westlawnext for criminal law i - pesca
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WESTLAWNEXTCriminal Law I – Pesca
This is what you see when youfirst open WestlawNext!
The search box is designed like Googlefor simplicity.
24/7 assistance
Legal Issue:• Do citizens have a 4th Amendment right to privacy in their
trash left outside for pick-up in the State of New York, or do police need a search warrant?
Some courts located in New York (and in all of the United States) are
federal courts, which is why you see both Federal and State court listings
under New York. It may seem confusing at first, but it is the U.S.
court structure.
The following slide contains a very simplified version of the U.S. court structure. For further clarification, ask your professor or a librarian.
In general, you will search these courts most often.
By selecting All New York State Cases, we ensure that we are getting cases
from NY trial courts, appellate courts and most importantly, NY’s highest
court, the New York Court of
Appeals.
Here we are searching all NY cases using a natural language search: Do people have a 4th Amendment right to privacy in their trash left outside for pick-up, or do police need a
search warrant?
You can sort your results by relevance (your terms appear
most frequently in the top case and less so as you go down the list).
You can sort your results by date… but this is only a county court case. Higher court cases
carry more legal weight.
You can search by date, meaning most recent cases
are listed first. You can search by “most cited” meaning other
courts have referred to the top cases most frequently.
Note that in addition to a list of cases, WestlawNext provides secondary sources, such
as law review articles, interpreting the legal issue you have searched.
LET’S RUN THE SEARCH AGAIN, THIS TIME USING SIMPLE BOOLEAN CONNECTORS.Boolean searching, while not as easy as natural language searching, allows you to control your search results very specifically.
Boolean Symbols in WestlawNext
Connectors and Expanders
• & AND• /s In same sentence • Or OR• +s Preceding within sentence• /p In same paragraph• " " Phrase• +p Preceding within paragraph• % But not• /n Within n terms of• ! Root expander• +n Preceding within n terms of• * Universal character
When and how should I use these?
• When: You have a focused search in mind.
• How: Use one, two, or more in combination.
• How: Don’t get overwhelmed with trying to incorporate several connectors or
expanders. • You may actually ELIMINATE useful results
this way!
With simple Boolean searching, we retrieved 32 cases, very similar to the results we found with natural language
searching.
Now what?
Click icon to add picture
Your challenge now is to find a key case that most closely
addresses your legal issue, is reasonably
current (though a pivotal case may be very old), and is still good law.
No flag = good law so far - Yellow flag = caution – Red flag = no longer good law (has been overruled, overturned)
Click on the flag for specific negative history.
Just because there is no flag…• … does not mean this is the best case!
• A case like Roe v. Wade – (Supreme Court of the United States January 22, 1973 - 410 U.S. 113)
• a very famous U.S. Supreme Court case in the 1970s, has a yellow flag because some courts have not agreed with certain aspects of the Court’s ruling – but this case has been cited over 22,000 times!
• If later cases have ‘cited’ to (referred to) a case thousands of times, even if there is some negative treatment, this case is still good law, and very, very important!
• Bottom line: don’t be afraid of cases with yellow flags!
Click on the flag.
HEADNOTES….…explained
1. A court issues an opinion in a case.
2. A copy of the case is obtained by West, where attorney-editors read the cases and pick out the points of law or legal issues in the case.
3. These legal issues or points of law are summarized in a “headnote” and assigned a topic and key number.
Headnote 6 of Illinois v. Caballes is discussed extensively in State v.
Griffin.
LET’S DO ANOTHER EXAMPLE.Case Law Searching
Legal Issue:• If a K9 is used to walk by an automobile the police
suspect might have drugs in it, is that a search without a warrant?
Here we are approaching the legal issue with natural
language searching.
Which case do I choose?• As with the prior example, this is the challenge, once you
have formulated your search technique. It is a balancing act between:• Is the case most like my fact pattern?• Is the case still good law?• Is there a more recent case close to my fact pattern?
LET’S RUN THE SEARCH AGAIN, THIS TIME USING SIMPLE BOOLEAN CONNECTORS.As we saw in our prior example, Boolean searching, while not as easy as natural language searching, allows you to control your search results very specifically, and can produce more effective results!
Boolean searching!
• Connectors and Expanders
Before jumping in and deciding that natural language is your best bet for retrieving search results, remember correct Boolean searching produces accurate results that you can compare to your natural language search results.
& AND/s In same sentence Or OR+s Preceding within sentence/p In same paragraph" " Phrase+p Preceding within paragraph% But not/n Within n terms of! Root expander+n Preceding within n terms of* Universal character
Concepts:• Canine or dog or K9• Auto or automobile or car or vehicle or truck• 4th Amendment or Search and Seizure or Right to Privacy• Search Warrant
• (k9 or dog or canine) & (auto! or car or vehicle or truck) & ("4th amendment" or "search and seizure" or "right to privacy") & "search warrant"
Notice we retrieved 19 more cases on
this topic with Boolean searching!
This is a perfect example of why
you should not rely solely on natural
language searching.
DOCUMENT DELIVERYPrinting, emailing, downloading…
You can email,print,
download or send the
document to your Kindle.
Email, print and download delivery methods give you the option of
including West headnotes, written by Westlaw attorneys summarizing the
key points of law in a case.
Pay attention to whether you want to print the entire
document or just certain pages!
AMERICAN LAW REPORTS“ALR” = a legal encyclopedia!
American Law Reports• American Law Reports (ALR) delivers an objective, in-
depth analysis of your specific legal issue, together with a complete list of every case – in every jurisdiction – that discusses it.
• With thousands of attorney-authored articles covering the entire breadth of U.S. law, ALR saves you time by taking you deeper on a topic, faster. • Use ALR to:• Quickly get up to speed in an unfamiliar area of law.• Locate all relevant case law in one easy step.• Determine which cases are controlling and understand why.
Searching for “Illinois v. Caballes” within these
1,773 results
Illinois v. Caballes is highlighted in purple.
Introductory paragraph in ALR