[JURIST] Thursday's Cornell Daily Sun reports that former US Attorney General Janet Reno spoke at Cornell Law School [official website] Wednesday on "Collaboration between Law and Public Health", focusing on how law can be used to reduce improper treatment of the mentally ill. Read more about Janet Reno's lecture.

[JURIST] Professor Martha Minow [faculty profile] of Harvard Law School [official website] speaks Thursday at the Kadish Center for Morality, Law, & Public Affairs at UC Berkeley School of Law [official website]. Read her paper Public and Private Partnerships: Accounting for the New Religion [PDF text].

[JURIST] Suffolk University Law School [official website] is currently hosting Long Road to Justice: The African American Experience in the Massachusetts Courts, a traveling exhibit showing how Massachusetts courts shaped - and were shaped by - the African American experience from the Colonial period to the present day. Visit the virtual exhibit hall.

[JURIST] The House Joint Committee on Taxation has issued a comprehensive Report Of Investigation Of Enron Corporation And Related Entities Regarding Federal Tax And Compensation Issues, And Policy Recommendations, [PDF text] with Appendices A & B and C & D.[PDF - note: these files are very large]. Committee Chief of Staff Linda Paull summarized the Committee's findings in an appearance Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee. Paull concluded: "Enron deliberately and aggressively engaged in transactions that had little or no business purpose in order to obtain favorable tax and accounting treatment...Enron’s structured transactions not only pushed the concept of business purpose to the limit (and perhaps beyond) but also highlight several general issues about the nature of the tax system and a corporation’s attitude towards it. Enron’s behavior illustrates that a motivated corporation can manipulate highly technical provisions of the law to achieve significant unintended benefits. Remarkable in many respects was Enron’s ability to parse the law to produce a result that was contrary to its spirit and not intended by Congress or the Treasury Department." Review Ms. Paull's written testimony [PDF text].

[JURIST] Responding to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales' refusal to provide further documentation [Gonzales letter, PDF] on the nomination of Miguel Estrada, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Patrick Leahy posted a statement on his website Thursday noting that the letter in fact contained "an admission that the Justice Department and Senate Republicans had previously refused to make. The Administration has finally acknowledged that there is precedent for providing the very types of documents the Judiciary Committee requested almost a year ago in connection with Mr. Estrada’s nomination. Interestingly, the Administration in this letter makes no claim of legal privilege or executive privilege to withhold these documents from the Senate. Instead, the White House Counsel’s office insists on substituting its judgment for the Senate’s and tells the Senate that we already have sufficient information about this nominee."

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice Office of Legislative Policy has posted online a copy of a 15-page letter [PDF text] sent Wednesday by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to Democratic Majority Leader Senator Tom Daschle and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Patrick Leahy denying their request for additional information on US DC Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Miguel Estrada and urging them to end the filibuster and allow a vote on the nomination.

[JURIST] Professor Eugene Volokh [faculty profile] of UCLA School of Law [official website] has created a website (still very much under development) to complement his forthcoming book Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers.

[JURIST] Professor Jack Balkin [faculty profile] of Yale Law School [official website] offers his perspective on the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, the Justice Department's contemplated sequel to the USA Patriot Act. Read A Dreadful Act II in Thursday's LA Times.

[JURIST] Professor Randall Kennedy [faculty profile] of Harvard Law School [official website] spoke Wednesday at West Chester University on his latest book, Nigger: The Strange Case of a Troublesome Word. Read more about Professor Kennedy's talk [Daily Local News report].

[JURIST] The Honorable Deanell Reece Tacha, Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit, presented "Does the Public Know or Care? Lawyers and Judges as Civil Educators" at the University of Tulsa College of Law [official website] on February 10. Watch streaming video of Judge Tacha's lecture.

[JURIST] An incomplete text of Wednesday's full Senate debate on the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals is now available from the Congressional Record. The remainder of Wednesday's debate (which continued until 12:45 AM ET Thursday) will be published later. Debate on the Estrada nomination resumes Thursday at 11 AM ET.

[JURIST] Defense attorneys for DC sniper suspect Lee Malvo filed a series of Motions [PDF text] Wednesday in Virginia's Fairfax County Circuit Court, including a Motion To Declare Virginia Capital Murder & Death Penalty Statutes Unconstitutional and a Motion To Limit Excessive Numbers of Law Enforcement Officers Sitting and/or Standing Near the Defendant During Trial.

[JURIST] Read Judge Leonie M. Brinkema's Order [PDF text] issued Wednesday staying the trial of accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui pending appeal of certain procedural issues.

[JURIST] Microsoft filed an appeal brief [PDF text] Wednesday with the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals requesting that a District Court order directing it to include Java in its Windows operating system be vacated.