A sharply divided Montana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that physician assisted suicide is not banned by state law, making Montana the third state to allow the practice after Oregon and Washington. The Court upheld in...

Judge Richardo M. Urbina of the US District Court for the District of Columbia Thursday dismissed voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges against the five Blackwater guards indicted for their involvement in the...

US Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. issued an unusually brief year-end report on the federal judiciary Thursday in his capacity as head of the Judicial Conference of the United States , declining to address...

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday ruled that the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are not required to confirm or deny the existence...

2009 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, US Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Judicial Conference of the United States, December 31, 2009 [reporting in a one-page document that the federal courts were "operating soundly" and thanking judges and court...

United States of America v. Slough, et al., US District Court for the District of Columbia, December 31, 2009 [dismissing voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges against five Blackwater guards indicted for involvement in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in...

A plethora of state laws set to take effect after Friday, New Year's Day, seek to regulate everything from social policy to highway safety. Texting while driving will become illegal in Illinois, Oregon, and New Hampshire, which...

Thirteen state attorneys general, all Republicans, demanded in a letter sent Wednesday to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and the Senate Majority Leader that a controversial provision in the health care reform bill [text,...

US President Barack Obama effectively issued his first veto of congressional legislation Wednesday, rejecting as "unnecessary legislation" a stopgap spending bill that was drafted in case inclement weather would have...

Wilner, et al. v. National Security Agency, et al., US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, December 30, 2009 [holding that the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice are not required to confirm or deny the existence...