An Alaska Superior Court judge ordered the state to rewrite and reissue all 517,000 of its ballots for the November 2 election Wednesday. The order is the result of a motion filed Monday by the Trust the People Initiative Committee that had requested the court stop the printing of ballots in Alaska because the state Division of Elections summary of the measure to change the method of filling US Senate vacancies was misleading.

Under current law, the Alaskan governor can fill a vacant Senate seat, however, the initiative would replace appointments with a special election. According to the judge's order (not yet available online), the summary of the measure mistakenly estimated how long a Senate seat would be vacant under the initiative. Click here for the text of the proposed initiative. AP has more.

The US House of Representatives voted Wednesday to repeal Washington DC's gun ban. The House approved the DC Personal Protection Act by a vote of 250-171.

The bill still needs Senate approval and President Bush's signature before becoming law. Read the text of the bill here [PDF]. The Washington Post has more.

Another prisoner boycotted a US status review hearing at Guantanamo Bay Wednesday. The hearing was held to determine whether the 37-year-old alleged former religious instructor who received weapons training at an Al Qaida camp in Afghanistan was properly classified as an "enemy combatant" or should be released.

Military officials said he was the 39th prisoner to stay away from the status hearings since they began. AP has more. JURIST has an archive of previous reports on Guantanamo.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a sentence requiring Sean Talty to make reasonable efforts to prevent conceiving another child because of delinquent child support payments was too broad.

The Medina County Ohio Court of Common Pleas imposed the restriction on Talty when he failed to pay $38,000 in child support for his three children. The Ohio Supreme Court's opinion [PDF] suggested a more appropriate route would have been for the lower court to include a procedure for removing the ban. AP has more.

Marko Boskic, a Bosnian accused of sharing a role in slaughtering thousands of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, was indicted Wednesday on charges he falsified information on his immigration applications to the US regarding his involvement in the massacre. Federal prosecutors accuse Boskic of membership in the 10th Sabotage Detachment, which was involved in the 1995 massacre near Srebrenica in which nearly 7,500 men and boys were slaughtered in the span on nine days.

Boskic, who has been living in Boston for the last four years, faces up to 10 years in prison on each of the four document-fraud charges and five years on a count of making false statements. He also faces deportation to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he may be tried as a war criminal by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. AP has more. For more from JURIST's Paper Chase on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, click here. Click here for more from BBC on Srebrenica and background on the war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

Citing a continued lack of security, the UN recommended Wednesday that African monitors should deploy in Darfur refugee camps to better protect the 1.5 million displaced persons there and to build trust with the community. Radhia Achouri, the UN advance mission spokeswoman in Khartoum, reported an increased amount of banditry hampering aid efforts and called for a more proactive monitoring system. The monitoring force in Sudan previously amounted to 150 monitors and 300 support troops, mostly grouped in larger towns, but Achouri echoed yesterday's comments from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour saying that the country would need a much larger force - up to 5000 monitors - to effectively deter attacks and protect aid workers. Reuters has more. Click here to read the story from JURIST's Paper Chase on Arbour's Tuesday address to the UN Commission on Human Rights.

UN sanctions under recently-passed Security Council Resolution 1564 still loom if the Sudanese government cannot stop the violence in the Darfur region, but the country has faced several setbacks, including last month's failed cease-fire with Darfur rebels. Sudan has contested an American contention that the Darfur crisis is an instance of "genocide" - see remarks offered Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington by Sudanese ambassador Khidir Haroun Ahmed. For recent Paper Chase news on the crisis in Sudan, click here. The UN provides background information on the Sudan situation here. The UN has also launched a Sudan Information Gateway.

Attorney General John Ashcroft rejected Wednesday a bid to commute the sentence of John Walker Lindh, an American caught fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Lindh pled guilty in 2002, and received a 20-year prison sentence. Lindh's attorney, who negotiated the original plea bargain, said the deal should be reconsidered in light of the government's release of Yaser Esam Hamdi, another US-born Taliban soldier.

Speaking from The Hague during a visit to the Netherlands, Ashcroft said, "Lindh was fully adjudicated and had his opportunity in court to state his position, and the system operated to provide a punishment for his activities, which were clear and unmistakable." Only President Bush can commute Lindh's sentence. AP has more.

In Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, SEC officials in Boston are investigating roughly two dozen mutual fund firms for any improper trading by fund managers, traders and other insiders over the past three years. CBS MarketWatch has more.

In other news...

• As reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase, new indictments of perjury and obstruction of justice charges were added to the original criminal case [PDF] against fired HealthSouth Corp. chief executive Richard Scrushy involving the company's accounting scandal. Read the original SEC complaint against Scrushy here. AP has more.
  
  
• ConocoPhillips announced it will buy 7.6% of OAO Lukoil from Russia for $1.99 billion and may raise that stake to 20% in the coming years. Read the ConocoPhillips press release here. ConocoPhillips had a live press conference and presentation files [PDF] today. Bloomberg has more.
  
  
• Cendant Corp., the world's largest hotel franchiser, will buy Orbitz Inc. for $1.25 billion, becoming the second-largest company in the online travel market. Read the Cedant and Orbitz press releases. Bloomberg has more.
  
  
• As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, Martha Stewart has been ordered to serve her five-month sentence at the federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia. Stewart had requested serving the sentence in Connecticut or Florida. JURIST's Paper Chase has background of the Stewart case. AP has more.
  
  
• Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. announced it will let an offer for outstanding stock in the gold company expire, in effect conceding defeat in its hostile takeover bid of Wheaton River Minerals Ltd. of British Columbia. Read an update on the bid on the Coeur website. AP has more.

The FBI arrested 12 people Wednesday as aprt of an investigation into organized crime.

Anthony "The Genius" Megale, alleged to be the underboss of the Gambino crime family, and 11 others were charged in a 46-count federal indictment with racketeering, extortion and illegal gambling. A second indictment added charges of conspiracy to traffic cocaine. AP has more.

US District Judge Victor Marrero ruled Wednesday that the section of the US Patriot Act allowing authorities to demand financial records from companies in terrorism investigations is unconstitutional.

Marrero concluded that the section bars any effective judicial challenge because the government does not need to show a compelling need for the information, and the act does not provide process for challenges to police action. The ACLU had brought the challenge to the provision. JURIST's Paper Chase has coverage of Patriot Act issues. Reuters has more.

UPDATE: Doe v. Ashcroft is now online here [PDF; 122 pages]. ACLU materials on the case are available here.

Charges of perjury and obstruction of justice were added Wednesday to the indictment of Richard Scrushy, former HealthSouth CEO. The new charges are part of a superseding indictment which consolidated the counts against Scrushy from 85 to 58. Scrushy has previously pleaded innocent to charges in the 85-count indictment, saying that a $2.6 billion accounting fraud occurred without his knowledge.

The Justice Department is charging Scrushy with conspiracy, securities fraud and money laundering, among other crimes. Scrushy is currently free on $10 million bond, and is expected to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon. AP has more.

Martha Stewart has been ordered to serve her five-month prison sentence at the federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia, rather than at the prisons in Connecticut or Florida requested by Stewart in a letter [PDF] to Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum on September 15.

Alderson is a minimum-security prison housing about 1,000 women; an anonymous source has told AP that it was selected because of its remote location, especially from media. Stewart has been ordered to begin serving her sentence on Oct. 8. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of the Stewart case. WNBC-TV in New York has more.

The US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals refused Wednesday to remove the district judge presiding over the trial of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman for Medicare fraud. US Attorney Alice Martin sought to have District Judge U.W. Clemon removed from the case for an alleged pro-defense bias. A three-judge panel denied Martin’s request without an explanation.

The trial of Siegelman and his former chief of staff, Paul Hamrick, is scheduled to begin Monday. See this Paper Chase report for background. View Siegelman’s indictment here [PDF]. The Montgomery Advertiser has continuing coverage of the case. AP has more.

Several officers with the US Border Patrol are under investigation in connection with the deaths of three illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border near Eagle Pass, Texas. The officers are alleged to have thrown rocks at a group of six Mexicans attempting to cross the border, forcing them back into the Rio Grande river, where three drowned.

Mexican and American officials gave conflicting accounts of the events, which took place last Thursday. The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general office is investigating. CNN has more.

The trials of seven Pitcairn Island men on sex-abuse charges, which were scheduled to begin Monday, have been delayed, and are now scheduled to begin Wednesday. Several women in the Pacific island community have come forward in defense of the suspects, saying that under-age sex was not unusual on the island and that none of them had ever been raped. They also suggested that some witnesses, scheduled to testify via video-link from New Zealand, may have been coerced into doing so.

The trials, which are being conducted under British law, are expected to continue for about six weeks. Pitcairn Today has more on the island. JURIST's Paper Chase has background on the trials. The Australian has more.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has approved new legislation barring the installation of spyware, secret software that is installed on computers without the approval of the user. Once the bill takes effect, computer owners will be able to seek damages from responsible parties.

Some criticized the law as lacking teeth to actually impact spyware. CMP Media reports that managed service providers, which monitor networks, were excluded from the bill's ban after an intense lobbying effort earlier this year. SB 1436 is here. The legislative history of the bill is available here. Reuters has more.

Wednesday's New York Times includes articles about the difficulties abroad in the absentee ballot system, US immigration courts beginning to encounter natives of Darfur in Sudan, where militia attacks have forced many to flee, a lawsuit filed by the New York Times in federal court to stop a federal prosecutor from inspecting telephone records of two Times reporters, a Yemeni judge sentencing two men to death and four others to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years for orchestrating the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole, the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upholding the HealthSouth valuation by prosecutors of $328 million in investor losses, and the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg concluding the European Commission had no grounds to block the proposed $120 billion merger of MCI WorldCom and Sprint four years ago.

The Washington Post notes that the Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will decide whether the Constitution permits governments to transfer property from one private owner to another in the name of creating jobs and tax revenue, the Associated Press and the Hattiesburg American agreed Tuesday to end their litigation against the US Marshals Service over the erasing of recordings of a speech by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and the House passed a bill to crack down on unauthorized copying of movies, music and other copyrighted materials.

USA Today highlights the Justice Department announcement Tuesday that it will appeal a Nebraska judge's ruling that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional and an update on the Peterson trial.

• British Prime Minister Tony Blair has joined the ranks of those disputing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's characterization of the Iraq war as illegal. In a BBC Radio 4 interview Blair stated that while he understood Mr. Annan's position, he disagreed with it. Blair said that he believed Iraq's breach of Security Council resolutions was a legal justification for the war. He also said that he refused to apologize for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, an act he described as something he was proud of having been involved in. Listen to the BBC interview here. BBC News has more.
  
  
• Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has joined Italy in opposing the proposed expansion of the Security Council by the 'G-4' nations of India, Germany, Japan, and Brazil. On a visit to that country Tuesday he said Pakistan agreed with Italy in not wanting to see any more "centers of privilige" being created in the Security Council. Dawn has more.
  
  
• The Bangladesh Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Bangladesh government to cease its pattern of nation-wide arrests during an anti-crime drive. Over 7000 people have been arrested in under a week. The Supreme Court said it would hear further petitions the rest of the week before giving its final opinion on the legality of the arrests on Sunday. The Kerala News has more.

In Wednesday's environmental law news, the Kenya Wildlife Service has announced a proposal to increase the protection for lions under the UN's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) treaty. Kenya seeks to move the lion to the treaty's Appendix 1 level, a move that would effectively ban trade of the animal. The proposal faces opposition from trophy-hunters and livestock farmers. The proposal will be considered at the Convention's meeting which starts on October 2nd in Bangkok, Thailand. Reuters has the full story.

In other environmental law news...

• Thailand Prime Minister Shinawatra has announced a campaign to eliminate the H5N1 avian flu virus by the end of October. The plan includes taking a census of chickens in the country and culling "ruthlessly" wherever the virus is found. The virus has been responsible for 20 deaths in Vietnam and 10 deaths in Thailand this year. CDC has background on the disease. Reuters has the full story.
  
  
• The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced a new research strategy for waste management in the country. The far-reaching plan [PDF] emphasizes better sustainable waste management policy development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, on both national and local levels. The press release is here. 4NI, a Northern Ireland news-site, has more.

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Wednesday, September 29.

On Capitol Hill, the US Senate will meet at 9:30 AM ET and will consider the Intelligence Reform Bill (S 2845). Watch a live webcast (via C-SPAN).... The US House will convene at 10 AM ET and will consider several bills including the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act (HR 3193). Watch a live webcast (via C-SPAN).... Several US House committees will meet for markup of the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act (HR 10), including the Financial Services Committee at 10 AM ET (watch live webcast), the Government Reform Committee at 10 AM ET (watch live webcast), the Judiciary Committee at 10 AM ET (watch live webcast), the Armed Services Committee at 1 PM ET (listen to live audio), and the Select Intelligence Committee at 1:30 PM ET (watch live webcast via C-SPAN).... During the 10 AM ET US House Judiciary Committee meeting, the committee will also mark up the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (S 1194), HR 4306 (to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act), and other pending legislation.... The US Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space will hold a 2 PM ET hearing on embryonic stem cell research. Watch a live webcast.

At the United Nations, the 59th session of the General Assembly reconvenes at 10 AM ET with remarks by multiple heads of state and other high-level ministers, which will continue into the Assembly's 3 PM ET afternoon session. Read the schedule of speakers and watch a live webcast of both sessions.... The Security Council will meet at 10 AM ET in a closed session to consider Guinea-Bissau and other matters.... At 4 PM ET, the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the UN will sponsor a press briefing on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. Watch a live webcast.

In Wednesday's US law and business press, Law.com has an Associated Press report that the AP and the Hattiesburg American have agreed to end their litigation against the US Marshals Service over the erasing of a speech by US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.... Law.com also features an Associated Press story about an OH attorney sentenced to 1 1/2 years in jail for ambushing women while nude and photographing their shocked expressions.... The Recorder reports on the prospects for John Walker Lindh's receiving a sentence commutation from President Bush.... The New York Law Journal reports that prosecutors have decided not to pursue reinstatement of enterprise corruption charges against two former Tyco International Ltd. executives.... FindLaw's Writ features Columbia law professor Michael C. Dorf's column on whether former federal detainee Yaser Hamdi's deportation deal and agreement not to sue the government are binding.

Click for the previous US law and business press review