Doug Berman, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University: "The ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court yesterday in Marsh declaring the state's death penalty procedures unconstitutional (basics here) is yet another piece of evidence suggesting that the death penalty is now dying a slow death in the US. (For more on the Marsh ruling, here [...]

Iraqi judges Saturday began investigative pre-trial hearings for Sultan Hashim Ahmad, Saddam Hussein's last defense chief, and Ali Hassan al-Majid (Chemical Ali), another former defense minister. Saddam and eleven of his deputies face prosecution for alleged crimes during Saddam's three-decade rule. Today's hearings before a panel of investigative judges set up by the Iraqi Special [...]

Bosnian Foreign Minister, Mladen Ivanic, stepped down Saturday, one day after Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic resigned. Ivanic, also a Serb, cited new international sanctions against the Bosnian Serbs for their lack of cooperation in solving war crimes as the reason for his resignation. The International High Representative in Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, and the [...]

In Washington state, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend ruled Friday that it is too late for King County to consider hundreds of recently discovered ballots from the extremely close November governor's race. Many of the lost ballots were simply misplaced or mistakenly rejected by county workers because of technical errors. The state Republican [...]

An Alabama state appeals court Friday refused to vacate the murder conviction of ex-Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry. Cherry was convicted of the 1963 Klan-related church bombing in Birmingham which killed four black girls. As previously report in JURIST's Paper Chase, Cherry died in prison last month while he was appealing his conviction; his attorney attempted [...]

Kansas v. Marsh, Supreme Court of Kansas, December 17, 2004 . Read the full text of the opinion here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Jamal al-Harith, one of four UK citizens released from detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in March, told a Council of Europe investigating panel Friday that he was kept chained in painful positions, fed rotten food, repeatedly beaten, and subjected to psychological torture. The Council is working on a report on allegations of abuse and torture [...]

The government of China (official website in Chinese) announced Friday that it will submit an anti-secession bill to the Chinese parliament later in Decemeber. The text and details of the legislation have not been made public, but the announcement appeared to be aimed at the recent moves towards independence by Taiwan that have worried the [...]

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said in talks Friday with South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun that economic sanctions were a possibility against North Korea in the wake of growing Japanese public hostility towards Pyongyang for kidnapping of Japanese citizens in previous decades for use in training programs for its intelligence operatives. Tensions between the [...]

Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic tendered his resignation Friday, a day after fresh international sanctions were imposed against Serb police and officials for alleged protection of war crimes fugitives. Mikerevic said his resignation was for the good of Republika Srpska, the Serb-run part of Bosnia created at the end of the former Yugoslav republic's [...]