The Paris Appellate Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court's 2008 decision finding French oil company Total and several other defendants criminally liable for an oil spill that occurred of the coast of Brittany in 1999. The court also increased the fine against the defendants from 192 million euros to 200 million euros. Over 20,000 [...]
Berghuis, Warden v. Smith, US Supreme Court, March 30, 2010 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on race and jury selection.
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 7-2 in Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson that whistle-blowers cannot bring suit under the False Claims Act to recover misspent government funds if the information used in the lawsuits came from state or local agencies' reports or audits. The suit [...]
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday proposed amending the country's terrorism legislation in the wake of Monday's twin suicide bombing attacks on Moscow subway stations. In televised remarks, Medvedev said: We need to focus on improving legislation aimed at preventing acts of terrorism, on the work of various departments charged with investigating such crimes, and [...]
The High Court of Australia on Tuesday ordered that alleged Serbian war criminal Dragan Vasiljkovic be extradited to Croatia to face prosecution. Vasiljkovic, an Australian citizen also known as Daniel Snedden, is accused of war crimes occurring during the 1991-1995 Croatian war of independence . The high court's decision overturns a September ruling by the [...]
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously in Berghuis v. Smith that a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community was not violated when the African-American representation on the jury was disproportionate to the community population. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit applied [...]
Stephen M. Hoersting : "In SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission, a unanimous federal court struck down FEC regulations that limited the ability of citizens to join together and speak about politics and candidates. Extending the rationale of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the government [...]
An Illinois Cook County Circuit Court judge ruled Monday that the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 is constitutional. While lifting the temporary restraining order on the law's enforcement, Judge Daniel Riley approved a 60-day grace period, preventing state officials from enforcing the law pending appeal procedures. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois [...]
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously in Jones v. Harris Associates that a shareholder does not have to show that a fund's investment adviser misled the fund's directors in order to have a cognizable claim of an excessive fee under § 36(b) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 . The US Court [...]
The number of countries using the death penalty continued to drop during 2009, according to an annual report published Monday by Amnesty International (AI) . According to the report, more than 700 people were executed last year in 18 countries, with the most executions carried out in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the US. Regionally, [...]
