A special court in India sentenced 11 Muslims to death Tuesday in connection with the Godhra train burning in 2002 that killed 59 Hindu nationalists and started the 2002 Gujarat riots . Special judge PR Patel handed down death sentences for 11 of 31 convicted last week under the India Penal Code for murder, attempted [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Tuesday asking the court to overturn a December decision by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia striking down the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) . The [...]
An Argentine court on Monday commenced the trial of former dictators Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone for allegedly overseeing a systematic plan to steal babies born to political prisoners during the nation’s 1976-1983 “Dirty War” . The two are accused in 34 separate cases of infants who were taken from mothers held in clandestine torture [...]
Iranian opposition leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and their wives were arrested and jailed in Heshamatiyeh prison on Monday, according to Mousavi’s website Kaleme . Judicial authorities denied the arrest , stating that both Mousavi and Karroubi were only under house arrest. Prosecutor General Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie warned the opposition movement earlier on [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in DePierre v. United States on whether the term “cocaine base” in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is limited to “crack” cocaine or encompasses all forms of cocaine chemically classified as a base. The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that “cocaine base” refers to [...]
An Italian court on Monday resumed the trial of Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi on tax fraud charges , just weeks after the Constitutional Court modified a law that would have granted Berlusconi and other public officials temporary immunity from charges while in office. The court first suspended Berlusconi’s trial last year to consider the legitimacy [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled 6-2 in Michigan v. Bryant that preliminary inquiries of a wounded citizen concerning the perpetrator and circumstances of the shooting are non-testimonial evidence, rendering them admissible in court. The case involved statements made to police by Anthony Covington identifying Richard Bryant as his assailant and stating the location [...]
An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced former British solider Danny Fitzsimons to 20 years in prison for the shooting deaths of two of his colleagues in August 2009. Fitzsimons, who was working as a contractor for the UK security firm, ArmorGroup, now a part of G4S , escaped the death penalty but received the jail [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Monday condemned the response by Middle Eastern governments to peaceful protests, urging the international community to take a strong stance against violence in Libya. In Pillay’s opening statement to the Sixteenth Session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) she urged the body and the international community [...]
The Supreme Court of India has ruled that criminal defendants have a right to counsel under the Indian Constitution . The court found Thursday that under Article 22(1) of the Constitution, a court could not decide a criminal case without a lawyer present for the defendant, and should appoint counsel where the defendant cannot obtain [...]
