The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled unanimously in Evenwel v. Abott that States may use total population to appropriate state legislative districts, and there is no constitutional requirement that states use voter population in order to divide up legislative districts. This case arose after the 2010 census when the Texas legislature created a redistricting [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Jeffrey F. Addicott of St. Mary’s University School of Law discusses the assertion that waterboarding is torture… With the 2016 campaign for president heating up, many old issues are being revisited to include the false contention that “waterboarding” is torture. While some may claim, for example, that Republican presidential candidate Donald J. [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled unanimously in Nichols v. US that the Sex Offender Notification and Registration Act (SONRA) did not require an individual to update his registration in Kansas once he departed the state and moved to a foreign country, overruling the Tenth Circuit. In 2003 Lester Nichols was charged with traveling [...]
Police and military raids in low-income communities in Venezuela are leading to allegations of widespread abuse, the Venezuelan Human Rights Education-Action Program (PROVEA) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a joint report issued Monday. Titled “Unchecked Power: Police and Military Raids in Low-Income and Immigrant Communities in Venezuela,” this report outlines allegations including extrajudicial [...]
The US Supreme Court denied certiorari on Monday in two cases regarding Wal-Mart Stores . The petition raised the issue of whether the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause prohibits a state court from certifying a class action and entering judgment in favor of the class, where the court relieves individual plaintiffs of their burden to [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday granted certiorari in a case regarding racial bias expressed in jury deliberation and whether the no-impeachment rules applied in this scenario violate an individual’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado has come before the Supreme Court because after the initial verdict against Miguel Angel Pena-Rodriguez, [...]
World leaders and other high profile individuals are hiding billions in off-shore accounts, according to reports Sunday that cite confidential documents leaked from a Panamanian law firm. The documents, coined the “Panama Papers” by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, purportedly show that numerous politicians, celebrities and other wealthy individuals have hid money utilizing the [...]
The city of Flint, Michigan has filed an intent to sue letter with the state, claiming that the city lacks funds to defend itself against lawsuit filed during the water crisis . The city’s new chief legal officer, Stacy Erwin Oakes, stated that the city filed the notice over damages to the municipal water system [...]
Azerbaijan on Sunday announced a “unilateral ceasefire” to the fighting with Armenian forces over the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh. The announcement comes a day after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate end to the fighting between the two countries, as there have been reports of increased fighting and large-scale ceasefire violations along [...]
Polish citizens protested on Sunday a possible total abortion ban following the suggestion of the ruling legislative party’s president. The ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party wants to bring the country’s abortion policies in line with the Catholic Church’s views on the practice, and party president Jaroslaw Kaczynski recently backed the church’s position. The [...]
