The Utah Senate voted 20-9 on Tuesday in favor of a bill to repeal the death penalty. The Death Penalty Amendments bill would reorganize murder and homicide statutes as non capital offenses and give the prosecutors until May to seek a notice of capital punishment for any pending case. The legislation awaits final approval in [...]
The highest court in Venezuela, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice , on Tuesday ruled that the Venezuelan National Assembly may not review the appointment of 13 justices to the high court. The 13 justices were sworn in on December 23, immediately prior to the exit of prior Socialist Party majority. The court ruled that the [...]
South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have required public school students to use the bathroom or locker room corresponding to their sex at birth. In a statementDaugaard said that the bill would put schools in the “difficult position of following the law while knowing it openly invited federal litigation,” [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Tuesday. In Nichols v. United States the court heard arguments on whether the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) requires that sex offenders update their residency information if they move outside of US jurisdiction. In 2003 Lester Nichols was charged with intent to engage [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Rogendy Toussaint of St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2016, is the twelfth author in a twelve-part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development. Toussaint discusses whether the disparate impact of international aid in Haiti… As a seemingly routine afternoon faded to dusk on [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company against a 2005 Vermont health care law that required health insurance providers to release data regarding the amount paid on medical claims, siding with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company . In a 6-2 decision, the court said that the law did not apply [...]
The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) released a report Tuesday condemning Greece for police abuse, poor prison conditions and mistreatment of detained juveniles. The report details findings that the system to hold those responsible for police misconduct is undermined by systemic failings. The [...]
A federal lawsuit was filed on Monday against the governor of Mississippi challenging the state flag, the last one in the country that bears the Confederate battle emblem. Carlos Moore, the Mississippi native and civil rights lawyer that filed the claim , alleges that the imagery “is tantamount to hateful government speech that both has [...]
A UN human rights body was urged Monday to place more of a focus on women in disaster reduction and relief measures. Speaking to a special convention on the relationship between gender and disaster reduction and climate change, Robert Glasser, head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, told the Committee on the Elimination [...]
The head of the UN mission in Kosovo said Monday that Kosovo is set to face “complex challenges” this year and should shift focus towards more fundamental issues “such as the intrinsic links between post-conflict development, enforcement of the rule of law, and human rights,” rather than politics. Zahir Tanin, Special Representative of the Secretary-General [...]
