Preface

AuthorRichard Leiter
Pagesxi-xii

Arrangement

Selection of Topics

Topic Cross Reference Table

Acknowledgments

Editor’s Note

National Survey of State Laws provides an overall view of some of the most-asked about and controversial legal topics in the United States. Presented in chart format, this reference allows users to make basic state-by-state comparisons of current state laws. The subjects featured fall into eight general legal categories:

Business and Consumer Laws

Criminal Laws

Education Laws

Employment Laws

Family Laws

General Civil Laws

Real Estate Laws

Tax Laws

The types of topics covered range from Abortion to the Right to Die, Gun Control to Prayer in Public Schools, Personal Income Tax to Right to Work, and Lemon Laws to Leases and Rental Agreements.

The information presented is culled from laws on the books as of June 1, 2007.

Arrangement

National Survey of State Laws is divided by legal category into eight sections. Within each section each topic is arranged alphabetically and is presented in its own subsection, which begins with a general overview followed by a table that briefly summarizes each state’s and the District of Columbia’s statutes on particular aspects of law.

The salient points of each law appear at the top of each column. Beneath, brief statements provide the core points of the state statute. References to each state’s statute or code section covering that law are also presented, enabling users who are interested in reading the original text to find it in the state’s code of law. The appendix comprises a list of Statutory Compilations Used in This Book and provides the abbreviations and full names of each state code.

Selection of Topics

Aside from being controversial and sought-after, the topics presented in National Survey of State Laws must meet another criterion: state statutes covering that topic must be available. In many cases, there are no statutes; here the common law, or the law of the courts, which is determined by many cases taken together, forms the single rule of law pertaining to that topic.

There are also a few instances where state statutes have been rendered ineffectual by the states’ adopting uniform acts or by U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Therefore, comparisons for these types of laws are not included here. However, because two situations in which the Supreme Court has seized jurisdiction over...

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