The Italian Senate approved a bill Wednesday that aims to shorten the trial and appeals process by putting strict time limits on its duration. The legislation would limit the three stages of a case – trial, initial appeal, and final appeal – to between 6.5 and 10 years depending on the crime, and cases that [...]
A Russian journalist died in a Siberian hospital on Wednesday from injuries he received during a police beating nearly two weeks ago, according to local investigators. Konstantin Popov, an economics writer for a Russian newspaper, was arrested for drunkenness on January 4 and taken to prison , where police officer Alexei Mitayev allegedly tortured and [...]
Federal courts provide an effective venue for prosecuting terror suspects, securing convictions in 89 percent of cases since 2001, according to a report released Wednesday by New York University's Center on Law and Security . The report found that in recent years, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has prosecuted fewer high-profile terror defendants, choosing [...]
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed an order Wednesday authorizing two previously excluded Muslim scholars who strongly criticized US foreign policy to enter the country. During the Bush administration, the US government barred professors Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University and Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg from entering the country, claiming both had [...]
US President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a memorandum directing the heads of government agencies to conduct a review of the tax delinquency status of all companies that compete for federal contracts. Citing a need to protect taxpayer money and a total unpaid tax figure in excess of $5 billion, Obama authorized department heads to [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in two cases. In Berghuis v. Smith , the Court heard arguments on whether there is a constitutional violation when the African-American representation on a jury is disproportionate to the community population. There is a circuit split on whether the so-called the comparative-disparity test, which calculates the [...]
A Vietnamese court on Wednesday convicted four democracy activists of subversion. After a one-day trial, prominent human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh was sentenced to five years in prison. Le Thang Long also received a five-year sentence, Nguyen Tien Trung was sentenced to seven years, and Internet entrepreneur Tran Huynh Duy Thuc received a 16-year [...]
The Supreme Court of Pakistan released its detailed judgment regarding the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) on Wednesday. The ordinance granted President Asif Ali Zardari and 8,000 other government officials immunity from charges including corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, murder, and terrorism between January 1986, and October 1999. A special 17-member panel of court unanimously ruled [...]
Wood v. Allen, US Supreme Court, January 20, 2010 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on ineffective assistance of counsel.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday dismissed a suit against Italy by Palestinian immigrants alleging illegal expulsion from the country. In a statement explaining its decision, the court questioned the existence of at least 34 of the 84 immigrants, and was unable to locate 57 of the individuals. Regarding the 14 individuals [...]
