Bleu Copas and Caleb Laieski filed a lawsuit in the Chancery Court for Anderson County on Tuesday, challenging a Tennessee law that protects counselors who refuse to provide services to individuals based on their religious beliefs. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam , who is named in the lawsuit, signed the bill into law in April. The [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 6-2 Thursday in Dietz v. Bouldin that federal district courts have “the inherent power to rescind a jury discharge order and recall a jury for further deliberations” in a civil trial to remedy an error in the jury’s verdict. Writing for the Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor added that “this power [...]

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stated on Thursday that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against anyone in MI6 for its involvement in the movement and alleged ill treatment of Abdel Hakim Belhadj , and Sami Al Saadi and their respective families in South East Asia to Libya in 2004. More specifically, the head [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-3 Thursday in Williams v. Pennsylvania that Pennsylvania’s Chief Justice should have recused himself from a death penalty case in which he formerly served as prosecutor. Terrance Williams was convicted of first degree murder in Philadelphia and sentenced to death. Ronald Castillo was the district attorney in Philadelphia during the [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 6-2 Thursday in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle that the double jeopardy clause bars Puerto Rico and the US from successively prosecuting a single person for the same conduct under equivalent criminal laws. In an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court held that, for the purposes of double [...]

Former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Sabrina de Sousa will be extradited to Italy to serve a four-year prison sentence following a ruling by Portugal’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday. De Sousa filed an appeal in April, a last attempt to prevent her extradition to Italy to serve a sentence for her involvement in a [...]

Crimes against humanity , including enslavement, imprisonment, torture, rape and murder have been widespread in Eritrea, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea said in a report Wednesday. The commission has been collecting testimony of these harsh conditions since 2014. According to the report, these conditions have yet to improve. Mike Smith, [...]

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and various rights groups expressed opposition Monday to legislation that extends categories of Internet records that the government can collect without court approval through the National Security Letters . These expanded powers would allow the FBI to get a variety of new information such as IP addresses, routing and transmission information, session [...]

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that non-EU immigrants who illegally enter the Schengen area across an internal border should not be jailed solely on that basis. They can, however, be returned first through a time allowing for voluntary return and then through “forced removal measures.” The forced removal measures are to be conducted [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by Ecuador over an arbitration award to Chevron Corp . In 2011 Chevron was issued a $96 million international arbitration award over a dispute involving development of oil fields in Ecuador. The award was issued by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. [...]