links to the enacted laws. Twenty state session laws enacted in 2017 took effect as of January 1. Most notably , the North Carolina driver's education curriculum has been revised to include instruction on handling vehicle stops by law enforcement. The full text of this new law can be found on the legislature website at S.L. 2017-95 . Another law change which has caused conf...

At Washington, D.C.'s Memorial Continental Hall, a distinguished group of federal officials, legal academics, and law enforcement representatives gathered to discuss crime prevention strategies. They traded the latest police investigation techniques, expressed concerns about the exploding narcotics trade, and debated the effects that media coverage of crimes has on society. While it sounds like this could be happening right now, it was actually at the Attorney General's National Conference on Crime , which took place more than 80 years ago: December 10-13, 1934. Attorney General Homer S. Cummings ( biography ) announced the conference plan in July 1934, shortly before boarding a ship from Los Angeles to Hawaii ("in connection with land condemnation proceedings of the government," according to the Chicago Tribune ). The Wall Street Journal reported that the planned December "crime parley" would include discussion of "prisons, paroles, bar ethics, and ...

Immigration law is highly complex, and involves a number of specialized resources. Fortunately, the Goodson Law Library has just subscribed to AILALink , a research database from the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Current Duke University students, faculty, and staff can access AILALink from the Law Library's Legal Databases & Links page, or directly here . (Access is limited to 3 simultaneous users; please click "Sign out" in the top right corner when finished.) AILALink includes primary and secondary legal materials on immigration matters, such as the full text of Kurzban's Immigration Law Sourcebook (15th ed. 2016), a leading treatise for immigration law practitioners. Other books of interest include the Occupational Guidebooks series, including Immigration Options for Academics and Researchers and Immigration Options for Artists & Entertainers . Other AILA titles include Asylum Law Primer (7th ed. 2015), Essentials of Immigration Law (4th...

This weekend's episode of Saturday Night Live sounded a little different to viewers in the Raleigh-Durham market served by NBC affiliate WRAL-TV . Host Dave Chappelle's monologue featured several ten-second audio drops, omitting entire sentences and joke punchlines. The periodic audio interruptions continued into several SNL sketches. (Twitter user Nathania Johnson compared her local DVR recording to video clips from the national broadcast on Hulu . The WRAL interruptions are described in detail at her Medium post, 10 times NBC affiliate WRAL censored Dave Chappelle-hosted SNL last night .) Raleigh's News & Observer confirmed that the local network affiliate had elected to provide additional local censorship of language, even though several pre-taped sketches already featured bleeping from the national broadcast feed. In an official statement released on Sunday, WRAL said, "WRAL-TV has a station obscenity, decency and profanity policy that outlines 10 specif...

Over the last few weeks, you have probably heard about Samsung's Galaxy Note 7, which was recalled by its manufacturer after numerous reports of spontaneous battery fires. Last week, the company announced that it had ceased production of the Android phone, now under one of the largest recalls ever issued for consumer electronics. Late last week, the Federal Aviation Administration announced a ban of the devices on all U.S. flights , via an emergency order to be published in the Federal Register later this week. The ban, officially known as Emergency Restriction/Prohibition Order No. FAA-2016-9288 , took effect at noon on Saturday. It now prohibits passengers and crew from carrying the banned Galaxy devices "on their person, in carry-on baggage, in checked baggage, or as cargo." Passengers caught carrying the device will be denied boarding of the aircraft. If a person accidentally does bring the Galaxy Note 7 on board, the device must be immediately powered off, with a...

The Goodson Law Library has subscribed to the ProQuest Regulatory Insight database. Current members of the Duke University community may access this new electronic resource via the online catalog , or through the Legal Databases & Links list. Much like its sister site ProQuest Legislative Insight offers for federal legislative history materials, ProQuest Regulatory Insight includes compiled regulatory histories for administrative materials related to enacted federal laws. (For an example, see the compiled history for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 .) The just-released first phase of this database includes regulatory histories from laws enacted during 2001-2015. As additional regulatory histories are added throughout the year 2016, the database will eventually cover the time period 1936-2016. ProQuest Regulatory Insight also provides detailed indexing and full-text searching of the text of the Federal Register (back to 2000) and the Code of Federal...

When the U.S. Congress needs a closer look at how federal funds are being spent, it calls upon the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) . Formerly known as the General Accounting Office from its creation in 1921 until its current name change in 2004, this non-partisan investigative office is nicknamed "the congressional watchdog" for its auditing responsibilities over federal agencies and programs. GAO investigations usually result in either congressional testimony or the publication of reports (or both). These reports are available online back to the agency's inception in the early 1920s, and are still commonly known as "blue books" after their former appearance in print, although they are now available only electronically. Reports & Testimony can be browsed or searched at the GAO website. The Advanced Search is recommended. U.S. GAO reports can only be updated at the request of a member of Congress, either through legislation or via a request...

Sunday, July 26 marked the silver anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) , a landmark federal law which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. The ADA also created clear accessibility standards and requirements for employers, governments, places of public accommodation, and transportation services. President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law on July 26, 1990, in a ceremony on the White House lawn which included a number of disability rights advocates. ADA signing ceremony, July 26, 1990. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma) The U.S. Congress outlined the purpose of the ADA in a lengthy and moving "Findings" section, codified today at 42 U.S.C. § 12101(a) . Lawmakers noted that "physical or mental disabilities in no way diminish a person's right to fully participate in all aspects of society, yet many people with physical or mental disabilities have been precluded from doing so because of discrimination." The ADA drafters ...

Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission announced a massive lawsuit against four cancer "charities" which allegedly misused nearly $200 million in consumer donations. The complaint was filed in federal court on Monday, with the FTC as well as all 50 states' attorneys general offices listed as plaintiffs. As Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring noted in the FTC press release , "This is the first time the FTC, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia have filed a joint enforcement action alleging deceptive solicitations by charities and I hope it serves as a strong warning for anyone trying to exploit the kindness and generosity of others." The FTC's case infographic starkly illustrates the discrepancy between the defendants' charitable aid and organizational overhead expenses, with the vast majority of donations going to employee compensation and other non-charitable uses, such as cars, tickets to sporting events, trips, and even dating ...

Today, the Senate confirmed Loretta Lynch as the next U.S. Attorney General, by a vote of 56 to 43. This afternoon's vote followed a five-month delay since her nomination by the President, the third-longest gap between nomination and confirmation in Attorney General history . Lynch's confirmation had been stalled in the Senate by a group of legislators who expressed concern for her support of President Obama's executive action on immigration law . When Ms. Lynch assumes the role of U.S. Attorney General at her swearing-in ceremony next week, she will be the 83rd person to helm the U.S. Department of Justice, and the first African-American woman ever to hold the office. (The next Attorney General also has local roots for Duke Law readers, having been born in Greensboro and raised in Durham. North Carolina Senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr both stated in February that they would oppose her nomination , and voted no on her confirmation today.) To learn more about Atto...

Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced plans to resign his position once a successor is confirmed. Holder has helmed the Justice Department since February 2009; his service already marks the fourth-longest Attorney General term in U.S. history. Speculation – and political sniping – has already begun over the upcoming Senate confirmation process for Holder's still-unnamed successor. The U.S. Senate website contains details about the Senate power to confirm or reject presidential nominations. Holder's announcement came one day after the 225th anniversary of the Judiciary Act of 1789 , which created the position of Attorney General (in addition to its more famous impact on the federal court structure). The Judiciary Act called for the appointment of a "person […] learned in the law, to act as Attorney General for the United States." Oversight of the Justice Department was added to the Attorney General's duties in 1870, with Congress's passage...