The administration of US President Barack Obama intends to endorse a UN declaration that calls for decriminalizing homosexuality, according to an anonymous official quoted in a Tuesday Associated Press report . In December, the Bush administration declined to sign the statement signed by 66 other nations . The Bush administration offered the rationale that although [...]
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday nominated Judge David Hamilton to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit , thereby moving to fill the first of 15 federal appellate vacancies . Hamilton previously served for 14 years as a district judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of [...]
The Iraqi Cabinet urged the Presidency Council Tuesday to ratify death sentences against three former Saddam Hussein officials. The sentences have been delayed because two of the members, President Jalal Talabani and Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, have opposed the sentences of Hashim al-Taie and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, alleging that both men's roles in the 1988 Anfal [...]
The US Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Tuesday a military judge's dismissal of the charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani , the top-ranking US Marine to face court-martial in the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha . The court affirmed the appearance of "unlawful command influence" when a lawyer who had investigated the [...]
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld Tuesday a district court decision finding former El Salvador chief military commander Nicolas Carranza liable for murder and torture committed during the El Salvador civil war in the 1980s. In 2005, a Tennessee federal jury found Carranza liable for acts of [...]
Gabor Rona : "Last Friday, the Obama administration for the first time articulated in court its vision of authority to detain persons who are now being held at Guantanamo. The government's brief in the In Re: Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation case in the District Court of the District of Columbia notes that this is only [...]
A Russian court Tuesday refused a request by defense lawyers to drop new embezzlement and money laundering charges against former Russian oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev . The court also rejected a request by defense lawyers to have the case returned to state prosecutors for further investigation. The lawyers [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday hailed a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit not to revisit an earlier decision requiring the Department of Defense (DOD) to disclose photographs of alleged detainee abuse. The Bush administration filed a request for rehearing either by panel or en banc in [...]
The appellate chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday partially reversed the conviction and reduced the sentence of former Bosnian Serb parliamentary leader Momcilo Krajisnik from 27 to 20 years. Krajisnik was initially convicted in 2006 on charges of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, and forced transfer of non-Serb civilians [...]
The Vermont State Legislature on Monday began a series of week-long hearings on a bill that would allow same-sex marriage in the state. The bill, "An Act to Protect Religious Freedom and Promote Equality in Civil Marriage," sponsored by Vermont State Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin and State Senators John Campbell and Claire Ayer [...]
