Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law/Archive 7

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Rape v. sexual assault

Rape has strayed from the legal definitions of the offense, although it is still under wikiproject law. Sexual assault is a much shorter article. I have made a proposal for reorganizing the two articles on the talk:rape page. Comments are welcome. Legis Nuntius (talk) 02:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Deletion sorting

Not sure if participants are aware, but there is a system for sorting deletion debates by topic area, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting. I have created Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Law to allow law-related deletion debates to be sorted, and allow interested parties to watch and participate in debates relevant to their expertise or area of interest. Hope it is of use, all the best, Hiding T 19:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Burger King legal issues assistance request

I followed a GAN review trail to Burger King legal issues recently and ended up in a difference of opinion on quality issues with the article's GA nominator and principal author. One concern I have is that a number of assertions made in the Lead are unsupported by or representative of the material in the article body. I'm not saying the statements are necessarily inaccurate, but for various reasons the other editor doesn't feel the need to place the relevant statements in the body. Similarly, he feels that statements made in sources and links do not need to be explicitly referenced in the article, thus the need to only summarize them in the Lead and leaving it to the reader to explore the links (external and internal). My major concern is over statements that the three cases treated in the article are characterized as "precedent-setting", but none of them has any reliable sources supporting that analysis (and only one of the three is actually described as such in the body (a description with which I agree since it was heard in the US Supreme Court), although all three are characterized as such in the Lead). If I understand precedent correctly, either the decision has to be of binding nature based on the court which rules on it, or it is a decision on which numerous or significant subsequent case decisions are based. For whatever reason, the other editor sees no need to address the impact the decisions of those three cases (reliably sourced, of course).

My knowledge of WP legal articles is nil, but can the Lead statement "Several legal decisions have set contractual law precedents in regards to long-arm statutes, the limitations of franchise agreements, and ethical business practices; many of these decisions have helped define general business dealings that continue to shape the entire marketplace." be made without the observations of legal scholars or experts? Isn't this OR? Since I'm unfamiliar with this territory, would someone take a look at the article and provide guidance, please? If I'm off-base, fine, but I'm worried about the article's quality, especially since it is undergoing GAN review. A good place to start is here. Thanks.
Jim Dunning | talk 23:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Help save Litigation involving Tesco

Can interested people please go and say something against deleting this page here? As a lawyer I think each case should have an article, and this is a convenient grouping with some valuable information. Wikidea 22:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Société à responsabilité limitée - Assistance Required

This is a call out for an expert on French corporate law: please take a look at this article. It appears to have been translated from French, and is in dire need of attention from an expert. I have tagged it for expert assistance. Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 16:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to rename "Pedra Branca dispute"

There is a discussion on whether to rename "Pedra Branca dispute" as "Sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge (Malaysia v. Singapore)", as this is the official name of the International Court of Justice case: see "List of International Court of Justice cases". Your comments on the article's talk page are welcome. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 17:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Would like to get involved

Hi guys, I would like to get involved with this project; my specialisms are in private/contract law. Please tell me how I can be of help.(Willrgby (talk) 22:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC))

It would be really helpful if you could sign up for the proposed English law wikiproject here which needs members and would help develop the English law corpus on wikipedia. Lamberhurst (talk) 19:07, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Prisons

If anyone's interested, I've proposed a new wikiproject for the creation of articles regarding specific prisons here. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Account of profits

Hi everyone, I started an article on the equitable remedy of account of profits (or accounting for profits, if you prefer). I ask anyone with any deeper knowledge of the law of remedies to please expand it. --Eastlaw (talk) 03:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

manrent

Should I consider putting the new article entitled "manrent" under WikiProject Law (as well as Scottish clans)? Czar Brodie (talk) 17:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

fair use review

There is currently a discussion of the possible removal of Wikipedia:fair use review. Please feel free to join the discussion at MFD/Wikipedia:Fair use review, or, if you have a professional level of knowledge regarding fair use itself, then please have a look at the backlog. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 18:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 1517 articles assigned to this project, or 24.5%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

selective publication?

Anybody with knowledge of how courts decide which cases to publish, please come and collaborate on the new stub, selective publication. Thank you. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 20:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Rename proposal for the lists of basic topics

This project's subject has a page in the set of Lists of basic topics.

See the proposal at the Village pump to change the names of all those pages.

The Transhumanist 10:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Separate article for Bilateral Contract

Does the following comprise a reasonable case to be made for having a separate article for bilateral contract instead of a sub section of Contract? When working on articles for various types of standardised bilateral contracts (e.g. Credit derivative), it would help to have a separate article so that the internal link doesn't have to point to a subsection which is likely to be renamed, moved, etc. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 21:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD

The article entitled Timeline of riots and civil unrest in Calgary, Alberta is in the midst of an AfD. • Freechild'sup? 06:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Animal rights

I think that WikiProject Animal rights should be considered a descendant project, rather than a "related" WikiProject. Any objections? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 06:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed split of "Legal occupations"

The category Legal occupations is a disaster in so many ways. It requires diffusion, obviously, but, upon further examination, I discovered a much more organised solution. I've proposed splitting the category of "Legal occupations" (both categories also being diffused, of course). I'm going through an informal proposal process instead of just doing it straight away because it will be a lot of work and time wasted if there are strong objections or excellent reasons against this being done. Please read the details at its talk page and comment! —Skittleys (talk) 07:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Expansion of assessment

Hello, I want to get into assessing some of these unassessed WPLaw articles but I noticed that there are no listed assessment parameters specific to this WikiProject. I do some assessment in WikiProject Tax where there are listed guidelines for assessing the class and priority/importance of articles specific to that wikiproject, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Taxation/Assessment. I suppose something similar could be done here, particularly for dealing with laws no longer in force, how to treat esoteric topics, assessing court decisions, laws limited to one country or state within a country, etc. EECavazos (talk) 07:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I found Wikipedia:WikiProject Law/Assessment when I was about to suggest its creation. Since it exists some of my comment above is a bit absolete. However, I noticed that the assessment page is "temporarily closed" which suggests that I should move on to that page and leave my comments in that talk page. EECavazos (talk) 20:55, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States nearing GA status

I could use a few eyes and maybe some additional facts and sources in Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States to fulfill the requests of the Good Article review at Talk:Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States/GA1. Cheers! bd2412 T 15:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Help me put articles on the proper SCOTUS case lists! Please!!!

(Cross-posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases)

Hi everyone, I made up a list of of U.S. Supreme Court case articles which have not yet been added one of the appropriate Lists of United States Supreme Court cases.

The list is located at User:Eastlaw/pagelist. I have, in the past, added a whole bunch of articles to the lists, but this is more work than one person can do by him/herself. If everyone could do just a few cases (or even just one or two) each day, we could eliminate a lot of the articles on this list.

Likewise, if anyone here stumbles upon an article which is not on the appropriate list, but isn't listed on my page either, please add it to my page (or just list it on the appropriate case list). Thanks. --Eastlaw (talk) 05:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Burger King legal issues

This article is currently is a Feature Article candidate and I would like some help insuring that the article is factually correct.

I need some help over at Burger King legal issues with two cases:

  • Burger King v. Rudzewicz (471 U.S. 462)
    • Several commentators have had an issue with citation #66 and I need something to replace it. If some one could assist that would be very helpful.

If someone could help insure that I have all the information correct or could add something else that would improve these two cases I would be grateful.

Thank You, Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 07:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Learned Hand peer review

user:Slp1 and I have put Learned Hand up for peer review, prior to a submission for FAC. This was the article planned by a group of Wikipedians as a tribute to NewYorkBrad because, on leaving, he expressed regret that he couldn't now fulfill his plan to bring this article to FA. We would very much appreciate reviews from those with legal knowledge, particularly with knowledge of American law, because neither of us are legal experts, nor indeed are we American (British and Canadian). It would be useful if we could iron out any legal imprecisions (there are bound to be some, though we have tried our best) before we go to FAC. Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help us with a review. qp10qp (talk) 12:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Complete list of U.S. federal legislation

The current List of United States federal legislation article is woefully inadequate. For one thing, it is nowhere near complete. For another thing, people have been removing the names of legislation simply because they do not have article yet. I propose creating a complete list of federal legislation (red links and all) something akin to the List of United States Supreme Court cases. Doing so will serve as an impetus to the creation of new, important, legally-oriented articles.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 21:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Real estate contract page merge

I think we should merge the page "land contract" into the article on real estate contracts, but the land contracts page doesn't say much about the nature and terms of the contract itself, just about financing and payments (and it doesn't really say much anyway). Any suggestions about this? --Eastlaw (talk) 08:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Are journalists and newseditors reliable sources on law?

There is a dispute in Illegal immigration to the United States regarding whether journalists and news editors are reliable sources on law. Specifically, the law (title 8) is quoted in the article. An editor has found some journalists and news editors who claim that the law doesn't state what it clearly states. It has been argued that journalists and news editors aren't experts in the law and should not be treated as reliable sources. Outside input is appreciated.-66.213.90.2 (talk) 23:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree, otherwise they'd have to be experts on everything they report, from cold fusion to creationism to South Park, and that cannot be possible. --Rodhullandemu 23:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
The dispute regards sources to substantiate whether illegal immigration to the United States is a crime, were "illegal immigration" per the article's introduction refers to residing in the U.S. in violation of immigration law. The sources in dispute includes the Executive Editor and Executive News Editor of Seattle Times writing in a column about the paper's official policy on immigration coverage that "Illegal immigration is not a crime, but rather a civil infraction",[1] and furthermore a prominent former U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York going on the record stating that illegal immigration is not a crime, sourced to Associated Press.[2] The discussion also brought up a 2006 Congressional Research Service report for the United States Congress: Immigration Enforcement Within the United States, which says Being illegally present in the U.S. has always been a civil, not criminal, violation of the INA, and subsequent deportation and associated administrative processes are civil proceedings. The opposing view that these "claim that the law doesn't state what it clearly states" is based on wikipedia editors personal interpretations of the US code. Elsewhere in the article an editor insists on including that "the United States code identifies illegal immigration as both a criminal and civil offense", with as primary source a section of the code about illegal entry. Is wikipedia editors own interpretation of the code more reliable than these other sources on this matter of law? Terjen (talk) 23:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
It really seems to me that a news article quoting a newspaper editor talking about the (non-)criminality of illegal immigration (or on any other legal topic) is utterly worthless as a source. The news story quoting Rudy Giuliani (who was at one time a U.S. Attorney) is possibly more useful, though it still seems weak to me and really needs additional sources agreeing with it.
The Congressional Research Service report is, I believe, a good source which might be enough to use all by itself to support the "civil, not criminal" assertion. However, since this source says that "being illegally present in the U.S." (boldface mine) has never been a criminal violation of the law, it's still possible in my mind that there might be a distinction being drawn in the law between the act of entering the US illegally and the act of remaining in the US illegally, and that perhaps one of these is a criminal issue while the other is not, and this possible distinction needs to be dealt with carefully. Richwales (talk) 23:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
The Seattle Times source was not a "news article", but a column written by the Executive Editor on the paper's official policy on immigration coverage. This is the editors of the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington putting their reputation on the line. It is reasonable to assume that the words were carefully chosen and facts checked. Terjen (talk) 01:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Still not good enough, in my opinion. The best conclusion I believe we can draw from the Seattle Times column is that the staff of the Seattle Times believe illegal immigration is a civil infraction and not a crime. If the executive editor were an immigration lawyer, that might possibly make a difference. In any case, this sort of "source" is sufficiently likely to be questionable that we really should do a better job of finding some solid sources. For example, can we find any of the sources which the Seattle Times executive editor and his staff used to bring them to their conclusion? Richwales (talk) 06:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
The concern about the cited sources seems to be based on a belief that the claim they substantiate is false. The original posting reads An editor has found some journalists and news editors who claim that the law doesn't state what it clearly states. Although the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth, I think we can safely aim higher in this case. Let's take a step back to consider whether it is factual that illegal immigration - residing in the U.S. in violation of immigration law - is not a crime but a civil infraction. When that has been determined, we can eventually come back to the available sources to consider which ones best substantiate the claim. Terjen (talk) 07:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
What?? You point out that the criteria for inclusion is verifiability, not truth, and then in the same post argue that before we decide whether a reference is a reliable source, we should decide whether it is telling the truth - without resorting to verifiability?-198.97.67.59 (talk) 12:54, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
My understanding has always been that "verifiability, not truth" does not mean "it doesn't matter whether it's true as long as we can cite a source" — it means "it's not good enough that it's true if we can't cite a source". I don't believe we need, in general, to make an exhaustive, independent effort to confirm whether what a reliable-looking source says is correct or not before using the source. I do believe that if we happen to have reasonable cause to question the accuracy of a claim in a source, we can't simply repeat the claim (backed by that source) and present it as a confirmed fact; rather, we need to look for additional sources and/or moderate what we say in the article. If those with more experience editing Wikipedia feel I'm misunderstanding or misrepresenting this concept, I would of course welcome an explanation of where and how I'm confused.
In the specific case at hand, it appears to me that we do have reason to believe that at least some instances of unlawful entry and/or presence in the US constitute an actual criminal offense, and also reason to believe that at least some such situations may not be crimes but are merely less serious civil infractions. Our confusion may be happening because we're assuming it's got to be one or the other, and/or because some of our sources are confused by assuming it's one or the other. It seems to me like we need to continue looking for reliable sources, and in the meantime, possibly look for a way to reword the affected text of the article so as not to say either that illegal immigration/presence is a "crime" or that it is not, at least not until we have more reliable sources to cite. Richwales (talk) 15:46, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
The reason these sources are debated is because one or more editors believe they claim that the law doesn't state what it clearly states. According to wikipedia policy,Exceptional claims require exceptional sources, and if the claim that illegal immigration is not a crime but a civil infraction is exceptional, it is reasonable to demand exceptional sources. So let's consider whether it really is an extraordinary claim. Terjen (talk) 16:04, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I think it is. Since I believe the "prevailing view within the relevant community" (see WP:REDFLAG) is that something called "illegal" is, by ordinary definition of the word, a crime, I would view a claim that "illegal immigration is not a crime" as (at least arguably) self-contradictory — hence, an extraordinary claim, and thus one for which we have a right and a responsibility to expect more and/or better sources. Richwales (talk) 17:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Richwales, there are thousands and thousands of anonymous editors working on Wikipedia from all over the world, all of whom have their own ideas on what is "true" and not everyone agrees as to what is "true". -That's- why verifiability, not truth is so important - because "what is verifiable" can be answered objectively whereas "what is true" cannot be. An editor can't honestly argue about whether a source says something (unless the meaning is hard to decipher), though they can certainly argue about what is true. Verifiability, not truth, is what keeps us academically honest. It doesn't matter whether something is true, it only matters what is verifiable (though the question of reliable sources does pop up).
I also find it curious that Terjen has argued that we should determine whether something is true (without sources for verifiability) and whether or not a claim is exceptional (though that claim directly contradicts avaiable reliable sources), but he has, so far, not done what Wikipedia tells us to do - provide reliable sources to verify his claim. How much effort are we to spend on trying to find ways around policies instead of just adhering to those policies?-198.97.67.58 (talk) 19:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I actually don't think the "anonymous editor" and I are really that far apart on this. What I (perhaps clumsily) tried to express earlier is, I think, adequately covered by the verifiability policy — with particular attention being given to what the "Sources" section says about evaluating the reliability of a source — and recognizing (as stated in the "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" section) that if a claim appears to fall well outside accepted mainstream thought, it's that much more important to find the best possible sources for that claim.
"Verifiability" does not simply mean finding a source (any source at all) that says something; and "verifiability, not truth" does not mean we can or should just go ahead and include any and every statement for which some source, without regard for its reliability, happens to show up. But I'm assuming (or at least hoping) that the "anonymous editor" isn't actually proposing these interpretations; if, by chance, he/she is, then I'll have to stand by my interpretation of "verifiability" and respectfully disagree with his/her interpretation.
In this particular case, as I said earlier, I do currently believe that a claim that "illegal immigration is not a crime" is an exceptional claim, for which we have a reasonable right and obligation to expect highly reliable sources. Richwales (talk) 20:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
An additional thought — although "what is verifiable" is a more practical and useful standard for our purposes than "what is true", I would not go so far as to say that "what is verifiable" can always be answered objectively, because there may still be plenty of room for honest differences of opinion regarding the reliability and quality of any given source. Richwales (talk) 20:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I suggest editors reading this discussion take a few minutes to look up relevant reliable sources themselves. That way, it will quickly be evident that a wide range of reliable sources support that illegal immigration - residing in the U.S. in violation of immigration law - is not a crime but a civil infraction, and that I am not just cherry-picking ignoring contradictory evidence. The anonymous editor sometimes using the handle 198.97.67.58 has not provided any reliable secondary sources to support that residing in the U.S. in violation of immigration law is a crime, but is instead basing the opposition on original research in interpreting the US code. Congressman Tom Tancredo, a strong opponent of illegal immigration, wrote in USA Today: illegal presence in the USA is not a crime; it is a civil infraction. The House Judiciary Committee voted to make it a felony but then was counseled that millions of new felons could clog our courts.[3] David Martin, professor of law at the University of Virginia and formerly general counsel at the federal agency now known as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told NPR: Living in the United States illegally -- either by sneaking in or by overstaying a visa -- is a violation under the civil code, not the criminal code.[4] Perhaps you would be so kind as to provide reliable sources that contradict these? Terjen (talk) 21:08, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I find myself wondering if that blog understands what it's discussing. It says "Right now, illegal presence in the USA is not a crime; it is a civil infraction." and continues with a nonsequitor "he House Judiciary Committee voted to make it a felony but then was counseled that millions of new felons could clog our courts." It seems to be equating "non-felony" with "non-criminal," maybe missing that misdemeanors are crimes, too.
I don't know immigration law beyond the minimum I needed to get my wife a green card and citizenship, so I don't opine on the actual issue of whether illegal presence is itself a crime (and my opinion wouldn't matter if I had one), but I wonder if much of this discussion in the secondary sources is also missing the distinction, i.e., that there are crimes that are not felonies. Certainly when the criminal infringement provisions in the US copyright statute were revised (mid- to late-1990s), there was a very similar confusion, with many commentators incorrectly stating that this was making certain offenses a crime for the first time; it didn't, it made them felonies for the first time.
This suggest that some of these sources need to be carefully considered before deeming them to be reliable sources (which blogs ordinarily are not, anyway). TJRC (talk) 22:45, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
What blog? And some blogs can be reliable sources, depending on who the author is and how its published (Huffington Post, for instance, is cited in various places). Avruch T 23:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
The USA Today blog cited above: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/03/opposing_view_m.html I see the basis for the confusion, it was cited as being USA Today, but it's a columnist's blog, not USA Today itself. 23:23, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
It was not cited as being USA Today. It said: Congressman Tom Tancredo, a strong opponent of illegal immigration, wrote in USA Today... I don't see a reason for the confusion as it was clearly attributed to a congressman, at the time the chairman of the congressional immigration reform caucus. Terjen (talk) 23:35, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
We're really down to the nits now, but I read a statement with "wrote in USA Today..." as citing the referred-to source as being USA Today. TJRC (talk) 23:42, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The point is that "crime" and "violation of the law" are not the same. Many violations of the law, but not all, are related to criminal laws. The difference is in the penalties - criminal violations of the law can draw prison sentences, while civil violations typically draw fines. When the Congressman refers to making it a felony, doing that would clearly move the immigration violation into the realm of criminal law - there is no civil felony, that I'm aware of. As to the issue - there are sources, generally believed to be reliable, which claim a certain thing to be true. Since its referenced, not unreferenced, it ought to stay in the article until contradictory references of equal or greater weight are found. And at that point, Wikipedia should describe the discrepancy rather than make a categorical statement either way. Avruch T 23:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand the distinction between "crime" and "violation of the law" . I'm suggesting that some of these commentators may be confusing the distinction between "crime" and "violation of the law" with the distinction between "felony" and "violation of the law." TJRC (talk) 23:23, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
The crucial distinction is between "crimes" and "civil infractions". Terjen (talk) 23:45, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it is. I'm suggesting that the commentators are confusing that crucial distinction with a different distinction, the distinction between "felonies" and "civil infractions." Am I really being that unclear? TJRC (talk) 00:02, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps there is a misunderstanding that a Civil Infraction is a crime? I suspect that the commentators, all experienced in legal issues related to immigration, have it right. Terjen (talk) 00:07, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Not my misunderstanding. Let me try this one more time, and then I will give up. There are civil infractions, and there are crimes. These are two different things. Within the class of "crimes," there are two types of crimes: misdemeanors and felonies.
With me so far? Good.
Occasionally, legislation is introduced that changes acts that would have previously been misdemeanors into felonies. Let's be clear here: the act was a crime in either case; it had been a misdemeanor, but under the new legislation would become a felony. But a crime, in either case.
Now, in discussing proposed changes like this, commentators often see the true fact "Act X is now a felony" and confuse it with the false statement "Act X, which was not previously a crime, is now a crime." That is, they confuse making an act into a felony with making an act into a crime. As I said, I saw this error over and over and over and over when the Copyright statute was modified to make acts that had previously been misdemeanors (but still crimes) into felonies (another species of crime). I saw many articles in mainstream media that reported that it was making a certain act of infringement that had not been a crime into a crime. Those statements were in error. In fact, the legislation was making a certain act that had not been a felony into a felony. But the journalist was treating "felony" and "crime" as synonymous, which they are not.
Based on some of the commentary here, I think some of the journalists (and even the Congressman posting to the USA Today blog) may be making the same mistake. It's perhaps subtle,and the fact that I've had to make several posts to explain it suggests that its' not so easily grasped. The example right at hand is the one quoted in the USA Today Blog:
Right now, illegal presence in the USA is not a crime; it is a civil infraction. The House Judiciary Committee voted to make it a felony but then was counseled that millions of new felons could clog our courts.
The first sentence is about a crime-civil infraction distinction (i.e., criminalization); but the second is about a different thing: felonization. This really sounds like the Congressman is making the same error being discussed here, treating them as though they are the same thing. And suggests why a journalist discussing the law may not be a reliable source for the interpretation he's putting forward.
I'm done now. If I'm still not clear, you're on your own.TJRC (talk) 00:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure, at this point, what you are arguing. The point is that the particular violation of the law in question (coming to or being inside the United States without a valid visa, legal residency, citizenship, tec.) is not a criminal violation of the law, and thus not a crime. Its a civil violation of the law, subject to civil penalties (fines and deportation). Avruch T 00:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
I understand. But the commentators seem unclear on the difference between a crime and a felony, suggesting that they are not reliable sources for the distinction for which they are being cited. TJRC (talk) 00:54, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Avruch wrote: As to the issue - there are sources, generally believed to be reliable, which claim a certain thing to be true. Since its referenced, not unreferenced, it ought to stay in the article until contradictory references of equal or greater weight are found. And at that point, Wikipedia should describe the discrepancy rather than make a categorical statement either way. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Anybody that disagree? Terjen (talk) 03:57, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that before we go any further, we need to identify reliable sources on law which state that illegal immigration (whether we're talking about EWI, visa overstays or whaver) isn't a crime. Journalists and news editors aren't reliable sources on the law. An advertisement by a guy running for POTUS attempting to appeal to Hispanics is no more a reliable source on law than 1970s cigarette ads are reliable sources on good health.-198.97.67.58 (talk) 13:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
If we define illegal immigration to include whatever, then it could certainly be a crime. But it specifically refers to residing in the U.S. in violation of immigration laws. David Martin, professor of law at the University of Virginia and formerly general counsel at the federal agency now known as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told NPR: Living in the United States illegally -- either by sneaking in or by overstaying a visa -- is a violation under the civil code, not the criminal code.[5] Despite repeated requests, you have not provided any reliable sources contradicting that it is not a crime but a civil infraction. The journalists and newspaper sources writing that illegal immigration is not a crime are merely reporting a well established legal fact. All the provided referenced sources have shown to be more reliable than wikipedia editors interpreting the immigration law for themselves, demonstrating why the project frown upon original research. Terjen (talk) 15:10, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
I think your problem here is an overly-restrictive definition of "illegal immigration." The source TJRC discusses below says that "the illegal entry of aliens" is a crime, and I believe common usage would refer to aliens illegally entering the country (or at least most such aliens) as "illegal immigrants." There are plenty of news articles, etc. referring to aliens illegally entering the country as "illegal immigrants" even if they are caught in the process of illegally entering and have not yet had a chance to set up illegal (as a civil infraction) residence in the United States. PubliusFL (talk) 17:57, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Illegal immigration and illegal entry are two different concepts, and should not be confounded. A non-national person can enter illegally without immigrating illegally (e.g. taking an unauthorized day trip across the border) or immigrate illegally without having entered illegally (e.g by settling after overstaying a visa). Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States#Not synonymous with illegal entry discusses the point that illegal immigration is not synonymous with illegal entry, and I suggest eventual follow-ups are posted over there. Terjen (talk) 19:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
I never said otherwise. "Illegal immigration" and "illegal entry" significantly overlap, but each covers some territory that the other doesn't. Not all illegal entry (which is criminal) is illegal immigration, but much is. And vice versa. PubliusFL (talk) 20:35, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it is in our place to redefine illegal immigration to make it into a crime. We can safely stick to considering whether residing in the U.S. in violation of immigration law is a crime or a civil infraction, and leave the discussion about the definition of the term to Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States. Terjen (talk) 22:17, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
That's a strawman. I'm not suggesting that we "redefine illegal immigration to make it into a crime." I'm questioning whether the definition you've been using is accurate and adequate. I have made the same point on Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States. PubliusFL (talk) 22:27, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
The definition of Illegal immigration as taking residence in the U.S. in violation of immigration law is from the Illegal immigration to the United States entry itself. Earlier, long standing versions used similar language. Terjen (talk) 23:20, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

We're now getting into where editors are now cutting and pasting their previous comments, which is a definite sign we're in an infinite loop here.

Terjen posted a pretty good reference, let me make it more explicit here: Immigration Enforcement Within the United States, Congressional Research Service report for Congress, Order Code RL33351 (April 6, 2006): [6]. That source says:

Immigration enforcement is the regulation of those who violate provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This includes violations of the civil provisions of the INA (e.g., aliens who enter without inspection or violate the conditions of their admittance),9 as well as U.S. citizens or aliens who violate the criminal provisions of the INA (e.g., marriage fraud or alien smuggling). [page 10 in the PDF file]

It later says:

The INA [the Immigration and Nationality Act, which is online at the USCIS site here] includes both criminal and civil components, providing both for criminal charges (e.g., alien smuggling, which is prosecuted in the federal courts) and for civil violations (e.g., lack of legal status, which may lead to removal through a separate administrative system in the Department of Justice).32 Being illegally present in the U.S. has always been a civil, not criminal, violation of the INA, and subsequent deportation and associated administrative processes are civil proceedings.33 For instance, a lawfully admitted nonimmigrant alien may become deportable if his visitor’s visa expires or if his student status changes. Criminal violations of the INA, on the other hand, include felonies and misdemeanors and are prosecuted in federal district courts. These types of violations include the bringing in and harboring of certain undocumented aliens (INA §274), the illegal entry of aliens (INA §275), and the reentry of aliens previously excluded or deported (INA §276).34
33 INA §237(a)(1)(B). Other examples of civil violations include §243(c) (penalties relating to vessels and aircraft) and §274D (penalties for failure to depart).
34Other criminal provisions include §243(a) disobeying a removal order, §1306 offenses relating to registration of aliens, and §274A(f) engaging in a pattern or practice of hiring illegal aliens. [pages 15-16 in the PDF file]

The cited sections for the criminal violations described in this report each seem to make the criminality very clear:

  • INA §274 ("Criminal Penalties...")
  • INA §275 ("...imprisoned not more than 2 years...)
  • INA §276 ("...imprisoned not more than 10 years...)
  • §243(a) ("...imprisoned not more than four years...")
  • §1306 (a reference to INA § 266, codified at 8 USC § 1306; "...guilty of a misdemeanor...")
  • §274A(f) ("Criminal Penalties and Injunctions for Pattern or Practice Violations")

I don't cite the statutes above as original research, just as a sanity check to confirm that the CRS report is not out to lunch (which would not be likely).

Another worthy source, cited in the CRS report quoted above, is Enforcing Immigration Law: The Role of State and Local Law Enforcement, Congressional Research Service, report for Congress, Order Code RL32270 (October 13, 2005): [7].

Based on these credible secondary non-original-research sources, I have no problem citing them for the matter asserted, that "aliens who enter without inspection or violate the conditions of their admittance" or who have "lack of legal status, which may lead to removal through a separate administrative system in the Department of Justice" are violating civil provisions, not criminal provisions.

Is this still controversial? It seems clear to me.

The issue of whether a journalist's characterization of the law is a reliable source is, I think, still murky. My experience in areas where I am an expert (IP law, not immigration law) is that journalists get it wrong all the time. I gave a specific example germane to this specific discussion, above, but that's just one of many. Reporters confuse copyrights with trademarks, and patent applications with patents. A couple days ago I wrote to a journalist who erroneously reported that Gregory Reyes was in prison; the reporter assumed that because he was sentenced, he must be in prison by now, having no idea that he could be out on bond pending appeal. Based on countless examples like this, I do not think a news article that states what the law is is a reliable source for what the law is. But I think that argument can be avoided here, where there are clearly reliable non-journalistic sources on-point. TJRC (talk) 17:50, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

This is clearly moved away from the general discussion of the question Are journalists and news editors reliable sources on law?, which is an appropriate discussion for this project page, into the specific question about immigration law, which is not. I propose the discussion proceed on the talk page for the article at issue, i.e., Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States. TJRC (talk) 22:32, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, thanks! PubliusFL (talk) 22:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. I added it to the tail of Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States#More on whether illegal immigration is a crime or not. Terjen (talk) 05:29, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

On the issue of whether journalists and newseditors are reliable sources on law, I find it troubling for a Wikiproject Law discussion to end with the conclusion that newspapers categorically aren't reliable sources. I agree with the point that newspapers regularly get it wrong, demonstrated by their frequent Retractions. But these errors aren't limited to the area of law, newspapers can make mistakes in everything they report, from cold fusion to creationism to South Park. Does that mean that mainstream newspapers cannot be used as reliable sources for those and other areas? Of course not.

That a source is reliable for use in Wikipedia does not require that it is infallible. The Reliable sources guideline provides good advices on how sources should be ranked when it comes to reliability. Mainstream news organizations rank high, with academic and peer-reviewed publications such as legal scholarship usually considered the most reliable. Common sense and editorial judgment is used to determine which ones to trust.

Legal scholarship is not always at hand for all relevant topics. If mainstream newspapers are considered unreliable for legal topics, we might be left with lesser sources. In some cases laymen Wikipedians might be tempted to read and interpret the laws for themselves even if that falls under original research, using the finding here that newspapers are unreliable sources on the law to have their lay understanding of the code trump contradicting evidence in credible published material.

I would like to hear opinions on this matter from others than those that already have posted. Terjen (talk) 20:39, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

The discussion has been moved to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Are mainstream newspapers reliable sources on law?.

John Marshall Harlan II at WP:GAR

John Marshall Harlan II has been nominated at WP:GAR. See Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/John Marshall Harlan II/1.

Subcategories for SCOTUS case law and Federal Legislation on Year in Law categories

Is there any way we can create subcategories for these two areas of law at the year in law categories. Some of them, for example Category:2000 in law are getting a little crowded and it would make navigation easier if they were grouped together. Does anyone know how to do this? It looks like a big job but I'd be happy to help if someone would tell me how.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 04:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

FAR listing

Law has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. -- Vision Thing -- 18:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Perecman & Fanning

An article that some of you have been involved in editing, Perecman & Fanning, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Perecman & Fanning. Thank you. Eastlaw (talk) 03:33, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Pro se

Could someone help with this. A relatively new editor is adding raw court decisions to the article, in support of the statement that prohibitions of operating pro se are violations of a fundamental civil right. I might agree, but court decisions are, IMHO, WP:PRIMARY sources, and we need, at least, a source that the material is relevant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:LAW assessment scheme

It appears that a couple of users wish to adopt the C-class grade that was proposed by the WP:1.0 Editorial Team, while others such as myself object. Several WikiProjects have discussed the change and by virtue of consensus, decided either to adopt, or not adopt the C-class grade.

I am of the opinion that we, like the Films WikiProject, should not adopt C-class status per the discussion here, and consequent Wikipedia:WikiProject_Films/Assessment#Quality_scale that reflects this accordingly. Some input would be appreciated. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

For C adoption

I believe adopting the C classification is the better choice.

  • The argument for adopting the C classification is very persuasive because there is a large gap of quality between Start class and B class. Start class is very rudiamentary while B class is the class just before Good Article status. C class fills this gap. It makes the assessment process much more elegant and precise. There are clearly some articles that are better than the average start article and which are not B quality, but they could be if more attention were paid to such articles on the cusp of B classification. Without C classification those articles would be lost among the articles that truly fit the start classification. This negative situation is all the more pronounced when a wikiproject has many articles.
  • The arguments against the adoption proffered in the WP Film are not very persuasive. The against-arguments rely on some nonexistent law that we must focus on reassessing Start and B class articles should they instead be a C class. This assumption is wrong. There is no requirement that we should prioritize over everything else the reassessment of Start and B class articles to find and classify C class articles. Even if we were to accept this prioritization argument it is much less applicable to WP Law than to WP Film. WP Film has very few unassessed articles, only three. WP Law has almost three thousand unassessed articles. Further, there is roughly twice as many unassessed articles in WP Law than there are assessed Start and B class articles combined. C classification will improve the assessment results of the 2700+ articles to be assessed.EECavazos (talk) 09:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Additional reason: WP Law should adopt the C classification because a lot of the wikiprojects that overlap with WP Law have adopted the C classification. We should have a congruence of assessments. If we don't have a C classification then when the other wikiprojects assess an article as a C class then we would inelegantly assess the article as something else like a Start class or a B class. Also, the other wikiproject member may also assess the article as a C class in WPLaw, but we would not see it due to the lack of a C classification. EECavazos (talk) 07:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Strong Agree I see many articles, particularly within the purview of this project, which are really not B-class, but are more than a stub. Why shouldn't there be a classification for these in-between articles? Non Curat Lex (talk) 07:24, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose. WikiProject Films was just one example of the many large and respectable WikiProjects (WP Films, WP India, WP Military History) that refused to adopt C-class, and I see no compelling reason in the above arguments. The purpose of assessment is simply to provide WikiProjects with a rough idea of where each article stands, and the current system does this perfectly well. We don't want people to obsess over the details of assessments (which is more complicated than necessary) instead of actually improving the law articles. Unassessed articles can be assessed through bot-assessment to reduce the backlog, or through an assessment drive which all 3 mentioned WikiProjects have successfully adopted, sometimes on more than one occasion. The argument that other editors might assess an article as C-class seems nonsensical given that the above 3 WikiProjects are dealing with that fine, and are actually successful in their output of good quality articles too. They don't spend an undue amount of their time on assessment, and that's precisely what we (as Wikipedians) are trying to promote. We need a simple assessment scheme that's enforced properly, and that takes care of any 'gap' issues. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Reopened assessment department

The current discussion should be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Law/Assessments talk page.EECavazos (talk) 01:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law/Assessment is the link.EECavazos (talk) 01:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Alternative, Superior External Links for the Opinion Full Text

Most Wikipedia entries I've seen for cases have a link in the External Links section to the full text of the opinion. Most of these links go to Findlaw, which is very flawed. It has popups, advertisements, and generally speaking it is not the most pleasant site to read. In addition, Findlaw is a subsidiary of Thomson West whose Westlaw seems ideologically opposed to the idea of open, free information which Wikipedia stands for.

The only advantage that Findlaw has is that, as a subsidiary of Thomson West, it seems established and legitimate. However, there are a number of emerging sources of law which have the very same cases but are open and far more pleasant to read and use. Examples include enfacto.com, precydent.com, altlaw.org, and justia.com.

It seems important to me that each case have a link to the full text of the opinion. It makes sense to me that Wikipedia should link to the best display of the case, and that should consider whether there exists popups, advertisements, and generally the readability of the site. I advocate here that additional External links created for cases not cite to Findlaw but instead link to one of the aforementioned sites.

Sincerely, K8lj (talk) 01:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I like Findlaw. I say that not as an argument to keep using it, but just to point out that reasonable minds could differ. What I would suggest is a template that has support for multiple sources. The initial editor adding a case could include their source or sources of choice, and other editors could flesh it out with additional sources. An editor could code something like:
 {{Caselaw source
 |case = Markman v. Westview
 |enfacto=http://enfacto.com/case/U.S./535/722/
 |precydent=http://precydent.com/citation/52/F.3d/967
 |altlaw=http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/1387621
 |justia=http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F3/52/967/573123/
 |findlaw=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=fed&navby=case&no=951066&exact=1
 }}
And get:
Text of Markman v. Westview is available from: Altlaw · Enfacto · Findlaw · Justia · Precydent
Additional sources could be added as they become available or discovered. (By the way, not all the links above are to Markman; after a very short exercise of looking for a case that would be available on all services, I decided that that wasn't worth the time for this quick demo-of-concept.) The text I propose is probably not the best, but just to give an idea. TJRC (talk) 02:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Any cases that are really worth having are worth copying to Wikisource. bd2412 T 03:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to copying cases to Wikisource, but that shouldn't be a requirement to link to the case text. TJRC (talk) 07:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I strongly agree that we should create a system whereby a user can choose which source to go to for the case (as suggested by TJRC. Remember (talk) 11:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
The choice may have been assisted by the general lack of free online sources of law here in Australia, but the {{Cite Case AU}} template links to all the various case law series over at AustLII. I think the other Free Access to Law Movement sites would be a good default to link to across the board, though I understand their coverage varies across the different countries, so that may need to be supplemented by other sources. --bainer (talk) 13:24, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I have a minor problem with the edits user:K8lj is making. Without any edit summary, the user is changing the links in some articles to be links to enfacto. The user also seems to be making massive amounts of edits that promote the same website. Chicken Wing (talk) 18:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Caselaw source template

Being inspired, I put together a rough cut of the template I proposed above, including some documentation: {{caselaw source}}. Feel free to give it a spin. A few examples (snipping from my doc):

Case name only, one source
{{caselaw source
 |case=''Miranda v. Arizona''
 |justia=http://supreme.justia.com/us/384/436/case.html
}}

produces:

Text of Miranda v. Arizona is available from:  · Justia

case name with cite and multiple sources
{{caselaw source
 |case=''Satava v. Lowry'', 323 F.3d 805 (9th Cir. 2003)
 |altlaw=http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/164890 
 |findlaw=http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0216347p.pdf
}}

produces:

Text of Satava v. Lowry, 323 F.3d 805 (9th Cir. 2003) is available from: Altlaw · Findlaw

use of other_sourcen and other_urln in addition to a predefined source
{{caselaw source
 |case=''Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc.'', 52 F.3d 967, 34 U.S.P.Q.2d 1321 (Fed. Cir. 1995)
 |precydent=http://precydent.com/citation/52/F.3d/967 
 |other_source1=resource.org
 |other_url1=http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/250/250.F3d.23.00-1549.html
}}

produces:

Text of Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967, 34 U.S.P.Q.2d 1321 (Fed. Cir. 1995) is available from:  · Precydent · resource.org

It definitely needs work, especially in formatting. I'd like to put that " · " character between sources, but not have it before the first source, but I'm not sure how to do that. This is my first attempt at a template, and I find the documentation rather opaque. I also frankly don't like my text: "Text of case name is available from" can surely be improved upon. TJRC (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I would like to also propose OpenJurist as a source for Case Law. With the help of MZMcBride we have updated much of the earlier SCOTUS directory. We are advertising-free, public benefit, open source, and reliable. Openjurist (talk) 14:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Edit war

There is a dispute between two editors here and although I have an opinion, I have protected the page due to this war and cannot mediate. Neither party seems willing to follow a third opinion and I'd be glad for some outside input. Thanks. --Rodhullandemu 19:29, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I am one of those involved editors, against the inclusion of the information. I am against it for the following:

  • It is a very long protracted, drawn out statement, in the lead of the article.
  • Survives on few references.
  • Brings a political agenda to the article, which is not desired.
  • Has manual of style problems.

Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 19:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Re-direct move request at Talk:Sine Qua Non

Just an FYI. Currently the redirect is going to the Battlestar Galatica episode. AgneCheese/Wine 19:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merger of "Category:Criminal law of Wales"

There is a proposal going on at "Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 September 15#Category:Criminal law of Wales" over whether "Category:Criminal law of Wales" should be merged into "Category:English criminal law" on the ground that the criminal law of England and Wales has been a unified system since 1542 and the latter is the more common term. The alternative is to rename "Category:English criminal law" to "Category:Criminal law of England and Wales". Your comments are welcome. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 18:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Legal

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Criminals

This may be off the scope of the project, but this is the closest project I could find relating to criminals. There is an AFD for Manu Sharma, (AFD), a convicted murderer, whose trial was marked with intense media scrutiny in India. Google news. The debate is whether WP:ONEEVENT applies to murderers on not. Please do weigh in. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

That is one debate. The other is whether it's ok to have negative, unsourced biographies about living people. Nichalp seems to believe that deleting them would be a travesty. J Milburn (talk) 21:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Constitution of May 3, 1791 up for FAR

Constitution of May 3, 1791 has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. D.M.N. (talk) 16:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

John Marshall Harlan II

I started a peer review of this article. You can leave you comments here. Ruslik (talk) 17:45, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

US Constition FAR Heads up

As a related Wikiproject, I'm informing you that United States Constitution has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Cheers! Zidel333 (talk) 15:28, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Disruption on law and competition law

Anyone who likes Wikipedia editors to spend more time writing content than arguing on talk pages, leaving a comment here could go a long way to achieving that. Wikidea 12:01, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Competence (law)

Does anyone know about the right to speedy trial, and if the client is incompetent? It should go somewhere in the article. Like what happens, if the defendant doesn't wave speedy trial, but isn't "made competent" before the 90th day. Reply on the article's talk page, and I'll word it in. Sentriclecub (talk) 10:16, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You're either talking about a non-federal USA speedy trial provision, or more likely, a statutory time to trial provision. Under the constitution of the USA, there is no set time for when speedy trial becomes an issue. At any rate, whatever jurisdiction you're looking at, I believe you'll find that lack of competency/fitness suspends a proceeding, including the passage of time for any statute/rule requiring a trial commence after so many days following an arrest/charge/complain/indictment/whatever. I'm including this in your own talk page, as the issue was not raised on the article's talk page. IMHO (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Question regarding the use of FindUSLaw.com

I would appreciate having some input from this project on finduslaw.com. Over multiple linking sprees, a group of users have been adding the site to Wikipedia, which resulted in a report at WT:WPSPAM#User Dargen. There are multiple issues involved with the additions, especially around WP:COI and WP:SPAM. This was even acknowledged by a user claiming to represent the website in a recent post where they said "We are working on integrating Wikipedia and findUSlaw better so we can attaract more traffic and thus more advertisers."

However, rather than blanket reverting all of the linkspamming (some of which dates back to 2006), the question I have is if this project views the site as reliable enough and appropriate in where it has been used. I would appreciate any feedback on the use of the link to date. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:34, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Barek. There is very little difference between what I have written here and the reality of a website like Findlaw. They do not create links between Wikipedia and FindLaw out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to attract viewers and thereby get advertisers: http://www.lawyermarketing.com/CM/Products/Products29.asp
We just happen to be particularly bad at attracting advertisers. We have been on Wikipedia since 2006 and are reliable and have advertisers who are neatly tucked away so that they are not in anyone's face. You see advertisements if you click Locate an Employment Lawyer and that's about it. We do not have any plans of littering our site with advertisers. Advertisers are and will be only on the Locate an Employment Lawyer page. Finduslaw (talk) 14:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
The links they were posting were their full text postings of U.S. federal and state statutes. There are a multitude of free sites that already host this information that a consensus of Wikipedia users have already determined to be reliable, or that are known to be in wide use among legal professionals and academics. So they are not providing a unique service, they are not a well-used source outside of WP, and to my knowledge no WP contributors unaffiliated with finduslaw.com have determined that they are a reliable source. Please note that I have also blocked User:Finduslaw per Wikipedia:IU#Inappropriate_usernames; they are welcome to register a different username that does not incorporate the name of their company or their domain name, provided that they do not further try to edit WP for self-promotional purposes. Postdlf (talk) 17:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Could you give the link to where this consensus of other reliable sources have been discussed or determined? Frankly, findlaw is the only one I know that covers as many cases as it does. While I have access to Westlaw through work, that is for work. When I want to look up a case on the internet for myself (or for wikipedia), I turn to findlaw. In short I see nothing wrong with using findlaw as a link to text of a case, but references should still cite the appropriate state/regional reporters, of course. IMHO (talk) 00:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

requested collaboration

I'd like to see a topic coordination or a task force to accomplish the following:

  1. There should be a Good Article on the subject of the Natural-Born Citizen clause of Article II of the United States Constitution. Right now the United States section of natural-born citizen is in decent shape, but I am afraid that expanding it further would contribute to geographic imbalance of the article. Also, who would care to work on this section so that it will stand alone as a Good Article?
  2. As a more long-term project it would be nice if all the Wikipedia pages that correspond to the individual articles of, and amendments to, the Constitution of the United States can be improved to Good Article status. Perhaps this would best be organized as a semi-permanent Task Force either of this WikiProject or of WikiProject United States Government, or of both. Maybe the first step would be to review each article against the Good Article criteria and generate specific suggestions for improvement on the talk page of each one. Then have an expert review each for accuracy.

So maybe start a topic coordination and grow it into a task force. What do you think? Please reply below. 69.140.152.55 (talk)  (cross-posted from WT:USG)  3:02, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

United States statewide political official templates

A discussion about the above, with relevance to WikiProject Law because it involves whether or not to include appointed state justices, is taking place here.

Obscenity/pornography laws

The PROTECT act's legislation is being stood up to be the Comic Book Legal Defense fund. [8] I am wondering what articles related to obscenity and pornography and the legal aspects of this in the United States (as well as ramifications elsewhere) would be relevant to pay attention to as this case develops. In particular, laws in Japan come to mind since it is regarding art which was published there and imported into Iowa. Tyciol (talk) 23:44, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Help with Computer crime

This article serious needs a cleanup/rewrite. Looks like i'm the only editor interested, if any can look at it and the proposals on the talk page, it would be appreciated. Thank you. --neon white talk 13:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

"Product disparagement"

Consumer Reports says: "In 2003, Sharper Image sued CR in California for product disparagement"
I was a little surprised that it's possible to sue someone for "product disparagement". Does this mean that expressing one's opinion that a brand of beer, pickup truck, television, etc, etc is inferior is theoretically actionable?
We apparently don't have an article on product disparagement. There is an article on Disparagement, but as far as I can tell that isn't exactly the same thing.
Does anybody feel like creating Product disparagement, or adding content to Disparagement? Thanks. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 15:26, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

From Black's Law Dictionary 8th ed. (2004): "trade disparagement. The common-law tort of belittling someone's business, goods, or services with a remark that is false or misleading but not necessarily defamatory. • To succeed at the action, a plaintiff must prove that (1) the defendant made the disparaging remark; (2) the defendant intended to injure the business, knew that the statement was false, or recklessly disregarded whether it was true; and (3) the statement resulted in special damages to the plaintiff, usu. by passing off. -- Also termed commercial disparagement; product disparagement; injurious falsehood." Therefore, it should have a section under the defamation page144.118.152.115 (talk) 22:31, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Legally, "trade disparagement" looks very similar to defamation. However, there is a VERY significant difference. Defamation (slander, libel) are torts against INDIVIDUAL reputation and dignity. Product reputation is very different because there's no individual person. Also, it's different trademark violation/dilution (which is entirely statutory, and this kind of "disparagement" originates with common law.) Because disparagement does not target an individual, it's usually coupled in academic materials with business and economic torts, not defamation. So there are arguments that this should be with defamation, but arguments that it should be with economic interference. Perhaps both? Non Curat Lex (talk) 22:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Think I've heard that called "trade libel". bd2412 T 05:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Public court record documents sought

I'm currently expanding an article on the USS Iowa turret explosion with the aim of eventually submitting it for Featured consideration. A couple of courts cases are related to the subject, but I can't find the court documents for them online.

One concerns some of the individuals named in the article, who later sued [9] [10] the author, publisher, and one of the sources of a book about the incident that I'm using as a source for the article. The defamation suit took place in South Carolina and involved one appeal to the state supreme court. I found the state supreme court's decision document [11], but I'm having a hard time locating the documents from the trial court proceeding.

The other is a suit brought by the Hartwig family against the United States Navy. I assume the case is called something like, "Hartwig vs the US Government", but I can't find any mention of it online. The only mention I can find of it is in this magazine article [12]. Any suggestions on how I could locate the public documents from these cases? Cla68 (talk) 02:40, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Over at the Charleston County website, I went looking through all the 2002 cases heard by Victor A. Raul (i.e. two years before this), and found "CP10 2001 000604", MOOSALLY, FRED P ETAL v W W NORTON & COMPANY INC ETAL. As you may already know, that case was settled out of court.[13] The documents of that case that are available via the online system dont give much away, however the letter from the Supreme court also mentions "2001-CP-10-00981 - Dale E. Mortensen v. W. W. Norton". John Vandenberg (chat) 15:46, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. Cla68 (talk) 01:42, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Colorado wikisources

s:Index:Bench and bar of Colorado - 1917.djvu contains the history of law in Colorado, short bios and portraits (e.g. p51), and lists of everyone who was on the bench and bar in Colorado in 1917. Anyone wanting to extract an image from the Wikisource book should click "image" at the top of each page, as that will provide a much higher resolution to be cropped and cleaned up. If you see an error in the text, please edit the page and correct it. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:14, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Initiative and referendum

Could someone in the know check whether the sources here support the text and if the reversion should be reversed? Thanks, the skomorokh 12:37, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Leaving a paragraph ending with "..." isnt a good sign; neither is removing on-topic quotes. A removal like that needs explanation. I'll leave a note on the article talk page pointing here. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:29, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
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