The Short List of Supreme Court Candidates

Current Events, Exploring HeinOnline, History of Supreme Court Nominations, Law Journal Library, U.S. Supreme Court
Shannon Furtak

Despite protests from Republican presidential candidates and Senate leaders, President Obama has made it clear that he intends to nominate a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away suddenly on February 13. Based on reports from several news sources, including USA Today, Newsweek, PBS, and CNN, here is a short list of candidates who could receive the nomination.

Sri Srinivasan

Padmanabhan Srikanth Srinivasan, who once clerked for Sandra Day O'Connor, appeared on all four of the lists compiled by the above news outlets. He's only 48 years old…

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Mourning the Loss of a Justice, and Debate over the Supreme Court's Future

Current Events, History of Supreme Court Nominations, ScholarCheck
Shannon Furtak

Last weekend, the U.S. Supreme Court lost one of its most vocal, controversial, and polarizing justices in modern history. Antonin Scalia, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1986, was the longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court. He was the leading conservative voice on the Court, known for his outspoken personality and his advocacy for textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation.

Scalia's sudden death has caused a new controversy between the Republican and Democratic parties: should Barack Obama nominate Scalia's successor, or should that task be the responsibility of the 2016 Presidential election winner? Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell believes the next administration should make the appointment…

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Research African-Americans' Contributions to Legal History

Current Events, Exploring HeinOnline, Navigating, Searching
Shannon Furtak

In September of 1915, Dr. Carter G. Woodson helped found the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). The Association had the initial goal of bringing the historical contributions of African-Americans to national attention at a time when these contributions were largely overlooked; today, the organization's mission is to promote, research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to the global community.

In 1926, ASALH declared the second week of each February to be "Negro History Week." This week was chosen because it coincided with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass…

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What Is a Natural Born Citizen?

Current Events, Hot Topic News, Law Journal Library, World Constitutions Illustrated
Shannon Furtak

In order to be elected President of the United States, a candidate must have natural-born citizen status. The 2016 Presidential election has thus far been quite contentious. As the primaries loom, the issue of eligibility to hold office as U.S. President has been raised.

What is a natural born citizen, exactly? A quick search for this phrase in HeinOnline reveals this article from the Harvard Law Review Forum, which defines natural born citizen as "a citizen from birth with no need to go through naturalization proceedings." The article further states that persons born abroad, who are citizens from birth based on the citizenship of a parent…

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Netflix's "Making a Murderer" Is Captivating Everyone

Current Events, Exploring HeinOnline, Fastcase, Law Journal Library, Searching
Shannon Furtak

Thank goodness winter has finally arrived.

Prior to the recent arctic blast, we felt compelled to venture outdoors and actively participate in society. Now, with temperatures in the teens and cars covered in ice, there is zero shame in curling up on the couch and binge-watching Netflix's popular documentary, Making a Murderer.

Spoiler Alert

This 10-episode true crime series from filmmakers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi follows the story of Steven Avery, a man erroneously convicted of sexual assault and attempted murder in 1985. After being exonerated by DNA evidence and released from prison in 2003, he was later accused and convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach…

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Martin Luther King, Jr.: An Extraordinary Legacy

Current Events, Exploring HeinOnline, Searching
Shannon Furtak

Each January, we celebrate the life of a man who had a tremendous impact on race relations in the United States. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights activist and a Baptist minister. Though his life was cut far too short by an assassin's bullet in 1968, the ideals he embodied, his methods of peaceful protest, and his visions for a future without racism are still admired and discussed today.

Dr. King first entered the public spotlight after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama in December of 1955. Leaders of the NAACP met with Dr…

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Sexual Assault on College Campuses and the American Law Institute

ALI, Current Events, Exploring HeinOnline, Law Journal Library, Searching
Shannon Furtak

Sexual assault on college campuses, and consent issues in general, have been prevalent topics in the news. CNN reports that 23% of female college students experience some form of unwanted sexual contact. This contact ranges from kissing to touching to rape, and is carried out by force or threat of force, or while the victim is incapacitated due to the effects of alcohol or drugs.

This information sharply contradicts statistics reported by colleges: according to this article in Chronicle of Higher Education, nine out of 10 colleges reported no rapes at all on their campuses in 2014…

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This Year's Most Frequently Accessed Articles

Current Events, Law Journal Library, ScholarCheck
Shannon Furtak

2015 was an incredibly newsworthy year. From a terrorist attack in Paris in the first week of 2015 to the recent attacks in both Paris and San Bernardino, tragic plane crashes at the hands of a co-pilot and suspected terrorism, Donald Trump's controversial Presidential candidacy, multiple mass shootings, and the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage, there is much to be discussed, debated and remembered about this year.

To see what's been trending over the past 12 months in the world of legal research…

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Who Is Angela Merkel?

Current Events, Exploring HeinOnline, Law Journal Library, U.S. Congressional Documents
Shannon Furtak

Last week, Time Magazine named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its 2015 Person of the Year. The annual Person of Year issue of Time profiles a person, group, idea, or object that "for better or for worse … has done the most to influence the events of the year."

Angela Merkel is Germany's first female Chancellor, and only the fourth woman since 1927 to receive the Person of the Year designation. What is unique about her leadership and how did she best seven other finalists, including ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Caitlyn Jenner…

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Use HeinOnline to Research the Issues Weighing on Today's World

Current Events, Exploring HeinOnline, Hot Topic News, Immigration
Shannon Furtak

The recent terrorist attacks in Paris have parts of Belgium in a historical lockdown and the rest of the world on edge, and tensions are growing both domestically and globally. When the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility, heated debates about the admission of Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees began worldwide. Conditions in war-torn Syria are such that millions of people are fleeing, some not surviving the journey to neighboring countries or Europe. For some, including key U.S. political figures, concern for the refugees' plight is outweighed by a fear of future acts of terror.

Run a HeinOnline catalog search for ISIS OR ISIL and receive these results…

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