Report on Trends in State Courts

The National Center for State Courts has released the Report on Trends in State Courts. The latter link leads to an HTML index where individual sections of the report can be accessed (in PDF). The report covers a lot of ground, but two sections should be of particular interest to web denizens: Time for Electronic Court Records; and Web Logs: Increasing Courts' Ability to Quickly Communicate with Constituents.

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Issue 1 Now In Effect

From the Hannah Report:

Issue 1, the constitutional amendment that prohibits unmarried couples from receiving "partner" benefits from the state or other public entities, went into effect across the state of Ohio Thursday. The amendment was passed November 2 by nearly 62 percent of those who voted, despite the fact that it was opposed by Gov. Bob Taft, both of Ohio's U.S. senators, several members of the state's congressional delegation, mayors of all the major cities, AARP, the League of Women Voters of Ohio, and the Inter- University Council, among others.

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End of Year CLE Blues?

The Ohio State Bar Association's CLE Institute is offering 6 online CLE hours for the price of four. In an e-mail I received late yesterday afternoon, the Institute stated that when you purchase 4 hours, a coupon will be e-mailed for the additional two hours. Six hours of online CLE is the maximum allowed by the Ohio Supreme Court for any biennial period. Interested parties should mosey on over to http://www.ohiobar.org/onlinecle/

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Public Records

Found a new site recently (at least it was new to me) that offers a host of links pointing to Ohio state, county, and city sites where the records can be found. The link is
http://www.brbpub.com/pubrecsitesSearch.asp?type=1&st=Ohio
The creator of the site is BRB Publications, Inc.

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New Drug Database Bill ?

From a Gongwer News Service article:

The Senate Health, Human Services & Aging Committee approved legislation allowing the State Board of Pharmacy to create a database that would track Ohioans' use of dangerous prescription medications. The vote on the bill came after the panel tabled a Democratic amendment that would have allowed the use of marijuana for medical purposes. HB 337 is predicted to be heading to a floor vote before the end of the year.

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New Ohio Anti-Spam Law

Here's the link: http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=125_HB_383

Here's the preamble to it:

To amend section 2923.01 and to enact section 2913.421 of the Revised Code to prohibit a person from transmitting multiple commercial electronic mail messages, falsifying routing information in those messages, falsifying registration information for multiple electronic mail accounts, or falsifying the right to use five or more internet protocol addresses, and to prohibit unauthorized access to a computer to transmit multiple commercial electronic mail messages.

Penalties? Could be up to 6 months in prison, fines up to $25,000. Also a possibility of a $2-8 fine for each spam e-mail. Now that could add up in a hurry.

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Register of Ohio

This is a resource you don't hear too much about. However, for those with an interest in the Ohio Administrative Code and possible updates to it, the site is a must-visit. The Register of Ohio http://www.registerofohio.state.oh.us/index.jsp page offers opportunities to search within proposed and recently adopted rules, browse the rules by various criteria, peruse public notices concerning hearings that will be held, and access various rule-drafting manuals created by the Legislative Service Commission and the Joint Commission on Agency Rule Review.

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Municipal Ordinances

These are usually the bane of the law librarian's existence. Difficult to order, update, and shelve within the collection, they have sometimes just been relegated to having a "no longer updated" sticker affixed to them. However, many of these hard-to-find laws can now be found on the web at the following sites:

Walter H. Drane Company (http://www.walterdrane.com/internet/index.htm).
Offers access to over 50 local codes.

LexisNexis Municipal Codes Web Library (http://www.bpcnet.com/codes.htm#OH).
Just Akron and Columbus can be found here.

American Legal Publishing (http://amlegal.com/online_library.htm#Ohio).
Users of this site will find a multitude of codes.

Municode.com (http://www.municode.com/resources/code_list.asp?stateID=35)
The Cincinnati and Dayton codes live here.

Cleveland Legal Codes (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/clevelandcodes)
Cleveland’s Code has finally made it to the Internet. For those interested in burrowing even further into the morass known as municipal lawmaking, the city even offers its City Record (http://tinyurl.com/3z8wr) for further review.

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Attorney Registration Information

A few months back, the Supreme Court of Ohio's Attorney Registration Section released its online search mechanism. Users of the site can search by name, registration number, or geographic information. Results will provide basic info as well as if an attorney has been disciplined or may had had problems keeping up with the Ohio CLE requirement. Check it out at http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/atty_reg/Public_AttorneyInformation.asp

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Welcome

Welcome to the new blawg, Ohio Law. There may be other blawgs of the same name, but I didn't perform any searching before naming mine. As the intro states, I'll try to post whenever I find information that others could use. Off-topic posts may make it from time-to-time as well. Another interest of mine is fighting spyware. For more information on the latter, browse on over to http://www.geocities.com/kenkoz8688/SpywareDelendaEst.html

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