The US military said Saturday that it has released over 10,000 Iraqi detainees this past year. Gen. David H. Petraeus was quoted by AP as saying the releases are part of a program to prepare detainees for re-integration into society. Petraeus also said the recidivism rate for released detainees is less than 1 percent. The [...]
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has decided for the time being to cease its opposition to the country's ban on wearing headscarves in public universities , according to a party spokesman. The announcement made Thursday came a day after Turkey's Constitutional Court rejected a bid to ban the AKP on the grounds that [...]
Judges for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled Friday that federal courts have jurisdiction over cases in which 100 or more plaintiffs bring related claims. The case involves 144 plaintiffs claiming injuries from chemicals released by the manufacturing practices of four companies. Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that state courts [...]
Bosnian Serb leader and former fugitive Radovan Karadzic submitted a letter Thursday to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) claiming that irregularities surrounding his trial there on war crimes charges will prevent a fair trial. Karadzic was originally indicted by the court's prosecutor in 1995, but had been in hiding under an [...]
County of San Diego et al., v. San Diego Norml et al., Wendy Christakes, et al., California Fourth District Court of Appeal, July 31, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Friday reversed a lower court's grant of summary judgment against Cheryl Steele, a former economist at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) who had filed a lawsuit alleging a hostile work environment and unlawful retaliation against her in violation of Title [...]
Judges for California's Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled Thursday that challenged provisions of California's Medical Marijuana Program (MMP) are constitutional and do not violate the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) . The counties of San Diego and San Bernardino had argued that certain provisions of the MMP were unconstitutional as violations [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday that it will pay former US Army germ-warfare researcher Dr. Steven Hatfill $2.8 million to settle his claim that the DOJ violated the US Privacy Act by providing information about him to journalists during its investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks , in which he was at [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday obtained and made available a government handbook issued to the lawyers defending the illegal immigrants arrested in May during the massive raid on an Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant in Iowa. The document contains pre-printed forms with blanks for the defendants' names, along with instructions for waiving constitutional [...]
The US Senate passed a bill late on Thursday designed to increase the safety of children's products by mandating new safety rules and restricting the kinds of materials which may be used. The legislation establishes a maximum level of lead, bans certain plastics, requires independent product testing and labeling, and strengthens the authority of the [...]
