The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the case of Credit Suisse Securities v. Billing , 05-1157, a case in which investors filed a class action lawsuit against underwriters and institutional investors for their alleged manipulation of initial public offerings. The question presented was whether the plaintiffs' class can maintain their action under [...]
The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted Tuesday to reject proposed legislation which would have effectively ended the death penalty in the state. Had it passed, the proposed law would have set the maximum penalty for capital crimes at life in prison without parole. The debate was emotionally charged by the recent shooting of a [...]
Rockwell International v. US ex rel. Stone, US Supreme Court, March 27, 2007 . Read the court's opinion per Justice Scalia and a dissent from Justice Stevens. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
The US District Court for the Central District of California began jury selection Tuesday in the espionage trial of Chi Mak , a Chinese-American engineer charged with conspiring to smuggle sensitive naval intelligence data to China . The US government indicted Mak in November 2005 for both acting as, and failing to register as, an [...]
The Iowa Senate on Tuesday passed SF427 , extending the state's civil rights protections to gay and lesbians. The controversial legislation would officially add gender identity and sexual orientation to the list of groups protected from discrimination in Iowa. The bill now moves to the Iowa House of Representatives, where if passed, it would complement [...]
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR) Tuesday criticized the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) for its terrorist watchlist containing more than 6,000 names. A new LCCR report entitled "The OFAC List: How a Treasury Department Terrorist Watchlist Ensnares Everyday Consumers," said the Treasury Department's [...]
The late former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is under investigation for possibly ordering the murder of former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva in 1982. Although Pinochet died of a heart attack in December, an investigation is underway to determine whether he directed state officials to poison Montalva with mustard gas. Montalva, who served as president [...]
The US District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for authorizing torture and abuse of detainees by US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The suit asserted that Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for detainee abuse and that his actions violated the US Constitution, federal [...]
Kosovan Prime Minister Agim Ceku Tuesday urged Serbs to accept a UN plan to have Kosovo govern itself as an autonomous, multi-ethnic society. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica responded that Kosovo "could never be independent" and calling the plan "an act of legal violence." The plan was narrowly rejected by the Serbian Parliament last month [...]
Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Italy launched simultaneous raids on Tuesday in a massive anti-corruption investigation involving European public servants. Over 150 police officers took part in over 30 raids of homes, businesses and banking offices, as well as the European Commission and the European Parliament in Brussels. The investigation is focused on whether European civil [...]
