Delaware Campus Library Blogs

Don’t forget the law library is closed Memorial Day Weekend May 25 – 27. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you again on Tuesday May 28th!

Here are our hours for the summer semester. Please note that we are closed Memorial Day Weekend.

Summer Hours 2013

Monday, May 20 through Sunday, July 28 

• Monday – Thursday 8 AM to 11 PM
• Friday 8 AM to 8 PM
• Saturday 9 AM to 5 PM
• Sunday 12 PM to 10 PM

Closed Memorial Day Weekend May 25 – 27

Closed July 4

A complete list of library hours is always available on our webpage.

The Delaware campus library will be closed this Saturday the 18th for Commencement. Congratulations to all our graduates!

We’ll be open on Sunday the 19th from noon to 5 PM. For a full list of library hours this summer see our webpage.

Yes, finals are here and I know what you’re thinking, “What can the law library do to help me with finals?” (Just work with me here.) So here’s a short list:

1. Study space – We have plenty of places to study in the library. Don’t forget our study rooms on the 3rd floor.
2. Longer hours – During finals we are open until 2 AM every night.
3. CALI lessons – Have you tried CALI lessons? You should. CALI quizzes you on legal topics. If you need the authorization code, just pick up a card from the reference desk or email me, Janet Lindenmuth.
4. Study aids – For your last minute studying needs we have study aids like, Examples and Explanations, Glannon Guides and the Understanding the Law series. Check them out in the study aids room right behind the reference desk.

So visit the library for everything you need to study!

The Delaware campus law library will be open extended hours during final exams. Our hours will be:

• Monday, April 22 to Thursday April 25:      8:00 AM to 2:00 AM
• Friday, April 26:           8:00 AM to 11:00 PM
• Saturday, April 27:      8:00 AM to 2:00 AM
• Sunday, April 28:          10:00 AM to 2:00 AM
• Monday, April 29 through Wednesday, May 15:      8:00 AM to 2:00 AM

After the exam period our hours will be:

• Thursday, May 16: 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM
• Friday, May 17: 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM
• Saturday, May 18 (Graduation): CLOSED
• Sunday, May 19: 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM

For a complete list of hours please see the law library webpage.

The cost of subscription based legal information continues to rise as courts, firms and non-profits are looking for ways to cut costs. All legal professionals should be aware of the resources that are available for free online.

As part of the Law Library’s National Library Week Celebration (April 14th – 20th), come learn about all of the free primary legal materials available online. We’ll cover Federal, State and Local legal resources available for free on the Internet as well as advanced searching techniques that will help you in “the real world.”

The workshop will be Thursday, April 18^th at 12:00pm and again at 5:00pm in the Marshall Dennehey Room on the third floor of the library.

Contact Reference Librarian, Maggie Stewart Adams for more information at:  mmstewart@widener.edu

Murder victim Elizabeth Dunning, from an illustration in the San Francisco Call

One evening in August 1898 in Dover, Delaware, the family of ex-congressman John B. Penington sat together on the porch of their house on the Dover Green. Mr. and Mrs. Penington, their son, two adult daughters and their grandchildren were relaxing after dinner. Two neighbors stopped by to say hello. One of the daughters, Elizabeth Dunning, had received a box of chocolates in the mail earlier that day, and she passed the candy around for her family and friends to enjoy. Later that night, everyone who had eaten the candy got sick. Elizabeth Dunning and her sister, Ida Deane, had eaten more candy than the others. Within a few days, both women were dead. Food poisoning was originally suspected, but tests on the candy proved it had been laced with arsenic.

The candy had been sent with no return address but a San Francisco postmark. Included in the box was a handkerchief and a note that read “With love to yourself and baby, love, Mrs. C.” When informed of his wife Elizabeth’s death, her husband John P. Dunning, immediately suspected his mistress, Cordelia Botkin.

Photo from “The Staff Correspondent”

Born in Delaware, John P. Dunning studied to be an attorney, but the staid life of a provincial Dover lawyer wasn’t for him. He became a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, traveling the world to cover stories of war and natural disaster. In 1889 he was sent to Samoa to cover the growing tension there between Germany and the United States. Dunning arrived in time to witness the destruction of the fleets sent by the two countries in a terrible cyclone. His story was sent by the AP to newspapers around the world, including the New York Times.  His coverage of the cyclone and courage in rescuing victims of the disaster made him a well-known reporter.

Dunning and his wife Elizabeth had a daughter and moved to San Francisco, where Dunning worked for the Associated Press. At some point, Elizabeth and John separated, Elizabeth and her daughter moving back to Dover to live with her parents. Dunning stayed in San Francisco, where he began an affair with Cordelia Botkin. Botkin was also married and separated from her husband.

Cordelia Botkin, illustration from the San Francisco Call

At the outbreak of the Spanish American War in 1898, Dunning was sent by the Associated Press to Cuba to cover the war, where he covered the exploits of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Before he left, he told Cordelia that after the war he’d be going home to his wife in Delaware. Not long afterward, his wife and her sister were dead.

Cordelia Botkin was soon arrested and charged with the murder of Elizabeth Dunning. Her trial was a huge sensation, with front page coverage in newspapers all over the country. The case had everything needed for a sensational story: adultery, prominent people, the clash between small town values and big city sophistication, and a murder committed by the latest technology, poison by mail.

Cordelia Botkin steadfastly maintained her innocence and hired some of the finest lawyers in San Francisco, but she was found guilty of murder in December 1898. In 1901 her conviction was overturned (People v. Botkin, 132 Cal. 231, 64 P. 286 (1901)) because of improper jury instructions. She was tried and convicted again in 1904 and sentenced to life in prison. She appealed again but this time her conviction was upheld People v. Botkin, 9 Cal. App. 244, 98 P. 861 (1908). She died in San Quentin prison in 1910. John Dunning preceded her in death, dying in Philadelphia in 1907 at the age of 44.

Sources:

John R. Alstadt, Jr. With Love to Yourself and Baby. Dorrance, 2001.

Charles Sanford Diehl. The Staff Correspondent. Clegg Co., 1931.

Thomas S. Duke. Celebrated Criminal Cases of America. J.H. Barry, 1910.

The San Francisco Call‘s extensive coverage of the trial is available at the California Digital Newspaper Collection.

April is National Poetry Month. The law and poetry have more in common than you might think, maybe because lawyers have to be good writers. A few Widener faculty have published articles about poetry and the law. Mary Kate Kearney of the Harrisburg campus has written The Propriety of Poetry in Judicial Opinions, about the use of poetry by judges in their opinions. Another Harrisburg faculty member, Randy Lee, has written an article about Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen’s Hope and the Lawyer as Poet Advocate.

On the Delaware campus, Alan Garfield once published a humorous poem about Sherwood v. Walker, the famous contract case about a cow. For some reason, Sherwood v. Walker seems to spark the muse in many lawyers because there are a lot of poems inspired by that case. And even a song:

LegalTrac is back up again.

The LegalTrac database is currently down due to a problem with Gale, the database provider. In the meantime, you could try using Index to Legal Periodicals instead.