The Goodson Blogson

During the contentious debates in Congress over a plan to slash federal funding for Planned Parenthood, Senator John Kyl of Arizona erroneously stated on April 8 that “well over 90%” of the organization’s activity was related to abortion. After constituents and the media complained that the real figure was actually closer to 3% ( CNN video ), Kyl’s office claimed that the exaggerated number stated on the floor of Congress was “not intended to be a factual statement.” This odd retraction inspired much merriment by late-night comedian Stephen Colbert, who launched a humorous Twitter campaign of non-factual statements about Senator Kyl . This week’s Time magazine reports that Kyl’s now-infamous 90% figure has been edited from the Congressional Record , the daily transcript of debates and remarks from the floor of Congress. Indeed, the April 8 issue of the Congressional Record now records Kyl as saying: “If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that is what Planned Parenth...

The end of the semester brings some important changes to the Goodson Law Library’s access and service hours. Please note this information for reading/examination period and beyond: Library Services Effective Monday 4/18, the Reference Services desk will be open from Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Circulation/Reserve desk and the Academic Technologies Help Desk will continue evening and weekend service hours until the end of the examination period. Effective Friday, May 6, all three library service desks will operate under summer hours (Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.), and will resume evening and weekend service at the start of the Fall 2011 semester. Library access To ensure that adequate quiet study space is available for law students, use of the Goodson Law Library for study purposes during the Law School’s reading/exam period (Tuesday 4/19 to Friday 5/6) is limited to current Duke Law students, faculty and staff. University students, faculty and staff who...

With only a week left until the end of spring classes, final exams are lurking right around the corner (see tentative schedule ). No need to panic, though – there’s still plenty of time to prepare with our ABCs. Assemble those outlines . Can’t decipher your own shorthand in your class notes from January? Have you read one tricky section of the casebook four times and still don’t understand the court’s holding? Fill in those gaps with some popular law study aids, on Reserve behind the library service desk. Some favorites include: Examples & Explanations (also available in large previews at Google Books); the Hornbook and Nutshell series from West; the Understanding series from LexisNexis, and the pocket-sized Mastering texts. Bring past exams to light. Your professor may opt to post sample exams on the course’s Blackboard site. Please note that the library no longer maintains a collection of old exams in print or online formats; our collection in the Law Archives dates from 19...

The April 4 issue of The New Yorker features the unbelievable but true story of a murder in Guatemala City. To summarize without spoiling the many twists in this intriguing tale, author David Grann describes how attorney and law school dean Rodrigo Rosenberg’s relationship with a client’s daughter set off a chain reaction of tragic events which ultimately almost dismantled the country’s government. As investigators unraveled the mystery, a shadow of suspicion fell on the Casa Presidencial (Guatemala’s equivalent of the White House). Prior to his death, Rosenberg filmed an eighteen-minute video in which he accused the country’s President, First Lady, and other government officials of a massive conspiracy and a series of murders – including, he predicted, his own (see part 1 on YouTube with English subtitles ). The video sparked outrage across the country when it was aired by the national media, and an independent investigation was launched by the International Commission Against Impu...