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OAH Magazine of History Copyright © |
Judicial History on the World Wide Web: An Annotated GuideLaura Baich and Jessica Loving |
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Anatomy of a Murder: A Trip Through Our Nation’s Legal Justice System: http://tqd.advanced.org/2760/homep.htm. Visitors to this site find themselves in the middle of a fictional murder trial with legally accurate details. By following the trial, participants see how the legal system works and learn about the details of a criminal case. The site also provides an introduction to the legal justice system, information on Supreme Court cases, a glossary of legal terms, and actual documents used during an arrest.
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm. The Avalon Project offers “digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy, and Government.” The selections span over the last four centuries and cover the United States as well as other countries. British and Irish Legal History Links: http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/urllists/history.htm. Cambridge University maintains this site offering articles concerning British and Irish legal history from the eleventh century to the present day. The site also contains links to publishing houses, electronic law journals, and several British and Irish news organizations. Court TV Online: http://www.courttv.com/legaldocs. This site contains biographies on justices, information on recent Supreme Court cases, and government documents including reports on President Clinton and Whitewater, Jones v. Clinton, and the House Ethics Report on Newt Gingrich. Documents for American History: http://vi.uh.edu/pages/alh.html. Professor Robert Palmer of the University of Houston maintains this collection of primary documents, which includes texts of major nineteenth century Supreme Court cases, various state constitutions, and the debates on the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Palmer includes prefatory remarks and student discussion questions for each document. The Federal Judiciary Home Page: http://www.uscourts.gov/. This overview of the federal courts contains a page of Frequently Asked Questions about the U.S. legal system. It also lists the location and number of judges who sit on each court. FedWorld/FLITE Supreme Court Decisions Homepage: http://www.fedworld.gov/supcourt/index.htm. The FLITE system (Federal Legal Information Through Electronics), maintained by the U.S. Air Force, contains full texts of over seven thousand Supreme Court opinions from 1937-75. Find Law: http://www.findlaw.com/01topics/28legaltheory/index.html. Find Law furnishes visitors with information on almost every aspect of the law. Features include current legal news; state, foreign, and international law resources; chat rooms and message boards; and a job database. Find Law Internet Legal Resources: http://www.findlaw.com/. This site provides searchable databases of Supreme Court opinions and cases from 1893 to the present and also contains the Congressional Research Service’s annotated version of the U.S. Constitution. The site has directories of U.S. circuit and district courts, legal news, and law reviews. H-Law: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~law/. Designed for teachers and scholars with interests in constitutional and legal history, H-Law’s main attraction is a forum where visitors can post questions to and leave answers for one another. The site provides other resources such as class syllabi; book and movie reviews; a database containing upcoming conferences, calls for papers, and grants; and links to other history sites. History Links: http://www.erols.com/psu9293/politics/his.html. History Links provides information on American historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Susan B. Anthony, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It also contains full-text reproductions of historical articles such as the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Magna Carta. Legal History Quotes: http://www.commonlaw.com/index.html. This is a regularly updated site for anyone interested in legal history and theory. It provides quotations from various legal historians and translations of legal documents, as well as links to other law-related sites. The Lincoln Legal Papers: http://www.papersofabrahamlincoln.org/. Sponsored by the Illinois Historic Preservation Society, this site provides information about The Lincoln Legal Papers, a work-in-progress that will culminate in a CD-ROM and a multi-volume book containing records and information about Abraham Lincoln’s legal career (1836-61). The site also offers some basic information about Lincoln’s life as a lawyer. Oyez Oyez Oyez: http://oyez.nwu.edu/. Maintained by Northwestern University, Oyez Oyez Oyez is a multimedia database focusing on the Supreme Court. It contains abstracts of important constitutional cases, digital audio of oral arguments in key cases, and recordings of announcements of the Court’s opinion. The site also provides links to written opinions of the Court in all cases since 1893 and includes biographies of all 108 justices who have served on the Supreme Court. Selected Historic Decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/historic.htm. Drawing largely from the Cornell University Legal Information Institute’s CD-ROM, this site contains the Court decisions pre-dating the release of decisions on the Internet. The site contains a special educational section on the two Amistad trials (both the 1841 slavery trial argued by John Quincy Adams and the 1997 copyright case involving the Steven Spielberg movie). Street Law: http://www.streetlaw.org. Sponsored by StreetLaw, Inc., a non-profit organization striving to promote learning and communication skills through law-related education, this site offers descriptions and ordering information for its classroom and community programs as well as basic information about the organization. Supreme Court Historical Society: http://www.supremecourthistory.org. This site provides a list of significant Supreme Court arguments, audio selections from lectures on the Court, and announcements of upcoming C-SPAN broadcasts. Supreme Court Report: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wpsrv/politics/govt/govt.htm. The Washington Post maintains this page on the Supreme Court, which includes information on key cases during present and past terms, summaries of all major cases, and the history of the Court and how it operates. Titanic Virtual Trial: http://www.andersonkill. com/titanic/home.htm. The law firm of Anderson, Kill, and Olick originally developed this site as part of Take Our Daughters to Work Day, in an effort to expose children to the legal system. The site takes visitors though a mock trial based on actual events surrounding the sinking of the Titanic. It includes a teacher’s guide with information about using the trial in the classroom. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit: http://www.fedcir.gov/. This site provides access to decisions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Daily Log, and the directory of the Court Opinion. It also contains a copy of the Court Rules. World Legal History: http://www.wwlia.org/hist.htm. This extensive collection of legal information contains a page especially designed for children, along with summaries and full-text reproductions of legal documents dating from 2350 b.c. to this century. Other resources include an extensive dictionary of legal terms, articles written by lawyers in plain language so as to aid the public, and some legal humor. Laura Baich and Jessica Loving are majoring in English at Indiana University. They are currently participating in the Organization of American Historians undergraduate internship program. |