Coroner’s Court
The Coroner’s Court is a now rarely used legal procedure used to investigate a death under mysteries circumstances. The County Coroner, or medical examiner, would impanel a jury, usually six men, who would view the remains, hear witnesses and study the evidence. This was not a trial, as no one was then accused of a crime. The jury was to determine, first, if the person was dead, and if dead, was the cause of death due to, natural causes, accident, suicide or murder. When the jury determined the cause of death was due to accident or murder, then, if possible, name the one most likely to have caused the death. Sometimes the jury returned a verdict of: “due to person or persons unknown to us at this time.”

About James Mann:
James Mann is a local historian and the author of eight published books on local history. His books include Wicked Washtenaw County, Wicked Ann Arbor and Wicked Ypsilanti. He hosts Lantern Tours of Highland Cemetery, in Ypsilanti, the last two weeks of October.

This National Library Week event, featuring attorney Jennifer Dukarski, is an in-depth look at online publishing and First Amendment issues and is co-sponsored by AADL and the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC) Institute a non-profit created to sponsor and support First Amendment education and research.

It covers a wide variety of subjects such as the intricacies of online publishing, interactivity, user generated content, crowd sourcing, defamation, privacy, copyright, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and also features specific examples and significant case law relating to these issues.

There has been a great deal of discussion recently concerning the computer roll-out of the Affordable Care Act. However, less attention has been paid to the actual details of the ACA, especially relating to changes in coverage for mental illness. How exactly will these changes affect individual coverage and access to services, and on a broader level, how will the ACA impact a national mental health system that is already struggling to adequately serve the number of individuals seeking care?

To learn more about the Affordable Care Act and its impact on mental health coverage and access, the AADL and the U-M Depression Center present this discussion, featuring Marianne Udow-Phillips, MHSA, Director of the Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation, and member of the U-M Depression Center National Advisory Board. She gives a brief overview of the Affordable Care Act, focusing on the changes that will impact mental health care coverage and what this will mean on a practical level for individuals seeking care for themselves and/or their family members.

This is followed by questions from the audience and a discussion with medical experts, including Gregory Dalack, MD, Chair, U-M Dept. of Psychiatry; Kara Zivin, PhD, Assoc. Professor, U-M Dept. of Psychiatry, and School of Public Health Faculty Associate, Institute for Social Research; and Dr. Duane DiFranco, MD, Senior Medical Director, Blue Care Network of Michigan.

For more information on the Depression Center, visit their website at www.depressioncenter.org, or contact Trish Meyer, 763-7495, or meyerpa@umich.edu.

Former Michigan Representative Lynn Rivers returns to AADL to continue the discussion of The End Of The Constitution?

Last May and again in November, in events co-sponsored by the Ann Arbor District Library and the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area, Lynn Rivers held a lively, interactive discussion targeting many diverse issues. For this third session, Lynn will tackle Federalism, National Supremacy, State Nullification and Secession. Previous attendees should bring their copy of the Constitution. Lynn will have copies for new attendees and for anyone needing a copy.

Lynn Rivers was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representative from 1995 – 2003. She represented Michigan’s 13th Congressional district (Eastern Washtenaw and Western Wayne counties). Prior to serving in Congress, she was a Michigan State Rep. She has an undergraduate degree from UM and a Law degree from Wayne State. She currently teaches Political Science at Washtenaw Community College and the University of Michigan.

Do you have a child who has a disability? Are your aware of their legal rights?

Laura Athens discusses the legal rights of students with disabilities from preschool through high school. Protections under the Individuals with Disability Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act will be reviewed and educational options and dispute resolution options will also be discussed.

This event is cosponsored by the UM Council for Disability Concerns as part of the Council's Investing in Ability Week.

In today’s America, the presidency has accumulated tremendous power – power much greater that what the framers envisioned and the Constitution provides. This has resulted in a system of checks and balances that no longer balances. Unfortunately, based on partisan preferences, Americans are either highly critical of presidential action or mute. Both responses are inadequate to protect the historical division of powers. Join us for this event, cosponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area, to discuss the dangers of an all-powerful executive branch and the end of the Constitution.

Lynn Rivers was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representative from 1995 – 2003. She represented Michigan’s 13th Congressional district (Eastern Washtenaw and Western Wayne counties). Prior to serving in Congress, she was a Michigan State Rep. She has an undergraduate degree from UM and a Law degree from Wayne State. She currently teaches Political Science at Washtenaw Community College and the University of Michigan.

Join us for an evening on engrossing and lively discussion as former Michigan Representative Lynn Rivers presents "The End Of The Constitution?"For this event, co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area, Lynn Rivers will discuss issues such as government surveillance and search and seizure under the Patriot Act; detention of Americans without charges as authorized under the National Defense Authorization Act; national security letters, and government infiltration into religious and issue advocacy groups. She will also touch on separation of church and state, separation of powers, the Defense of Marriage Act and gay rights, and how the "parliamentary" behavior of Congress is hobbling the three branch system.Lynn Rivers was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representative from 1995 - 2003. She represented Michigan's 13th Congressional district (Eastern Washtenaw and Western Wayne counties). Prior to serving in Congress, she was a Michigan State Rep. She has an undergraduate degree from UM and a Law degree from Wayne State. She currently teaches Political Science at Washtenaw Community College and the University of Michigan.

This 11th annual event focuses on the 2013 Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads book selection "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander and will also explore this year's theme 'Understanding Race.' The Keynote Speaker will be one of America's most influential civil rights attorneys - Connie Rice, Co-Director for the Advancement Project, Los Angeles, and renowned for her unconventional approaches to tackling problems of inequity and exclusion. California Law Business Journal twice designated Connie Rice as one of the top ten most influential attorneys in California. She is a civil rights lawyer who engineers systemic fixes to entrenched inequality and injustice.Through impact litigation, campaigns and inside bureaucratic maneuvering, Connie Rice has led coalitions and clients to win more than $30 billion in damages, bonds and policy changes. Bus riders, death row inmates, folks abused by police, school kids, whistleblowers, cops and sufferers of every stripe of discrimination, (sex, race, disability, age) have sought her counsel. But so have her opponents, like the Los Angeles Police Department she sued for 15 years but which now reserves a parking space for her at their new headquarters.Connie grew up all over the world in an Air Force family headed by her parents Anna, a biology teacher, and Phillip, a pilot and Colonel. She graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe colleges in 1978, achieved her black belt in Tae Kwon Do in 1981 and entered New York University School of Law on a Root Tilden Scholarship. In law school she worked extensively on capital punishment cases at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and after graduating from law school in 1984, she clerked for the Honorable Damon J. Keith at the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit for two years before winging it west to California where she joined the law firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. She rejoined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1989 as Western Regional Counsel, won several landmark cases and in the words of one magazine, established herself as "the voice of Los Angeles' oppressed." Together with Co-Directors Molly Munger, Penda Hair and Steve English, Connie launched The Advancement Project, a policy action and technology organization in 1998, and in the words of Los Angeles Magazine, "picked up where Clarence Darrow left off." Connie serves on the board of public radio station KPCC and as chief of staff to Sinbad, her jet black cat.This is a key event for the 2013 Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads program, which this year focuses on the theme of "Understanding Race."

In conjunction with this year's Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads which focuses on Michelle Alexander's book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness" - Professor David Moran, Co-directer of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, and student lawyers Shannon Leitner, Susan Shutts, and Klara Stephens, discuss their work identifying and rectifying wrongful convictions and their commitment to exonerating innocent individuals and combating injustice.At the Michigan Innocence Clinic at Michigan Law, clinic students investigate and litigate cases on behalf of prisoners who have new evidence that may establish that they are actually innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted. Unlike many other innocence clinics, which specialize in DNA exonerations, the Michigan Innocence Clinic focuses on innocence cases where there is no biological evidence to be tested. Innocence Clinic students work on all aspects of the cases, including investigating new evidence, preparing state post-conviction motions, conducting hearings and arguing motions in conjunction with these motions, and filing appeals to the state and federal courts. The Clinic has already exonerated several of its clients since its inception in 2009.For more information about Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads, check out the website at aaypsireads.org.This event is for adults and teens (grade 9 and up).

Want to know more about consumer bankruptcy? Local Attorney Greg L. Dodd explains everything about the bankruptcy process including: how it works and how you may qualify; what debts are wiped out and which ones are not; what happens when a house is foreclosed on and what you will still owe, and how bankruptcy wipes this out; what information you need to provide to start a bankruptcy case; costs of filing bankruptcy; and how bankruptcy affects your credit.