A Mexican judge Saturday cleared ex-president Luis Echeverria of genocide charges in connection with his role in repressing a 1968 student revolt while he was the country's Interior Minister. According to Echeverria's lawyer, the judge ruled that the charges could not stand because of Mexico's statute of limitations. BBC News has more. From Mexico City, [...]
Two committees of the US Senate are set for hearings on draft legislation governing trial procedures for Guantanamo detainees after the US Supreme Court ruled June 29 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that President Bush's military commissions as currently constituted lack proper legal authorization . In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, Bush said he would [...]
A Spanish National Court judge has confirmed indictments against 29 suspects accused in connection with the March 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and injured or wounded almost 2000 others. Judge Juan del Olmo initially handed down the massive charges in April subject to appeal. The way is now clear for a trial [...]
Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, chief of US ground forces in Iraq, has found several Marine commanders negligent in their handling of an investigation into the shooting deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha in November, and has recommended disciplinary action for some, according to Defense Department officials quoted in the New York Times Saturday. US [...]
Judge Melvin K. Westmoreland of Fulton County Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking the implementation of Georgia's photo identification cards for voters, holding that the authorizing bill violates the state constitution by placing an undue burden on the fundamental right to vote and that it would require a state constitutional amendment to [...]
President Bush suggested Friday in a Chicago news conference that the US Supreme Court had approved the decision to establish a military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by its silence on the issue. Bush also seemed to characterize the Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld as a setting of boundaries for future military commissions, instead [...]
Spanish National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz on Friday charged several former Guatemalan military officers with genocide, torture, and other crimes against humanity, and issued international arrest warrants for their involvement in atrocities committed during Guatemala's brutal 36-year civil war that formally ended in 1996, including the murder of eight Spanish priests and a 1980 military [...]
San Diegans for the Mt. Soledad National War Memorial v. Paulson, Supreme Court of the United States, July 7, 2006 . Read the full text of the opinion per Justice Kennedy. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy ordered Friday that a temporary stay against the removal of a monumental cross on city property in San Diego be continued until the Ninth Circuit hears an appeal on the cross's removal this fall. Kennedy issued the original stay of a lower court's order that a 29-foot cross honoring [...]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services , part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, issued a final rule Thursday clarifying proof of citizenship required to apply for Medicaid benefits. The new rule exempts mostly elderly and disabled applicants who have previously applied for Medicare or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits from [...]
