A group of nine low-income citizens filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Wednesday seeking to enjoin legislation requiring proof of citizenship for Medicaid beneficiaries from taking effect on July 1. Families USA sued US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt arguing that the citizenship proof requirement [...]
Wire services are reporting that the US Supreme Court has ruled that military commissions at Guantanamo Bay are illegal under military law and the Geneva Conventions , holding in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld , that President Bush did not have authority to establish the commissions as constituted. Salim Hamdan , a former driver for Osama bin [...]
The US Supreme Court on Thursday upheld Arizona's law governing insanity defenses in criminal cases, ruling in Clark v. Arizona that the state's approach does not violate constitutional due process. In June 2000 at the age of 17, Eric Clark, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, shot and killed police officer Jeff Moritz because he allegedly believed [...]
Recent British court rulings against the legality of control orders restricting terror suspects have precipitated a "constitutional crisis" in the UK, according to Labour Party MP John Denham , chair of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee , speaking Thursday on BBC Radio 4 . Denham was responding to Wednesday's High Court ruling striking [...]
Kazakhstan's parliament has approved legislation that would subject the news media to more state control. It will not take effect unless signed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev , who vetoed a similar law in 2004. The new legislation provides for high administrative fines and registration fees for media organizations, according to the Organisation for Security and [...]
Australian-born terror suspect David Hicks will serve his prison sentence in Australia if convicted by a US military commission at Guantanamo Bay , Australian Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Thursday. Hicks, captured in Afghanistan by US forces in 2001 with suspected ties to the Taliban, is one of ten charged Guantanamo Bay detainees awaiting trial [...]
A commission headed by the chief judge of New York has recommended that a permanent state commission be established to assume control of the state's indigent legal service systems to ensure that they meet the constitutional requirements for providing adequate representation. Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye unveiled the final [...]
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a civil lawsuit in federal court Wednesday alleging that at least six current and former employees of BP North America manipulated propane prices in 2004 by using BP's dominant market position to increase heating costs in the middle of winter. The CFTC is seeking an injunction against [...]
The US House of Representatives has defeated a measure that would have barred the US Justice Department from collecting evidence in violation of the "knock and announce" rule. The House voted 310-109 late Wednesday to reject an amendment offered by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) in reaction to the US Supreme Court's decision two weeks ago [...]
As Americans prepare to celebrate Independence Day on July 4, JURIST Guest Columnists David Crane and Fred Bryant, former senior legal officials in the US Defense Department, say that the United States cannot win either the war in Iraq or the fight against international terrorism without holding fast to the rule of law that has [...]
