Most pregnant women seek out a traditional, medical, model of care for their pregnancies and births, choosing a medical doctor or nurse as their provider and electing to birth in a hospital setting. But there has been a resurgence of women seeking out-of-hospital births, whether that be at a free-standing birth center or at home, often attended by what are known as direct-entry midwives, or sometimes, Certified Professional Midwives (C.P.M.).

Recently, two free-standing birth centers opened near my home. Healthy, low-risk pregnant women hope out-of-hospital birth can help them avoid unnecessary interventions and encourage drug-free labor and delivery. State laws vary regarding the practice and licensure of midwives practicing outside of the hospital setting.

On WestlawNext, click on “Secondary Sources” under  the “All Content” tab,  then “Law Reviews & Journals.” Run the following search within Law Reviews & Journals:

(DIRECT-ENTRY) (“CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL”) /S MIDWIFE MIDWIFERY

I receive 28 results with that search. Browse the headings for articles discussing the legal issues surrounding direct-entry midwifery.

Narrow these results to more recent articles, in the past 3 years, discussing home birth. In the box for “Search within Results” filter on the left, enter:

HOME-BIRTH

Then filter date for “Last 3 Years.”  Apply filters to find 5 articles mentioning home birth within the last 3 years.

A few days ago it was reported that a United States drone attack in Pakistan killed key Al Qaeda strategist Ilyas Kashmiri, without the Pakistani government’s cooperation.  This closely follows the U.S. Navy SEALs’ dramatic, equally unilateral operation that dispatched Osama Bin Laden in his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound last month.  The Bin Laden killing was an important victory in the war on terror, and was lauded worldwide.  The same might be said for Kashmiri, but are these operations consistent with  international law?

 Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reads:

 “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security…”

Do the right to self-defense and the interests of national security include the right to conduct military strikes within the borders of another nation to combat terrorist organizations?  In the post-9/11 world, these questions of self-defense, security and state sovereignty remain largely unsettled, but they will likely become increasingly significant.

Recent scholarship on these and related issues can be found on Westlaw and WestlawNext. In Journals and Law Reviews, try the following Terms and Connectors search: 

drone /s sovereign! self-defen! security assassinat!

Also see: 

UN Charter and Statute of the International Court of Justice:  In the Westlaw database U.S. Treaties and Other International Agreements (USTREATIES),  run the following search:  TI(“statute of the international court of justice”)

International Court of Justice decisions addressing Article 51–run the following search in the Westlaw database International Law – International Court of Justice (INT-ICJ):  “Article 51”

It appears that Minnesota voters are in for another recount.  The state gubernatorial election ended with the two leading vote-getters, Mark Dayton and Tom Emmer, separated by less than one-half of one percent. If the percentage remains less than one-half of one percent following certification by the State Canvassing Board, an automatic recount pursuant to Minnesota Statute § 204C.35 is triggered.  The last state-wide automatic recount came in 2008, when the battle between Senator Al Franken and former Senator Norm Coleman for a seat in the U.S. Senate did not end until nearly eight months after the election.

Being a Minnesota resident, the existence of this automatic recount statute was not news to me.  And, it’s not an uncommon research issue. So, my colleagues and I began to search for a 50-state survey.  The easiest place to look is the 50 State Surveys (SURVEYS) database, but we didn’t find a survey.  We did locate the Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota (CEIM) website.  The nonprofit was formed after the 2004 election:

We were troubled by reports of electronic voting problems, the disenfranchisement of minority voters, discarded ballots and other voting irregularities. Our initial focus was supporting the Ohio recount to which we sent nine observers from Minnesota.

The site has a searchable database for recount laws.  We sorted for Initiating Method by Close Vote Margain and voila!  We found the CEIM very helpful and they appear to be doing great work but we did supplement with a few Westlaw queries including :

Texts and Periodicals: TP-ALL

Query: automatic! mandat! compulsory necess! requir! /5 re-count! /p percent!

Combined Statutes Annotated: ST-ANN-ALL

Query: AUTOMATIC! MANDAT! COMPULSORY NECESS! REQUIR! SHALL /10 RE-COUNT! & PERCENT!.

50-STATE SURVEY and WESTCHECK REPORT

We also considered the status of the exsisting statutes.  In the short time we had, we generated a 50-state survey and ran it through BriefTools (inserts Westlaw links and KeyCite flags):

Automatic Recounts (pdf)

Several statutes had pending or new legislation.  So,  we ran a WestCheck report which lists the proposed/adopted legislation:

Westcheck Report for Auto-Recount Stats (pdf)

Disclaimer: We believe these reports are complete.  They are fun for us to produce. But, we constructed them during our busy day-jobs.  These reports did not get the rigorous editiorial review the documents in the SURVEYS and REG-SURVEYS enjoy.

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Accused “Craigslist Killer” Philip Markoff was found dead Sunday after he reportedly committed suicide.  The fact that his apparent suicide occurred while in custody brought to mind a few recent calls I’ve taken on prisoner civil rights suits.

None of those calls dealt specifically with inmate suicide, but ranged from the alleged failure of prison officials to protect an inmate from violence, to allegations of the denial of religious freedom.  I’ve found the secondary source Rights of Prisoners (RGTSPRISON) to be quite helpful in researching those types of issues.  That database has a section dealing specifically with inmate suicide. 

I also ran an ALLCASES search on Westlaw.com for sy,di(prison! inmate incarcerat! /5 suicid! /s negligen! “wrongful death”) to get a feel for some of the litigation that exists on this issue and retrieved 137 documents.  On WestlawNext, try a search in all jurisdictions for liability for inmate’s suicide.

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Credit: Reuters/Toru Hanai

Recently, Kuoa Fong Lee was released from jail after serving 2 ½ years of an 8 year sentence for criminal vehicular manslaughter. He was driving a 1996 Toyota Camry that, according to Lee, failed to stop even when he was pressing on the brakes.

In light of recent events with Toyota, and after four days of evidence and arguments made by Lee’s attorneys, a Ramsey County judge decided to grant Lee a new trial and then the county attorney decided not to retry the case. It was a dramatic moment. 

There are a fair number of materials regarding prosecutorial discretion.  Try,

• Database Criminal Justice Texts and Periodicals: cj-tp
• Query: ti(prosecut! /4 discretion)

Granting a new trial is one post-conviction remedy available—what others are out there? Find “Postconviction Remedies” at PCREM on Westlaw. This database helps you select the right course of action by distinguishing among the multitude of remedies available, describing them in detail and suggesting solutions for problems that may arise.

A search for “new trial” in PCREM returns 56 documents that discuss new trials in a variety of contexts.

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Among the many stories surrounding the death last week of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner were several noting that his heirs may save somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million due to the 2010 absence of the federal estate tax.

I am far from an expert tax attorney, but I remembered hearing something previously about a one-year repeal of the federal estate tax and decided to look for an explanation.  Researching tax issues can be quite difficult and intimidating.  There is a wealth of primary law to contend with, including the Internal Revenue Code, vast oceans of Treasury Regulations and IRS rulings, and of course a large body of case law.

I began where I often suggest that callers begin their tax research: secondary sources.

On Westlaw.com, Taxation – Law Reviews, Texts & Bar Journals (TX-TP) brings many tax-centric secondary sources together in one database.  A quick search in that database for TI(“ESTATE TAX” & 2010) returns 11 documents, many of which are quite helpful in explaining the one-year repeal of the estate tax and its ramifications.

Those of you using WestlawNext can access the Topics tab on the home page, click “Tax,” then “All Tax Secondary Sources.”  A search for estate tax repeal returns a large number of results, but there appear to be many helpful documents among the first few results.

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Here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, I sheepishly admit that I really don’t pay much attention to the issue of water scarcity.  Last week, however, news sources gushed with a bevy of articles detailing how our need for and access to clean, potable H20 are moving in polar directions. 

For example…

• London opened its first desalination plant.
• The Hoover Dam is not longer quenching the needs of the American South West.
• Last month was the hottest June on record.  For Planet Earth.  For all of recorded history.

Should you too find yourself curious about the law that helps govern water rights in the U.S.,  try a quick search of the phrase “water rights” in the Westlaw directory.  This yields such helpful treatises as:  Law of Water Rights and Resources, Getches’s Water Law in a Nutshell, Water and Wastewater International and Laitos’ Hornbook on Natural Resources Law – among many others. 

If you would grow tired of  bad water news, cross your fingers for this rare piece of  good water news.

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