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Friday, April 29, 2005
About this Blog - Disappointments, Part I
One of the reasons I started the Indiana Law Blog was to fill a void in the reporting of Indiana appellate court opinions. I'll talk about that more in a later entry.
I also hoped to use the blog to point to other areas where important legal information needed to be better reported or made more readily available. But little has changed. Below is the 2004 ILB Wish List. Item #1, of course, stands in a class by itself. The remaining items, however, could readily be accomplished by our elected/appointed officials, and would make a difference:
This is New Year's Eve [12/31/03]. Here is what the Indiana Law Blog would like to see for Indiana in the New Year. Maybe not all at once, but at least a start.1. Women (note the plural) on the Indiana Supreme Court. Current status: Five men, no women.
2. Copies of briefs for cases before the Indiana Supreme Court made available online. When? At the same time they are filed with the Clerk of the Court. [See more about this in an entry this afternoon]
3. The Debates of the Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1850, the Convention Journal, and related documents made readily available on CD-ROM or DVD, and priced right for the student. Incredibly, these books are out-of-print -- I had to slowly assemble my collection from dealers all over the country.
4. I've got more CD/DVD wishes - the House and Senate Journals since Indiana became a State; the Acts of Indiana for the same time-span. Scanned, so that we can see the printed pages. Electronic finding aids would also be nice, but the important thing right now is to capture all this history and make it available before it totally disintegrates.
5. A booklet containing the Constitution of the State of Indiana, and including all the changes that have been made over time. Also the 1816 Constitution.
6. The Indiana Historical Bureau puts out an invaluable series titled "Constitution Making in Indiana." Volume I, 1780-1850; Vol. II, 1851-1916; Vol. III, 1916-1930; and Vol. IV, 1930-1960. These volumes are compilations of source materials. As stated in the Preface to Volume III:
As in the preceding volumes, the field has been limited to documents bearing some sanction of authority, including in this instance, activities of the General Assembly, governors' messages, party platforms, official ballots, court decisions, and opinions of attorney-generals. They have been taken from the printed House and Senate Journals, the Laws, and the Court Reports, supplemented when necessary by original documents, printed bills, or manuscript records from the office of secretary of state.What we'd like to see in 2004, of course, is: Volume V, 1961-2000! Plus a plan for the future of this publication , which is such an invaluable historical resource for the Courts, the Indiana General Assembly, and all of us citizens of Indiana.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 29, 2005 11:34 AM
Posted to About the Indiana Law Blog