WESTLAWNEXTTutorial for Criminal Law

In this session we will learn:• -case law searching in Westlaw.• -statutory searching in Westlaw.• -the West Key Number System of searching.• -how to determine if a case or statute is still good law.• -ALR, aka American Law Reports.

Also in “General” and “News”

This is what you see when youfirst open WestlawNext!

The search box is designed like Googlefor simplicity.

24/7 assistance

WESTLAWNEXTCase Law Searching

If you know the name of the case, you can just type the name in the

search bar.

When you run a search on Westlaw, you don’t need to select a database.

Your search is automatically run across cases, statutes, regulations, administrative decisions, secondary

sources, briefs, proposed and adopted regulations and legislation.

If you know the case citation, type it in. No capital letters or

periods are necessary.

Let’s take one of Professor Pesca’s fact patterns…

• While your client was stopped for speeding, New York State Police allowed a drug dog to sniff around the car. When the dog alerted, a search of the car was conducted. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, did the search violate the 4th Amendment of the Constitution?

• Jurisdiction: U.S. Supreme Court

When you click a link for a specific court,the 10 most recent cases from that court

are automatically displayed.

You do not have to run a traditionalBoolean terms and connectors

search. Try simple natural language searching and compare results. Westlaw recognizes whichever

search format you use.

The right column lists a sampling of related

secondary sources and briefs.

75 Supreme Court cases are retrieved. You can sort by relevance,

date or most cited.

You can narrow your search result usingfilters in the left column by jurisdiction, date, reported status, topic, judge, attorney, law

firm, key number, party and docket number.

For example, you may want to see how a particular judge has ruled,

or an attorney’s track record with regard to a particular

issue. This provides helpful strategy in litigation.

Out of the 75 Supreme Court cases our search retrieved, let’s identify the key

case that most matches our fact

pattern.

Now what?

Let’s take these one by one.

Here we have mostly case briefs filed

throughout the case. Also included are oral arguments,

petitions and similar filings.

We’ll come back to this.

Click the

To see how your case has been used (cited) by other cases, administrative materials, secondary sources and

briefs, click on Citing References. This is an excellent tool for attorneys and researchers for determining how cases

have been interpreted,analyzed and distinguished.

NEGATIVE TREATMENTIs your case still good law?

The most negativetreatment is displayed at the top of the

list. A red flagwarns that the case is no longer good law

for at least one of the pointsit contains. A yellow flag warns that the

case has some negative history but has not been reversed or overruled.

The green depth of treatment bars indicate the extent to which citing cases discuss the cited case.

The headnote numbers indicate which headnotes (points of law)

the citing case is discussing.

Headnote 6 of Illinois v. Caballes is discussed extensively in State v.

Griffin.

Checking Cases in KeyCite • The main ways to access KeyCite information are:

• while viewing a case with a KeyCite flag, click the flag.

• type kc or keycite followed by the case citation.

Click on the flag.

LET’S DO ANOTHER EXAMPLE.Case Law Searching

Terry v. Ohio Let’s find a New Jersey case that has applied the landmark Supreme Court case, Terry v. Ohio.

Police may stop a person if they have a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed or is about to commit a crime, and may frisk the suspect for weapons if they have reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed and dangerous, without violating the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

We have both federal and state

cases in this set of results.

You can limit your results to New Jersey state cases in one of two ways: (1) by checking New

Jersey as your jurisdiction at the left hand column, or (2) by unchecking Federal content at the search

bar (above).

1.

2.

WEST’S KEY NUMBER SYSTEM

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.

Corresponding Key Numbers

Click on “Tools” to access the Key Number System.

Let’s start from the Home screen to see how the Key Number

System works.

Browse the list of topics to find the topicrelated to your issue.

Click on the topic, e.g., searches andseizures, to display the topic page, which

contains the key numbers (subtopics) classified under that topic.

At the topic page, you can zero in on key

numbers that match your issue.

1.

2. (Select jurisdiction)

By selecting the general topic searches and seizures (topic #349), and then within that topic selecting the key number(s) associated with

your specific legal issue(s), you are able to easily search for cases that discuss these legal issues.

STILL A LITTLE UNEASY?Don’t be. Click here for more info.

WESTLAWNEXTStatutory Searching

If you know the statutory citation, you can just type it in the search bar. As with case

citations, you can do this fromany screen!

Another way to search for statutes is to select Statute & Court Rules from the main screen.

This is the Table of Contents service which letsyou browse statutes, and view a statute in the context

of the sections around it.

This is the Table of Contentsfor the NY Penal Code.

Further breakdown of NY’s complex statutory structure

Scroll down to the bottom of the statute.You will find a Practice Commentary at theend of each statute, written by practicing

attorneys. These commentaries give practicaladvice for interpreting the statute.

This is a very extensive Practice Commentaryat the end of the statute. These are extremely useful for

interpreting statutes and cases that have applied the statutes.

You can view a statute’s history, how other cases have interpreted the

statute (Notes of Decisions), law review and journal commentaries, cross-

references, library references, treatises and practice aids, and more.

IS YOUR STATUTE STILL GOOD LAW?The same steps for cases apply to statute: while viewing a

statute with a KeyCite flag, click the flag; or

type KC or KeyCite followed by a citation in the search box at the top of the page and click Search.

AMERICAN LAW REPORTS“ALR”

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 caselaw 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

QUESTIONS? 1-800-REF-ATTY (1-800-733-2889)