The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Monday decided to revisit a case to determine whether a California law declaring Armenian genocide in Turkey conflicts with US foreign policy. At issue is California Civil Procedure Code § 354.4 , which recognizes the World War I-era killings of more than one million Armenians [...]
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday stayed the execution of convicted murderer Henry “Hank” Skinner in order to review changes to a state law that may permit DNA testing in relation to his case. Skinner, who was convicted in 1995 of killing his girlfriend, Twila Jean Busby, and her two adult sons, was [...]
A Georgia law intended to combat assisted suicide actually infringes on First Amendment rights, defense lawyers argued to the Supreme Court of Georgia on Monday. The law makes it a felony for someone who “publicly advertises, offers or holds himself or herself out as offering that he or she will intentionally and actively assist another [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Jonathan Will of Mississippi College School of Law says establishing pre-embryonic personhood may still fail to outlaw abortion and may lead to the imposition of restrictions on other reproductive choices such as certain forms of birth control… On November 8, 2011, citizens of Mississippi will pass judgment on an amendment to the [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in two cases. In MBZ v. Clinton , the court heard arguments on whether the political question doctrine deprives a federal court of jurisdiction to enforce a federal statute that explicitly directs the secretary of state how to record the birthplace of an American citizen on a [...]
Sri Lanka has failed to successfully investigate the issues of torture and impunity for past human rights violations in the country, Amnesty International (AI) said Monday on the eve of a review by the UN Committee Against Torture . In its report, AI documented that there are still common and widespread patterns of torture and [...]
The State Tax Service of the Ukraine is reopening four cases against former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko , her lawyer reported on her website on Monday. The charges allege tax evasion during her time as head of United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) in 1996. Last month, the Security Service of Ukraine brought new corruption [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday granted a temporary injunction to block the implementation of new requirements of graphic image and textual warning labels imposed by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA) . The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has mandated that by September [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday granted certiorari in three cases. In Jackson v. Hobbs , the court will consider whether the imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on a 14-year-old child convicted of homicide violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. The court has also been asked to decide whether [...]
A Spanish court on Friday sentenced a former military leader of the Basque separatist group ETA , Francisco Javier Garcia Gatzelu, alias Txapote, to 105 years in prison for ordering the murder of Socialist politician Fernando Buesa and his bodyguard Jorge Diez in 2000. The two men were killed in an explosion in the town [...]
