Former Boeing engineer Dongfan "Greg" Chung was convicted Thursday of stealing corporate trade secrets related to the US Space Shuttle program and turning them over to China in the first ever trial under the Economic Espionage Act . Chung, a native of China, was tried in the US District Court for the Central District of [...]
The US Senate approved a bill Thursday that would expand hate crimes law to include crimes motivated by sexual orientation or gender. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act would provide federal assistance to state and local authorities to prosecute hate crimes and would allow the federal government to prosecute such crimes that state or [...]
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a suit against Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for allegedly misusing FBI background records to obtain information on Republican White House employees during Bill Clinton's presidency. US District Judge Royce Lamberth removed Clinton as a defendant in the case because there was no legal basis to require Clinton [...]
The Greek Parliament voted Wednesday to approve legislation that would create a DNA database and allow the use of surveillance cameras in fighting crime. The measure, supported by the ruling conservative New Democracy party, would allow for the collection of DNA samples from all criminal suspects. Upon acquittal, the sample would be destroyed, but upon [...]
Former US Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Yoo defended warrantless wiretapping in an essay published Thursday by the Wall Street Journal . Yoo was responding to a report released by five government agencies that alleged that the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program relied on flawed legal analysis and produced results of [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Dr. Maria Alvanou of the Hellenic Police Officers Academy says that new Greek counter-terrorism initiatives should respect the rights and freedoms of Greek citizens even though the tactics of domestic terrorist groups themselves seem increasingly to disregard public opinion… Greece has recently begun to confront a revival of terrorist activity with a [...]
Lawyers for ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra challenged the Thai government's decision to seize $2.2 billion of Thaksin's assets during a hearing Wednesday before Thailand's Supreme Court Criminal Division for Political Office Holders. The attorney general claims Thaksin is unusually rich and accused him of making his fortune through abuse of his power. Thaksin's [...]
Amelia Mathias, Pitt Law '11, writes from Brussels about the European Union elections… It would have been easy to forget entirely about June's elections for the European Parliament if one ignored the election posters plastering European cities, portraying diverse faces of every color, creed, and gender beaming out of every convenience store window. Indeed, it [...]
Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed by the US Senate July 16, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on the laws aimed at the prevention of hate crimes.
US Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor reiterated her commitment to applying the law fairly to the facts of each case as members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee concluded their questions Thursday. During questioning from Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) , Sotomayor said: The role of the courts is to interpret the law as Congress writes [...]