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• Conducting legal research : process and preliminaries
• Tools and techniques for legal research
• Secondary sources
• Constitutions, statutes, and court rules
• Court structure and judicial opinions
• Case law research strategies
• Citators
• Administrative law research
• Bill tracking and legislative history research
• Research strategies

"Indiana Legal Research is a practical, process-oriented guide to the skills and resources necessary to research Indiana law. The book is designed for teaching first-year students, either as a stand-alone text or in conjunction with a research text focusing on federal law. The book is also suitable for use in advanced legal research courses. Others who will find the book useful include practitioners, paralegals, college students, laypersons, and anyone needing a concise handbook on how to find and use Indiana legal materials"-- Provided by publisher

• The research process and legal analysis
• Legal research sources and techniques
• Secondary sources
• The Constitution
• Judicial opinions, reporters, and digests
• Statutes, court rules, and ordinances
• Legislative history
• Administrative law
• Updating with citators
• Practice aids
• Legal ethics
• Research strategies

"Iowa Legal Research is designed for teaching legal research to first-year law students. Others who will find it helpful include practitioners, paralegals, librarians, college students, and even laypeople. The goal is to make the complex process of legal research understandable and accessible. Outlines of the research process and examples from Iowa resources make the book easy to use. URLs point researchers to where they can find access to free or low-cost legal materials on the web. Screen shots and excerpts are used frequently to help in understanding a resource. In addition to covering Iowa-specific resources, the book discusses how to find applicable federal law. Thanks to that comprehensive coverage, Iowa Legal Research can be used as a stand-alone text or in conjunction with a research text covering U.S. law. The book begins with an overview of the research process and legal analysis so that the reader can better understand the nature of these complementary components in finding and reviewing the law"-- Provided by publisher

• Preface to Second Edition / Sarah Reis & Sarah Walangitan
• 1. Introduction to the United States legal system / Konya L. Moss
• 2. How to read legal citations / Maribel Nash (updated by Sarah Reis)
• 3. Statutes / Ramsey Donnell
• 4. Cases / Jamie Sommer (updated by Bridgette Thoma)
• 5. Administrative law / Deborah Darin (updated by Philip Johnson)
• 6. Municipal law : Cook County and the City of Chicago / Walter Baumann (updated by Lisa Winkler)
• 7. Researching outside of Illinois : the laws of Indiana and Wisconsin / Heidi Frostestad Kuehl
• 8. Illinois legislative history / Jean Wenger
• 9. Free and low-cost legal research resources / Tom Keefe
• 10. Avoiding the unauthorized practice of law / Tom Gaylord (updated by Ariel Scotese)
• 11. Where to seek additional help / Victor Salas
• 12. Recommended publishers & resources / Joseph Mitzenmacher (updated by Sarah Walangitan)

• Foreword
• Preface and acknowledgments for the third edition
• The research process and legal analysis
• Preparing to research and organization research results
• Research techniques
• Secondary sources and practice aids
• Constitutions
• Statutes
• Bill tracking and legislative history
• Rules of court and professional ethics
• Administrative law
• Court systems and judicial opinions
• Researching judicial opinions
• Citators
• Legal citation.

"The third edition of [this book] provides a meaningful introduction to legal research in [Idaho]. It begins with an overview of the legal research process and introductory chapters on planning a research strategy and executing online legal research in an ever expanding variety of sources. It then addresses primary law with chapters on constitutions, judicial opinions, statutes, and administrative law. Additional chapters cover bill tracking and legislative history, rules of court and professional ethics, citators (KeyCite and Shepard’s), secondary sources, and the fundamentals of legal citation."-- Publisher's website.

• Illinois before Statehood: Slave Country of the Northwest Territory
• The Constitution of 1818: Slavery, a Bogus Census, Feeble Executive Power
• Black Codes and Bondage, Settling the North, Legislative Follies
• The Constitution of 1848: Reconstructing Government, Balancing Powers, Oppressing Free Blacks
• 1848-1868: Two Transformative Decades
• Civil War, a Partisan Convention, the Decisive Later 1860s.
• The Constitution of 1870: Progressive Foundation for a Century

In its early days, Illinois seemed destined to extend the American South. Its population of transplants lived an upland southern culture and in some cases owned slaves. Yet the nineteenth century and three constitutions recast Illinois as a crucible of northern strength and American progress. Frank Cicero Jr. provides an appealing new history of Illinois as expressed by the state's constitutions-and the lively conventions that led to each one. In Creating the Land of Lincoln, Cicero sheds light on the vital debates of delegates who, freed from electoral necessity, revealed the opinions, prejudices, sentiments, and dreams of Illinoisans at critical junctures in state history. Cicero simultaneously analyzes decisions large and small that fostered momentous social and political changes. The addition of northern land in the 1818 constitution, for instance, opened up the state to immigrant populations that reoriented Illinois to the north. Legislative abuses and rancor over free blacks influenced the 1848 document and the subsequent rise of a Republican Party that gave the nation Abraham Lincoln as its president. Cicero concludes with the 1870 constitution, revealing how its dialogues and resolutions set the state on the modern course that still endures today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• Illinois before statehood : slave country of the Northwest Territory
• The constitution of 1818 : slavery, a bogus census, feeble executive power
• Black codes and bondage, settling the North, legislative follies
• The constitution of 1848 : reconstructing government, balancing powers, oppressing free blacks
• Two transformative decades : 1848-1868
• Civil War, a partisan convention, the decisive later 1860s -- The constitution of 1870 : progressive foundation for a century.

In its early days, Illinois seemed destined to extend the American South. Its population of transplants lived an upland southern culture and in some cases owned slaves. Yet the nineteenth century and three constitutions recast Illinois as a crucible of northern strength and American progress. Frank Cicero Jr. provides an appealing new history of Illinois as expressed by the state's constitutions-and the lively conventions that led to each one. In Creating the Land of Lincoln, Cicero sheds light on the vital debates of delegates who, freed from electoral necessity, revealed the opinions, prejudices, sentiments, and dreams of Illinoisans at critical junctures in state history. Cicero simultaneously analyzes decisions large and small that fostered momentous social and political changes. The addition of northern land in the 1818 constitution, for instance, opened up the state to immigrant populations that reoriented Illinois to the north. Legislative abuses and rancor over free blacks influenced the 1848 document and the subsequent rise of a Republican Party that gave the nation Abraham Lincoln as its president. Cicero concludes with the 1870 constitution, revealing how its dialogues and resolutions set the state on the modern course that still endures today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Illinois before Statehood: Slave Country of the Northwest Territory
• The Constitution of 1818: Slavery, a Bogus Census, Feeble Executive Power
• Black Codes and Bondage, Settling the North, Legislative Follies
• The Constitution of 1848: Reconstructing Government, Balancing Powers, Oppressing Free Blacks
• 1848-1868: Two Transformative Decades
• Civil War, a Partisan Convention, the Decisive Later 1860s.
• The Constitution of 1870: Progressive Foundation for a Century.

In its early days, Illinois seemed destined to extend the American South. Its population of transplants lived an upland southern culture and in some cases owned slaves. Yet the nineteenth century and three constitutions recast Illinois as a crucible of northern strength and American progress. Frank Cicero Jr. provides an appealing new history of Illinois as expressed by the state's constitutions-and the lively conventions that led to each one. In Creating the Land of Lincoln, Cicero sheds light on the vital debates of delegates who, freed from electoral necessity, revealed the opinions, prejudices, sentiments, and dreams of Illinoisans at critical junctures in state history. Cicero simultaneously analyzes decisions large and small that fostered momentous social and political changes. The addition of northern land in the 1818 constitution, for instance, opened up the state to immigrant populations that reoriented Illinois to the north. Legislative abuses and rancor over free blacks influenced the 1848 document and the subsequent rise of a Republican Party that gave the nation Abraham Lincoln as its president. Cicero concludes with the 1870 constitution, revealing how its dialogues and resolutions set the state on the modern course that still endures today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The history of the Iowa constitution
• Preamble and boundaries
• Article I : Bill of rights
• Article II : right of suffrage
• Article III : of the distribution of powers
• Article IV : executive department
• Article V : judicial department
• Article VI : militia
• Article VII : state debts
• Article VIII : corporations
• Article IX : education and school lands
• Article X : amendments to the Constitution
• Article XI : miscellaneous
• Article XII : schedule.

• Introduction: Opening the courthouse doors
• Separate and unequal justice
• Of monsters and mopes : racial and criminal "immorality"
• Race in everyday legal practices
• There are no racists here : prosecutors in the criminal courts
• Rethinking Gideon's army : defense attorneys in the criminal courts
• Conclusion: Racialized punishment in the courts : a call to action.

Winner of the 2017 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Finalist for the C. Wright Mills Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Winner of the 2017 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, sponsored by the American Sociological Association's Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. Winner of the 2017 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book, sponsored by the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Culture Section. Honorable Mention in the 2017 Book Award from the American Sociological Association's Section on Race, Class, and Gender. NAACP Image Award Nominee for an Outstanding Literary Work from a debut author. Winner of the 2017 Prose Award for Excellence in Social Sciences and the 2017 Prose Category Award for Law and Legal Studies, sponsored by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers. Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (Current Events/Social Issues category). Americans are slowly waking up to the dire effects of racial profiling, police brutality, and mass incarceration, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities of color. The criminal courts are the crucial gateway between police action on the street and the processing of primarily black and Latino defendants into jails and prisons. And yet the courts, often portrayed as sacred, impartial institutions, have remained shrouded in secrecy, with the majority of Americans kept in the dark about how they function internally. Crook County bursts open the courthouse doors and enters the hallways, courtrooms, judges' chambers, and attorneys' offices to reveal a world of punishment determined by race, not offense. Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve spent ten years working in and investigating the largest criminal courthouse in the country, Chicago-Cook County, and based on over 1,000 hours of observation, she takes readers inside our so-called halls of justice to witness the types of everyday racial abuses that fester within the courts, often in plain sight. We watch white courtroom professionals classify and deliberate on the fates of mostly black and Latino defendants while racial abuse and due process violations are encouraged and even seen as justified. Judges fall asleep on the bench. Prosecutors hang out like frat boys in the judges' chambers while the fates of defendants hang in the balance. Public defenders make choices about which defendants they will try to "save" and which they will sacrifice. Sheriff's officers cruelly mock and abuse defendants' family members. Crook County's powerful and at times devastating narratives reveal startling truths about a legal culture steeped in racial abuse. Defendants find themselves thrust into a pernicious legal world where courtroom actors live and breathe racism while simultaneously committing themselves to a colorblind ideal. Gonzalez Van Cleve urges all citizens to take a closer look at the way we do justice in America and to hold our arbiters of justice accountable to the highest standards of equality. Delve deeper into Crook County with related media and instructor resources.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: Opening the Courthouse Doors chapter abstractThe Introduction outlines the ethnography of the criminal courts in Chicago-Cook County, which examines how the racial segregation that defines mass incarceration manifests within our criminal courts. In these sites, the mostly black and Latino defendants confront a workgroup of white professionals who are charged with deliberating on the criminality of a racialized offender pool. Despite due process protections and professionals who espouse colorblind ideologies, judges and attorneys use racialized tropes regarding the immoral character of defendants to efficiently process the backlog of cases. By mobilizing a moral rubric to encode racial difference, professionals maintain court processes as "race-neutral." Ultimately, this account reveals the courts as a gateway for the racialization of criminal justice, where racism and discretion collide. The introduction raises questions about modern forms of colorblind racism and the claim that they are gentler and different from overt forms of the past.
• 1Separate and Unequal Justice chapter abstractThis chapter examines the blurred boundaries between punishment and due process, and geographically places the courts and accompanying jail within an impenetrable moat of impoverishment and violence. Through narratives of the community surrounding the court and jail, this chapter elaborates how the criminal courts became a complex of punishment. Chapter 1 journeys inside the criminal courthouse to see the racial segregation that results from generations of social and spatial isolation. Here, the author describes the structural segregation that separates minority consumers of justice from white professionals who dole it out. These arrangements are parallel to the prescribed divisions of historic Jim Crow and translate to boundaries of behavior that define the racialized court culture. The author shows a type of complicated legal habitus defined by whites with elaborate cultural rules and practices that govern the courthouse and reinforce separate and unequal racial divides within it.
• 2Of Monsters and Mopes: Racial and Criminal "Immorality" chapter abstractChapter 2 interrogates the racialized ideology that informs professionals' interpretation of justice in the courts. This chapter addresses how professionals view race and how this informs who is deserving of justice, and what form and experience that justice takes. Prosecutors and judges in particular view the courts as a "race-blind" space, despite practicing law in a setting that is racially demarcated. This is contrasted with defense attorneys' awareness of racial bias but their admitted complicity in the court culture. The author analyzes the moral frameworks applied to defendants that subvert racial divides between professionals and defendants. The construction of defendants as criminally (and racially) immoral valorizes a host of abuses and violations of due process as just and fair. These abuses and violations have haunting parallels to the Jim Crow "justice" of the Deep South and show how traditional racism is practiced in a supposedly post-racial era.
• 3Race in Everyday Legal Practices chapter abstractChapter 3 shows how racialized ideologies are practiced and institutionalized in criminal procedures and even in defining the advocacy strategies of the criminal defense. The data for this chapter chronicle ethnographic observations of backstage and front-stage courtroom exchanges, including plea bargains etched out in judges' chambers and outside of the formal court record. These data address how racism becomes hidden in court culture and the contours of justice. Criminal defense attorneys construct a defense within the boundaries of racialized court culture. Zealous advocacy is more about navigating the cultural laws that govern the courtroom workgroup than it is about a sophisticated management of legal evidence, trial work, or pursuing legal motions. As a result, defense attorneys admit to becoming complicit in a system they find reprehensible.
• 4There Are No Racists Here: Prosecutors in the Criminal Courts chapter abstractWhile the previous chapters outline a pervasive culture of racialized justice, Chapter 4 delves into the complex notions of justice and law that define our criminal courts, as seen by a central adversarial player: the prosecution. While racialized cultural logics govern and legitimize how professionals sort and dispose of cases, prosecutors retain thoughtful critiques and frameworks of fairness, justice, and reform. Ideologically, prosecutors express a desire (and capacity) for race-neutral justice-even creating boundaries between themselves and police officers when overt bigotry becomes apparent in the system. Prosecutors identify what the author describes as a "thin blue line of bigotry, " and locate racial bias as adjacent to (rather than within) their professional culture. In the same manner that defense attorneys are dependent upon prosecutors, prosecutors describe their dependency on the police as undermining justice. Prosecutors draw boundaries between themselves and the "real" bias in the system.
• 5Rethinking Gideon's Army: Defense Attorneys in the Criminal Courts chapter abstractWhile defense attorneys often take a heroic stance against racialized justice, Chapter 5 frustrates the simplicity of the account by delving into the complex notions of justice and law as defined by the defense attorneys. Despite their expressed sympathies for defendants and their disdain for being complicit in a system that abuses their clients, they often act as willing ambassadors of racialized justice. They use the rubrics and logics of racialized justice to determine which defendants are "worthy" of their time and resources while helping to translate the cultural laws of the workgroup to their clients. In the same way that racialized rubrics act as an efficient institutional tool for workgroup decision making, these rubrics help defense attorneys efficiently vet the large pool of marginalized clients that they are tasked with defending.
• Conclusion: Racialized Punishment in the Courts: A Call to Action chapter abstractThe final chapter examines the implications of racialized justice on criminal law, procedural justice, and the consumer experience of criminal courts. The conclusion challenges the notion that colorblind racism or modern racism is different from the violence of traditional racism. Coupled with institutional authority, the promise of procedural justice, and the guise of bureaucratic protocols, colorblind racism is equivalent to state-sanctioned violence, even assuming some of the punitive fury of "popular justice" or torture lynchings in the South. In addition, the procedural shortcuts endemic to racialized justice are likely producing mass wrongful convictions, with factually innocent defendants serving time in jails and prisons. The lifelong consequences are discussed. From a policy standpoint, the author offers a call to action to disrupt the culture of the courts by holding them accountable through oversight, be it pro bono assistance, court watching, or voting for judges.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Winner of the 2017 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Finalist for the C. Wright Mills Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Winner of the 2017 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, sponsored by the American Sociological Association's Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. Winner of the 2017 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book, sponsored by the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Culture Section. Honorable Mention in the 2017 Book Award from the American Sociological Association's Section on Race, Class, and Gender. NAACP Image Award Nominee for an Outstanding Literary Work from a debut author. Winner of the 2017 Prose Award for Excellence in Social Sciences and the 2017 Prose Category Award for Law and Legal Studies, sponsored by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers. Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (Current Events/Social Issues category). Americans are slowly waking up to the dire effects of racial profiling, police brutality, and mass incarceration, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities of color. The criminal courts are the crucial gateway between police action on the street and the processing of primarily black and Latino defendants into jails and prisons. And yet the courts, often portrayed as sacred, impartial institutions, have remained shrouded in secrecy, with the majority of Americans kept in the dark about how they function internally. Crook County bursts open the courthouse doors and enters the hallways, courtrooms, judges' chambers, and attorneys' offices to reveal a world of punishment determined by race, not offense. Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve spent ten years working in and investigating the largest criminal courthouse in the country, Chicago-Cook County, and based on over 1,000 hours of observation, she takes readers inside our so-called halls of justice to witness the types of everyday racial abuses that fester within the courts, often in plain sight. We watch white courtroom professionals classify and deliberate on the fates of mostly black and Latino defendants while racial abuse and due process violations are encouraged and even seen as justified. Judges fall asleep on the bench. Prosecutors hang out like frat boys in the judges' chambers while the fates of defendants hang in the balance. Public defenders make choices about which defendants they will try to "save" and which they will sacrifice. Sheriff's officers cruelly mock and abuse defendants' family members. Crook County's powerful and at times devastating narratives reveal startling truths about a legal culture steeped in racial abuse. Defendants find themselves thrust into a pernicious legal world where courtroom actors live and breathe racism while simultaneously committing themselves to a colorblind ideal. Gonzalez Van Cleve urges all citizens to take a closer look at the way we do justice in America and to hold our arbiters of justice accountable to the highest standards of equality. Delve deeper into Crook County with related media and instructor resources.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: Opening the Courthouse Doors chapter abstractThe Introduction outlines the ethnography of the criminal courts in Chicago-Cook County, which examines how the racial segregation that defines mass incarceration manifests within our criminal courts. In these sites, the mostly black and Latino defendants confront a workgroup of white professionals who are charged with deliberating on the criminality of a racialized offender pool. Despite due process protections and professionals who espouse colorblind ideologies, judges and attorneys use racialized tropes regarding the immoral character of defendants to efficiently process the backlog of cases. By mobilizing a moral rubric to encode racial difference, professionals maintain court processes as "race-neutral." Ultimately, this account reveals the courts as a gateway for the racialization of criminal justice, where racism and discretion collide. The introduction raises questions about modern forms of colorblind racism and the claim that they are gentler and different from overt forms of the past.
• 1Separate and Unequal Justice chapter abstractThis chapter examines the blurred boundaries between punishment and due process, and geographically places the courts and accompanying jail within an impenetrable moat of impoverishment and violence. Through narratives of the community surrounding the court and jail, this chapter elaborates how the criminal courts became a complex of punishment. Chapter 1 journeys inside the criminal courthouse to see the racial segregation that results from generations of social and spatial isolation. Here, the author describes the structural segregation that separates minority consumers of justice from white professionals who dole it out. These arrangements are parallel to the prescribed divisions of historic Jim Crow and translate to boundaries of behavior that define the racialized court culture. The author shows a type of complicated legal habitus defined by whites with elaborate cultural rules and practices that govern the courthouse and reinforce separate and unequal racial divides within it.
• 2Of Monsters and Mopes: Racial and Criminal "Immorality" chapter abstractChapter 2 interrogates the racialized ideology that informs professionals' interpretation of justice in the courts. This chapter addresses how professionals view race and how this informs who is deserving of justice, and what form and experience that justice takes. Prosecutors and judges in particular view the courts as a "race-blind" space, despite practicing law in a setting that is racially demarcated. This is contrasted with defense attorneys' awareness of racial bias but their admitted complicity in the court culture. The author analyzes the moral frameworks applied to defendants that subvert racial divides between professionals and defendants. The construction of defendants as criminally (and racially) immoral valorizes a host of abuses and violations of due process as just and fair. These abuses and violations have haunting parallels to the Jim Crow "justice" of the Deep South and show how traditional racism is practiced in a supposedly post-racial era.
• 3Race in Everyday Legal Practices chapter abstractChapter 3 shows how racialized ideologies are practiced and institutionalized in criminal procedures and even in defining the advocacy strategies of the criminal defense. The data for this chapter chronicle ethnographic observations of backstage and front-stage courtroom exchanges, including plea bargains etched out in judges' chambers and outside of the formal court record. These data address how racism becomes hidden in court culture and the contours of justice. Criminal defense attorneys construct a defense within the boundaries of racialized court culture. Zealous advocacy is more about navigating the cultural laws that govern the courtroom workgroup than it is about a sophisticated management of legal evidence, trial work, or pursuing legal motions. As a result, defense attorneys admit to becoming complicit in a system they find reprehensible.
• 4There Are No Racists Here: Prosecutors in the Criminal Courts chapter abstractWhile the previous chapters outline a pervasive culture of racialized justice, Chapter 4 delves into the complex notions of justice and law that define our criminal courts, as seen by a central adversarial player: the prosecution. While racialized cultural logics govern and legitimize how professionals sort and dispose of cases, prosecutors retain thoughtful critiques and frameworks of fairness, justice, and reform. Ideologically, prosecutors express a desire (and capacity) for race-neutral justice-even creating boundaries between themselves and police officers when overt bigotry becomes apparent in the system. Prosecutors identify what the author describes as a "thin blue line of bigotry, " and locate racial bias as adjacent to (rather than within) their professional culture. In the same manner that defense attorneys are dependent upon prosecutors, prosecutors describe their dependency on the police as undermining justice. Prosecutors draw boundaries between themselves and the "real" bias in the system.
• 5Rethinking Gideon's Army: Defense Attorneys in the Criminal Courts chapter abstractWhile defense attorneys often take a heroic stance against racialized justice, Chapter 5 frustrates the simplicity of the account by delving into the complex notions of justice and law as defined by the defense attorneys. Despite their expressed sympathies for defendants and their disdain for being complicit in a system that abuses their clients, they often act as willing ambassadors of racialized justice. They use the rubrics and logics of racialized justice to determine which defendants are "worthy" of their time and resources while helping to translate the cultural laws of the workgroup to their clients. In the same way that racialized rubrics act as an efficient institutional tool for workgroup decision making, these rubrics help defense attorneys efficiently vet the large pool of marginalized clients that they are tasked with defending.
• Conclusion: Racialized Punishment in the Courts: A Call to Action chapter abstractThe final chapter examines the implications of racialized justice on criminal law, procedural justice, and the consumer experience of criminal courts. The conclusion challenges the notion that colorblind racism or modern racism is different from the violence of traditional racism. Coupled with institutional authority, the promise of procedural justice, and the guise of bureaucratic protocols, colorblind racism is equivalent to state-sanctioned violence, even assuming some of the punitive fury of "popular justice" or torture lynchings in the South. In addition, the procedural shortcuts endemic to racialized justice are likely producing mass wrongful convictions, with factually innocent defendants serving time in jails and prisons. The lifelong consequences are discussed. From a policy standpoint, the author offers a call to action to disrupt the culture of the courts by holding them accountable through oversight, be it pro bono assistance, court watching, or voting for judges.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Winner of the 2017 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Finalist for the C. Wright Mills Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Winner of the 2017 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, sponsored by the American Sociological Association's Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. Winner of the 2017 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book, sponsored by the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Culture Section. Honorable Mention in the 2017 Book Award from the American Sociological Association's Section on Race, Class, and Gender. NAACP Image Award Nominee for an Outstanding Literary Work from a debut author. Winner of the 2017 Prose Award for Excellence in Social Sciences and the 2017 Prose Category Award for Law and Legal Studies, sponsored by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers. Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (Current Events/Social Issues category). Americans are slowly waking up to the dire effects of racial profiling, police brutality, and mass incarceration, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities of color. The criminal courts are the crucial gateway between police action on the street and the processing of primarily black and Latino defendants into jails and prisons. And yet the courts, often portrayed as sacred, impartial institutions, have remained shrouded in secrecy, with the majority of Americans kept in the dark about how they function internally. Crook County bursts open the courthouse doors and enters the hallways, courtrooms, judges' chambers, and attorneys' offices to reveal a world of punishment determined by race, not offense. Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve spent ten years working in and investigating the largest criminal courthouse in the country, Chicago-Cook County, and based on over 1,000 hours of observation, she takes readers inside our so-called halls of justice to witness the types of everyday racial abuses that fester within the courts, often in plain sight. We watch white courtroom professionals classify and deliberate on the fates of mostly black and Latino defendants while racial abuse and due process violations are encouraged and even seen as justified. Judges fall asleep on the bench. Prosecutors hang out like frat boys in the judges' chambers while the fates of defendants hang in the balance. Public defenders make choices about which defendants they will try to "save" and which they will sacrifice. Sheriff's officers cruelly mock and abuse defendants' family members. Crook County's powerful and at times devastating narratives reveal startling truths about a legal culture steeped in racial abuse. Defendants find themselves thrust into a pernicious legal world where courtroom actors live and breathe racism while simultaneously committing themselves to a colorblind ideal. Gonzalez Van Cleve urges all citizens to take a closer look at the way we do justice in America and to hold our arbiters of justice accountable to the highest standards of equality. Delve deeper into Crook County with related media and instructor resources.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The research process and legal analysis
• Legal research sources and techniques
• Secondary sources
• The constitution
• Judicial opinions, reporters, and digests
• Statutes, court rules, and ordinances
• Legislative history
• Administrative law
• Updating with citators
• Practice aids
• Legal ethics
• Research strategies.

"The goal [of this book] is to make the complex process of legal research understandable and accessible. Outlines of the research process and examples from Iowa resources make the book easy to use. URLs point researchers to where they can find access to free or low-cost legal materials on the web. Screen shots and excerpts are used frequently to help in understanding a resource. In addition to covering Iowa-specific resources, the book discusses how to find applicable federal law...and can be used as a stand-alone text or in conjunction with a research text covering U.S. law. The book begins with an overview of the research process and legal analysis so that the reader can better understand the nature of these complementary components in finding and reviewing the law."-- Provided by publisher.

"We've been together in sickness and in health, through the death of his mother, through the adoption of our children, through four long years of this legal battle, " Jason Morgan told reporters of himself and his partner, Chuck Swaggerty. "And if being together through all of that isn't love and commitment or isn't family or isn't marriage, then I don't know what is." Just minutes earlier on that day, April 3, 2009, the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court had agreed. The court's decision in Varnum v. Brien made Iowa only the third state in the nation to permit same-sex couples to wed-moderate, midwestern Iowa, years before such left-leaning coastal states as California and New York. And unlike the earlier decisions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Varnum v. Brien was unanimous and unequivocal. It catalyzed the unprecedented and rapid shift in law and public opinion that continues today. Equal Before the Law tells the stories behind this critical battle in the fight for marriage equality and traces the decision's impact. The struggle began in 1998 with the easy passage of Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act and took a turn, surprising to many, in 2005, when six ordinary Iowa couples signed on to Lambda Legal's suit against the law. Their triumph in 2009 sparked a conservative backlash against the supreme court justices, three of whom faced tough retention elections that fall. Longtime, award-winning reporters Tom Witosky and Marc Hansen talked with and researched dozens of key figures, including opponent Bob Vander Plaats, proponents Janelle Rettig and Sharon Malheiro, attorneys Roger Kuhle, Dennis Johnson, and Camilla Taylor, and politicians Matt McCoy, Mary Lundby, and Tom Vilsack, who had to weigh their careers against their convictions. Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the decision, explains why the court had to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. At the center of the story are the six couples who sacrificed their privacy to demand public respect for their families. Through these voices, Witosky and Hansen show that no one should have been surprised by the 2009 decision. Iowans have a long history of leadership on civil rights. Just a year after Iowa became a state, its citizens adopted as their motto the phrase, "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." And they still do today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Acknowledgments
• Foreword by Michael Gartner
• One. Injured Child
• Two. Right and Wrong
• Three. Near the Truth
• Four. Two Women
• Five. Legal Trifecta
• Six. Old Farts and Rosa Parks
• Seven. High Risk, High Reward
• Eight. All Justices Concur
• Nine. Decision Day ... and Beyond
• Ten. We the People
• Eleven. Buyer's Remorse
• Twelve. Enough Is Enough
• Thirteen. Iowa
• Appendix. Figures of Importance
• Notes
• Index.

"We've been together in sickness and in health, through the death of his mother, through the adoption of our children, through four long years of this legal battle, " Jason Morgan told reporters of himself and his partner, Chuck Swaggerty. "And if being together through all of that isn't love and commitment or isn't family or isn't marriage, then I don't know what is." Just minutes earlier on that day, April 3, 2009, the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court had agreed. The court's decision in Varnum v. Brien made Iowa only the third state in the nation to permit same-sex couples to wed-moderate, midwestern Iowa, years before such left-leaning coastal states as California and New York. And unlike the earlier decisions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Varnum v. Brien was unanimous and unequivocal. It catalyzed the unprecedented and rapid shift in law and public opinion that continues today. Equal Before the Law tells the stories behind this critical battle in the fight for marriage equality and traces the decision's impact. The struggle began in 1998 with the easy passage of Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act and took a turn, surprising to many, in 2005, when six ordinary Iowa couples signed on to Lambda Legal's suit against the law. Their triumph in 2009 sparked a conservative backlash against the supreme court justices, three of whom faced tough retention elections that fall. Longtime, award-winning reporters Tom Witosky and Marc Hansen talked with and researched dozens of key figures, including opponent Bob Vander Plaats, proponents Janelle Rettig and Sharon Malheiro, attorneys Roger Kuhle, Dennis Johnson, and Camilla Taylor, and politicians Matt McCoy, Mary Lundby, and Tom Vilsack, who had to weigh their careers against their convictions. Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the decision, explains why the court had to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. At the center of the story are the six couples who sacrificed their privacy to demand public respect for their families. Through these voices, Witosky and Hansen show that no one should have been surprised by the 2009 decision. Iowans have a long history of leadership on civil rights. Just a year after Iowa became a state, its citizens adopted as their motto the phrase, "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." And they still do today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Injured child
• Right and wrong
• Near the truth
• Two women
• Legal trifecta
• Old farts and Rosa Parks
• All justices concur
• Decision day ... and beyond
• We the people
• Buyer's remorse
• Enough is enough
• Iowa.

"We've been together in sickness and in health, through the death of his mother, through the adoption of our children, through four long years of this legal battle, " Jason Morgan told reporters of himself and his partner, Chuck Swaggerty. "And if being together through all of that isn't love and commitment or isn't family or isn't marriage, then I don't know what is." Just minutes earlier on that day, April 3, 2009, the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court had agreed. The court's decision in Varnum v. Brien made Iowa only the third state in the nation to permit same-sex couples to wed-moderate, midwestern Iowa, years before such left-leaning coastal states as California and New York. And unlike the earlier decisions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Varnum v. Brien was unanimous and unequivocal. It catalyzed the unprecedented and rapid shift in law and public opinion that continues today. Equal Before the Law tells the stories behind this critical battle in the fight for marriage equality and traces the decision's impact. The struggle began in 1998 with the easy passage of Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act and took a turn, surprising to many, in 2005, when six ordinary Iowa couples signed on to Lambda Legal's suit against the law. Their triumph in 2009 sparked a conservative backlash against the supreme court justices, three of whom faced tough retention elections that fall. Longtime, award-winning reporters Tom Witosky and Marc Hansen talked with and researched dozens of key figures, including opponent Bob Vander Plaats, proponents Janelle Rettig and Sharon Malheiro, attorneys Roger Kuhle, Dennis Johnson, and Camilla Taylor, and politicians Matt McCoy, Mary Lundby, and Tom Vilsack, who had to weigh their careers against their convictions. Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the decision, explains why the court had to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. At the center of the story are the six couples who sacrificed their privacy to demand public respect for their families. Through these voices, Witosky and Hansen show that no one should have been surprised by the 2009 decision. Iowans have a long history of leadership on civil rights. Just a year after Iowa became a state, its citizens adopted as their motto the phrase, "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." And they still do today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• "Whose Home Is in the Wilderness"
• Law and Anarchy, Virginia County, Federal Territory
• The Coming of the Common Law
• A Frontier Court
• Lawyers and Law Courts
• Law and Politics
• Giants in the Prairie
• Trails of the Circuit Riders
• The Coming of Age
• Epilogue.

A concise legal history of Illinois through the end of the nineteenth century, Prairie Justice covers the region's progression from French to British to early American legal systems, which culminated in a unique body of Illinois law that has influenced other jurisdictions. Written by Roger L. Severns in the 1950s and published in serial form in the 1960s, Prairie Justice is available now for the first time as a book, thanks to the work of editor John A. Lupton, an Illinois and legal historian who also contributed an introduction. Illinois' legal development demonstrates the tension between two completely different European legal systems, between river communities and prairie towns, and between agrarian and urban interests. Severns uses several rulings-including a reconstitution of the Supreme Court in 1824, slavery-related cases, and the impeachment of a Supreme Court justice-to examine political movements in Illinois and their impact on the local judiciary. Through legal decisions, the Illinois judiciary became an independent, co-equal branch of state government. By the mid-nineteenth century, Illinois had established itself as a leading judicial authority, influencing not only the growing western frontier but also the industrialized and farming regions of the country. With a close eye for detail, Severns reviews the status of the legal profession during the 1850s by looking new members of the Court, the nostalgia of circuit riding, and how a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln rose to prominence. Illinois has a rich judicial history, but that history has not been adequately documented until now. With the publication of Prairie Justice, those interested in Illinois legal history finally have a book that covers the development of the state's judiciary in its formative years.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• "Whose home is in the wilderness"
• Law and anarchy, Virginia County, federal territory
• The coming of the common law
• A frontier court
• Lawyers and law courts
• Law and politics
• Giants in the Prairie
• Trails of the circuit riders
• The Coming of Age.

A concise legal history of Illinois through the end of the nineteenth century, Prairie Justice covers the region's progression from French to British to early American legal systems, which culminated in a unique body of Illinois law that has influenced other jurisdictions. Written by Roger L. Severns in the 1950s and published in serial form in the 1960s, Prairie Justice is available now for the first time as a book, thanks to the work of editor John A. Lupton, an Illinois and legal historian who also contributed an introduction. Illinois' legal development demonstrates the tension between two completely different European legal systems, between river communities and prairie towns, and between agrarian and urban interests. Severns uses several rulings-including a reconstitution of the Supreme Court in 1824, slavery-related cases, and the impeachment of a Supreme Court justice-to examine political movements in Illinois and their impact on the local judiciary. Through legal decisions, the Illinois judiciary became an independent, co-equal branch of state government. By the mid-nineteenth century, Illinois had established itself as a leading judicial authority, influencing not only the growing western frontier but also the industrialized and farming regions of the country. With a close eye for detail, Severns reviews the status of the legal profession during the 1850s by looking new members of the Court, the nostalgia of circuit riding, and how a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln rose to prominence. Illinois has a rich judicial history, but that history has not been adequately documented until now. With the publication of Prairie Justice, those interested in Illinois legal history finally have a book that covers the development of the state's judiciary in its formative years.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)