State Court Watch

Welcome to State Court Watch, a project of the Law, Youth and Citizenship Program of the New York State Bar Association. This website is a resource for teachers and students interested in enhancing Social Studies curricula by making connections between state case law, famous U.S. Supreme Court cases, and topics covered in U.S. Government and citizenship classes. These connections make real the concepts of federalism and separation of powers that are important components of U.S. government at all levels of instruction.

Spotlight

• Interviews for Understanding. This new addition to State Court Watch includes audiobroadcasts of short excerpts of interviews with individuals involved with all branches of New York State government designed to enhance understanding of the concepts and cases covered on the website.
  
  Listen to retired Court of Appeals Judge Albert M. Rosenblatt's views on
  • Federalism (2.3 Mb)
  • Supremacy Clause (2.4 Mb)
  • Death Penalty (3.3 Mb)
  • Establishment Clause (2.6 Mb)
  
  
• In March, 2005 the New York State Court of Appeals ordered New York City to release more than 12,000 pages of oral histories rendered in the voices of 503 firefighter, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians.  That case is summarized at Matter of New York Times Company v. City of New York Fire Department. The oral histories and other records released as a result of this case can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/sept11.

• Post 9/11, the Bush administration issued a document entitled "Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies."   Interestingly, the document  contains a  "national security" exception (see Roman numeral II), which may be interesting to those familiar with Korematsu v. U.S., linked to Lyles v. State of New York on the issue of racial profiling. 

• In 2006, the New York State Legislature and Governor  continued to spar over the issues raised in Pataki v. Assembly and Silver v. Pataki.  Familiar arguments about executive power, pork barrel spending and separation of powers were made in the media and are headed to the courts. 

• Webcasts of selected New York State Court of  Appeals cases can be found on the Court of Appeals website.  Webcasts are live video-recordings of the attorneys’ arguments before the Court.  The following cases summarized by State Court Watch are webcasted:

  People v. LaValle

  Paynter v. State

  Pataki v. Assembly / Silver v. Pataki

WWW StateCourtWatch.org