Ramsey Library at UNC Asheville: Psychology and the Law: Law and Legislation

LIbrary Databases Useful for Law Aspects

Nexis Uni
Resources for legal and political research, including case law; medical news; government information. Also includes news and wire services; company, industry and market information.
Federal & State Cases (Nexis Uni)
Search cases from Federal and State courts.

Refer to the database help screens for searching tips. From the 'Federal and State Cases' search, you can use 'Advanced Options' to restrict to individual states. From the 'LexisNexis Academic' search, click 'Advanced Options' and then under 'Source' option type 'NC Supreme Court Cases from 1778' to search just that collection, or browse for other collections there.

CQ Electronic Library
Full-text access to Congressional Quarterly's CQ Researcher and CQ Weekly. Provides coverage of the U.S. Congress status of bills, votes and amendments, floor and committee activity.
CQ Researcher
Direct link, but included in the above 'CQ Electronic Library.' Covering today's most important issues and controversial subjects. Weekly issue covers an in-depth, single topic report featuring more than 12,000 words of text and extensive bibliographies.
This database is a collection of pro/con reports on controversial topics. It is especially useful for outlining the major components of each side of the argument. Keep your searches simple, as it is a fairly small database. For instance if my topic was Capital Punishment in North Carolina or a specific case related to that, I would simply search 'Capital Punishment' or 'Death Penalty' for this issue. Pay attention also to the dates of publication for reports that interest you, as some are dated.

For many more law related databases in our collection, please take a look at our 'Government and Law' databases here.

Selected Books

Capital Punishment in the United States by Bryan Vila; Cynthia Morris
Call Number: HV8699.U5 C3 1997
ISBN: 0313299420
A breakthrough collection of key documents in the history of the capital punishment debate in the United States.
Encyclopedia of capital punishment in the United States [electronic resource]
Call Number: Electronic book
Provides information on all aspects of capital punishment in America. It details virtually every capital punishment decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court through 2006. Includes extensive statistical data.
North Carolina capital case law handbook
Call Number: WCU (NC) G 41 6: C23 2013
Law digest published by UNC School of Government. Request this title from WCU on ABC Express.

Selected websites

NC Supreme Court and Court of Appeals and Document Library

One of the best resources for finding detailed information on North Carolina's Supreme Court and Court of Appeals cases from 1998 to the present, including capital and death penalty cases.

Death Penalty - An Overview

From Cornell University Legal Information Institute this site provides federal and state material and links to key Internet resources.

Capital Punishment Resource Guide

The National Center for State Courts. Includes full-text documents, journal articles, and key Supreme Court cases.

Supreme Court of the United States

Full-text of capital punishment cases

Federal Death Row Prisoners - Synopisis of Cases

Data from the Death Penalty Information Center

Death Penalty Information Center
National Non-profit that creates briefings and reports on death penalty issues. Includes details on upcoming executions and their legal statuses.

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Additional resources

Oxford Scholarship Online - Law
Search the full text of Oxford scholarly publications dealing with law.

Image Credit

Top image, 'Golden Barrel Cactus' by Helst1 is used according to the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.