As I mentioned in my last general post about the weekly reviews, I feared that there was a lag in time between when a habeas decision gets released by the district court and when it makes it onto Westlaw.
So I went back to one of my earlier Weekly Reviews (May 11-15) and saw that several other cases were up on Westlaw that were not there when I checked. I have now added them to the original post.
Also, there is one troubling inconsistency in habeas corpus opinions on Westlaw. As I mentioned in my post about Magistrate Judges, they play an active role in habeasland. In many cases, their reports and recommendations ("R&R") are reviewed by the district court judge. In some cases, the district court judge will go into a more involved discussion of the facts and law. However, for the most part, an order adopting an R&R will refer to the "thorough" analysis in the R&R and not engage in a detailed discussion. That's fine when the R&R is attached to the order and then published. But in many of the published orders on Westlaw the R&R is not attached, so the reader has no idea what the R&R says. It's pretty inconsistent.
The R&R is available through PACER, so I guess if I had the inclination, I could go track it down that way. In appropriate cases, I will. What's an appropriate case? I guess I'll know it when I see it. But from here on out, I'll note if the R&R is not attached. Otherwise, you can assume that it's in there.
And finally, from my work experience, I noticed that some opinions get published on Westlaw that do not get published on Lexis/Nexis and vice versa. I am not sure how endemic that is, but I have seen it happen. At this point, I don't really have the time to check both. But maybe in the next couple of months, I will do an experiment and see what happens.
So I went back to one of my earlier Weekly Reviews (May 11-15) and saw that several other cases were up on Westlaw that were not there when I checked. I have now added them to the original post.
Also, there is one troubling inconsistency in habeas corpus opinions on Westlaw. As I mentioned in my post about Magistrate Judges, they play an active role in habeasland. In many cases, their reports and recommendations ("R&R") are reviewed by the district court judge. In some cases, the district court judge will go into a more involved discussion of the facts and law. However, for the most part, an order adopting an R&R will refer to the "thorough" analysis in the R&R and not engage in a detailed discussion. That's fine when the R&R is attached to the order and then published. But in many of the published orders on Westlaw the R&R is not attached, so the reader has no idea what the R&R says. It's pretty inconsistent.
The R&R is available through PACER, so I guess if I had the inclination, I could go track it down that way. In appropriate cases, I will. What's an appropriate case? I guess I'll know it when I see it. But from here on out, I'll note if the R&R is not attached. Otherwise, you can assume that it's in there.
And finally, from my work experience, I noticed that some opinions get published on Westlaw that do not get published on Lexis/Nexis and vice versa. I am not sure how endemic that is, but I have seen it happen. At this point, I don't really have the time to check both. But maybe in the next couple of months, I will do an experiment and see what happens.
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