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 with Intern God Dyhu Harrison

Did Trayvon Martin have a right to stand his ground? Did it make a difference? Unfortunately we may never know the answers in that circumstance. However, questions concerning the legal rights and responsibilities of teenagers here in Virginia will be addressed at the “Teen Legal Empowerment” discussion led by  Richmond Attorney Charles H. Schmidt, Jr. and sponsored by the Richmond Public Law Library and the People’s Law of Richmond, PLLC, at the Main Library on Monday, October 21^st at 4:30 pm. Attorney Schmidt will address questions like “Can I be searched on Campus?” “Can a Security guard go through my belongings at work?” “Can a boss fire me for what I say on twitter?” “What right to privacy do I have while driving my car?” and “Do I have to answer questions if stopped by the police?” As teens become adults they must know their basic rights and responsibilities as they will face pressures and decisions that could put them in contact with police and authority figures for maybe their first time. Knowledge of the law is power; come learn what your rights and responsibilities are at the third installment of the Community Law Series.

Here’s what the book jackets say about a couple of books you can check out from RPL about teen legal rights:

“What Are My Rights? Q & A about Teens and the Law” Judge Thomas A. Jacobs answers over 100 questions that teens often have about the law, but don’t know where to turn to for the answers. The third edition includes new facts, and updated statistics, and has a new chapter about online issues including Facebook. Judge Jacobs uses a straightforward “just the facts” tone, and uses real-life court cases involving young people. This book encourages young readers to learn about the laws that affect them, to appreciate their rights, and to consider their legal responsibilities.




Also by Thomas A. Jacobs, “Teens on Trial: Young People Who Challenged the Law – and

Changed Your Life” discusses the court cases involving 21 legal issues affecting teens. It includes a section on Understanding the Law, which answers questions about the Supreme Court and the U.S. Constitution and includes a copy of the Bill of Rights and a thorough section on how to do legal research. The second part of the book includes the citations for the main trials discussed for further research. It covers such current issues as censorship of school newspapers, sexual harassment at school or work, privacy rights, obtaining an abortion without parental consent, and freedom of expression at school and includes questions for further discussion and study.  The library also has a book by Judge Jacobs on another hot topic, online bullying, “Teen Cyberbullying Investigated: Where do your Rights end and Consequences Begin?”

Here are a few informative websites that may interest teens and their parents:

http://www.iaclea.org/

The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) advances public safety for educational institutions by providing educational resources, advocacy, and professional development services. IACLEA is the leading voice for the campus public safety community.

http://about.bloomberglaw.com/practitioner-contributions/social-media/

This link leads you to an article about social media and its new legal risks in the workplace, including cyber bullying and online harassment, perils of Facebook friending, online gripes by employees, privacy rights, and protecting confidential information.

http://www.dmv.virginia.gov/drivers/restrictions.asp

This link leads you to a summary of the law concerning driver restrictions for teens in the state of Virginia, including curfew restrictions, restrictions on the number of passengers, and cellular telephone/wireless telecommunications device restrictions to name a few.

http://nvcopblock.org/175/constitutional-rights-limitations/

This site gives a couple of useful tips concerning interactions with the police. This article uses yearly statistics on the number of cases involving any type of police brutality.

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.