The US government will begin collecting DNA samples from every person arrested under federal laws, a Department of Justice spokesman said Wednesday. Federal agencies are authorized to collect DNA samples under a 2006 amendment to the Violence Against Women Act, but previously had only collected DNA from people actually convicted of federal crimes. About 1.2 [...]
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia are chafing under increasingly strict regulations implemented under legislation signed into law in April 2006 by Russian President Vladimir Putin , rights groups told AP Wednesday in the wake of a Tuesday compliance deadline. The groups say they expect the Russian government to continue its clamp-down on foreign-funded and domestic [...]
Lawyers for former Italian Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) chief Nicolo Pollari said Wednesday that they have included Italian Prime Minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi as a requested witness to testify in support of Pollari's assertion that he was not involved in a reported 2003 CIA kidnapping case. Pollari was charged in 2006 in connection with the [...]
Several US states announced Wednesday that they would resume executions by lethal injection after the Supreme Court's decision upholding Kentucky's lethal injection protocol earlier in the day. Virginia lifted its death penalty moratorium and Oklahoma's attorney general said he would seek to schedule executions for two death-row inmates . Arizona's attorney general said the decision [...]
Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was released from custody Wednesday by US military forces in Iraq. Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, deputy commanding general for detainee operations for the Multi National Force–Iraq , signed an order approving Hussein's release Monday after confirming that Hussein's conduct fell under Iraq's amnesty law , passed in February as [...]
The Federal Court of Australia Wednesday ruled against former Guantanamo detainee Mamdouh Habib in an ongoing claim for compensation against the Australian government, which he accused of being complicit in torture he allegedly suffered while held in US custody. Habib had alleged that he was interrogated and tortured at the Australian High Commission in Pakistan [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Kennedy v. Louisiana , 07-343, where the Supreme Court considered whether the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment when imposed for a crime in which the victim was not killed. Patrick Kennedy was sentenced to death in Louisiana for raping a minor, one of the [...]
US District Judge Joan A. Lenard Wednesday declared a second mistrial in a terrorism prosecution of six men charged with conspiring to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI headquarters in Miami after the jury was unable to reach a verdict after 13 days of deliberations. In December 2007 Lenard declared an initial [...]
The European Union (EU) must do more to ensure that those responsible for war crimes committed during the 1991-1995 Croatian War of Independence are brought to justice, Amnesty International said Tuesday. Amnesty called on the EU to use Croatia's status as an EU candidate country to ensure that the Croatian government actively investigates and prosecutes [...]
Baze v. Rees, US Supreme Court, April 16, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
