Alaska Superior Court Judge Frank Pfiffner on Friday ruled it unconstitutional for Alaska to deny same-sex couples the senior citizen and disabled veteran property tax exemptions given to married couples. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Alaska challenged the state’s tax exemption law on behalf of three same-sex couples in Anchorage [...]
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday that, although Russia did not misuse legal proceedings in order to destroy an oil company, it did violate the business’s rights. The former Russian oil company, Yukos Oil, filed suit against the country alleging that it forced the company into liquidation through unfair taxation practices. In [...]
The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) officially took effect Tuesday at 12:01 AM ET. With the repeal of the law, the military can no longer prevent gays and lesbians from serving openly among its ranks. The occasion was marked by statements of commemoration from various government agencies, as well as individual officials. President [...]
Violent crime in the US dropped for the fourth consecutive year, the FBI announced on Monday. The estimates are part of the annual figures prepared as part of the Bureau’s Crime in the United States (CIUS) report for 2010 . In addition to an overall drop in violent crime, property crimes also decreased for the [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled Monday that a 17-year sentence was not enough for Jose Padilla , convicted on terrorism-related charges. Padilla and co-defendants Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi had appealed their convictions, and federal prosecutors appealed the sentence given by US district court judge Marcia Cooke. Upholding all three [...]
Voters in Liechtenstein on Sunday rejected a proposal to legalize abortion in the country after Hereditary Prince Alois of Liechtenstein , the acting Head of State, expressed displeasure with the law and threatened to veto the proposed change. The referendum, entitled Help Instead of Punishment, would have decriminalized abortion in the first 12 weeks of [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Friday sentenced a man for contempt of court for refusing to testify. The man, Shefqet Kabashi, was sentenced to two months in jail for refusing on two occasions to answer questions during the 2007 trial related to the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo . Kabashi pleaded [...]
Gil Auslander, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2012, is the author of the fourth article in a ten part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development under the direction of Professor Leonard Baynes. He writes on pre-conviction DNA collection in the UK and US… The early [...]
Seven states, including California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, on Friday joined an antitrust lawsuit initiated by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) attempting to block a proposed $39 billion acquisition of cellular carrier T-Mobile USA by Telecom giant AT&T . The lawsuit, filed by the DOJ in August , cites the [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Steven D. Schwinn of the John Marshall Law School in Chicago says that the Eleventh Circuit ignored the text, history and jurisprudence of the Constitution in its recent health care ruling, which will likely not be adopted by the Supreme Court given recent rulings on congressional Commerce Clause authority… Some will go [...]
