Truth and the Law by Meldon D. Jenkins-Jones, RPL Law Librarian

I am amazed at the substantive research happening here at the Richmond Public Law Library—the library of the City of Richmond Circuit Court—which is located on the first floor of the Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library. Our library patrons have cases pending in the U. S. Supreme Court, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals, U.S. District Court and local Virginia courts, and many of them do not have lawyers, but are pursuing their legal rights and remedies “Pro Se” (self-represented). Our library is a great place to do legal research for lawyers and laymen alike, since we have a lot of legal information including books in print and on CDs—from Black’s Law Dictionary and treatises to the state and federal statutes—and dedicated computers connected to the WestlawNext, Bloomberg BNA Legal Research, and LexisNexis® databases, and a very knowledgeable law librarian! And added to all this, now we have law programming!

Teaming up with members of the local bar, we started with free, basic legal informational classes for the general public including: How to Start a Business; Estate Planning 101; Workers Compensation; and Teen Legal Empowerment—the “Know Your Rights! Community Law Series”. The classes are held at various times, and have been well attended. This year we are planning to add additional attorneys and new sessions on Employment Law, and the U. S. Constitution. Look for a different class almost every month!

Last year the legal research class for the general public included a brief history of the American legal system, the organizational structure of the federal and state court systems, and how legal cases are structured. Handouts provided links to legal websites. It ended with a tour of the law library.  This year the expanded Introduction to Legal Research Class, scheduled for Saturday, January 24th at 10:00 am, has 16 people signed up so far. In addition to this general orientation to legal research, this Spring, Thomson Reuters has agreed to send a trainer to teach using WestlawNextTM for computerized legal research on the two law library computers. There will be two classes, one for the general public on Monday, March 2nd at 10:30 am, and one for attorneys. Attending lawyers will have the option of receiving Continuing Legal Education credit for their participation.

Another program in the development stage is Law Career Day to encourage local high school and college students to consider careers in law librarianship as well as other areas of the law, so stay tuned for more law happenings at the library. Our Richmond Public Law Library is providing valuable resources to all members of the Richmond community!

Truth and the Law by Meldon D. Jenkins-Jones, RPL Law Librarian

Good News! RPL teens are learning good business skills as well as non-profit fund-raising techniques by participating in the annual RPL TAG Recyclable Craft Sale held on December 12th and 13th. For anyone, not just teens, interested in starting their own business or organizing a non-profit entity, RPL is presenting a series of workshops and classes to help you with the legal aspects. The “Starting a Non-Profit” workshop organized by Foundation Center resource person, Reference Librarian Bev Mitchell, was well attended. Taught by local attorney Charles Schmidt, it is almost as popular as the How to Start a Business class, also taught by Mr. Schmidt, which is a part of the Richmond Public Law Library’s Community Law series.

The Law Library, as well as RPL, has an extensive collection of books on both topics. I recently read Build Your Own Life Brand! by Graham Stedman (Oprah’s boyfriend) on the basics of seeing yourself as a brand. The ever expanding number of new business, management, and non-profit organizing books include Reinventing You by Dorie Clark, another brand-building book.

Future classes for entrepreneurs, business owners, and non-profit leaders will include the “Business Entity” workshop on January 12th at 5:30 pm and the Non-Profit Grants Seekers Workshop on January 30th and February 13th at 10 am. There will also be an Employment Law class which is now in the planning stages.

Of course, writers increasingly view themselves as a marketable brand, so in conjunction with the recent birth of the RPL Main Writers Group, we’ll be blogging about the many books the library has on that topic.

Truth and the Law by Meldon D. Jenkins-Jones, RPL Law Librarian

            Lawyers are not noted for their passion, ethics, or morals. But this is the stuff of David Baldacci’s novels. Can you imagine the public law library as the birthplace of an exciting adventure story with characters inspired by real-life political figures? Noted Virginia author and lawyer David Baldacci did, as he shared during his “Researching Law and Justice in a Novel Way” lecture at the Library of Virginia during its exhibit "You Have No Right: Law and Justice in Virginia".

His passion for libraries and reading translated into one of his best-selling fictions where the library is the scene of a murder.  A law library like ours supplied Baldacci with a plot in the form of a real legal case reported in the law books.  Indeed, Baldacci, a Richmond native, compared a trial attorney to a storyteller, and promoted libraries as great places to research novels. Baldacci’s novels not only involve murders by various techniques, but geopolitics, and modern controversies of constitutional rights and responsibilities, such as the government’s use of drones or rights of privacy and security. He emphasized the importance of fiction as an arena for debating important moral and ethical issues of today. Richmond public Library has an impressive collection of Baldacci novels.

As a writer and retired lawyer myself, I was fascinated by Baldacci's passion for adult literacy. He and his wife co-founded the Wish You Well Foundation to fight illiteracy. He was praised by Alison Bonaguro in her 2012 Virginia Living article occasioned by his receipt of the National Literacy Leadership Award from the National Coalition for Literacy. http://www.virginialiving.com/arts-events/david-baldacci/  

            As a storyteller, Baldacci treated us to the true anecdotes about the writing of several of his books. For instance, he researched Wish You Well at the Library of Virginia here in Richmond.  Author of children’s books as well as short stories, he advised aspiring writers to just tell the story—don’t worry about what genre it is. More importantly, like Baldacci, writers should be concerned with making sure that readers think about the moral and ethical dilemmas of the characters, and what constitutes the truth. To learn more about Baldacci, visit his website at http://davidbaldacci.com/

Truth and the Law by Meldon D. Jenkins-Jones, RPL Law Librarian

Here at the Richmond Public Library on East Franklin Street, I recently watched Until the Well Runs Dry: Medicine and the Exploitation of Black Bodies, a documentary produced and directed by Shawn O. Utsey, of the African American Studies Department of Virginia Commonwealth University. The narration was written by Ana Edwards.  The film is about the apparently widespread practice of grave robbing and use of African American cadavers by medical schools—African American employees and white medical students--in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The film includes interviews of older Richmond residents who still remember staying inside at night as children, to avoid being snatched away by the grave robbers. Shocking!

Man’s inhumanity always amazes me. The prevalence of these illegal practices, along with the Tuskegee Experiment—see Medicalapartheid : the dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans fromcolonial times to the present by Harriet A. Washington  —and practices chronicled by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, explains why many African Americans are still afraid of doctors and hospitals.  Unbelievable? You can see these resources for yourself at the Richmond Public Library.

 Until the Well Runs Dry showed photographs of some of the grave robbers, who were known as “Resurrectionists”. One famous Resurrectionist here in the Richmond area was Chris Baker, an African American man who was employed by the local Virginia medical school. He could attend funerals to scope out the location of his next victim without being immediately detected.

What part, if any, did the law play in these nefarious activities? Since this was a widespread practice in several medical schools—not just in Virginia—it is apparent that “the Law” looked the other way.  The legal establishment—police and judges—largely ignored this unconstitutional and unconscionable practice.  On the one, documented occasion when the grave robber—in that case Chris Baker –was caught, the Governor pardoned him only 6 days later, thus encouraging the illegal activity to continue.

Reports of such objectionable and illegal practices raise several questions. Ethically, did the ends justify the means? Could this type of activity happen today? Indeed, is it happening now? Let’s hope not. However, there are, across the country, a lot of missing children . . . . (Are they all victims of the modern slave trade?)

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Library.