[JURIST] Leading Monday's corporations and securities law news, the Financial Times is reporting that the US Department of Justice is nearing a settlement with Big Four accounting firm KPMG [FT report]. KPMG has been under investigation for its creation and marketing of illegal tax shelters and in June, KPMG publicly accepted responsibility for the illegal actions [JURIST report] of some of its former employees. According to the story, KPMG will agree to between 12 and 18 months probation, an independent overseer and a fine that could top $500 million. Reuters has more.

In other corporations and securities law news...

• The SEC has filed civil fraud charges against two former Bristol-Myers Squibb [corporate website] executives. In a press release, the SEC says that Frederick Schiff and Richard Lane fraudulently inflated Bristol-Myers' revenue by stuffing its distribution channels by pressuring customers to buy excess products and then carrying the customers' costs on the excess. Last year, Bristol-Myers settled with the SEC over the same charges [JURIST report] for $150 million. Reuters has more.
  
  
• The SEC also charged eight men with insider training related to adidas' purchase of Reebok earlier this month [AP report]. The SEC says that the defendants purchased thousands of shares and options for Reebok stock [press release] in the days leading up to adidas' takeover and sold the stock following the purchase. The SEC also received a court order to freeze the $6 million profit the agency says the defendants gained from the stock. The SEC took similar action earlier this month [JURIST report] against a man related to one of the defendants. Bloomberg has more.
  
  
• The Australian is reporting that, on the heels of a $253 Vioxx verdict against Merck in Texas [JURIST report], lawyers in Australia are increasing pressure on Merck to settle the thousands of lawsuits possibly awaiting trial there. And in the UK, the Daily Mail reports that at least 150 Britons plan to bring suit against the drug maker. Merck has said that it plans to "vigorously defend" all suits [press release] brought against the company.

[JURIST] The US military announced Monday that three more detainees from Iran, Yemen and Tajikistan respectively have been released from the US terror suspect detention facility at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] and sent home to their own countries. US Defense Department Combatant Status Review Tribunals [US DOD backgrounder] had found the Yemeni and Tajik prisoners improperly classed as "enemy combatants" posing a threat the United States. An administrative review board conducting an annual review of detentions had advised the release of the Iranian. The departure of these three detainess leaves 505 others still at Gitmo; 245 have so far been freed outright or released into the custody of their home countries. Read the US Defense Department press release on the detainee transfers. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] JURIST is looking for talented, public-service oriented law students from law schools in the US and abroad to join our team of real-time legal news editors this fall.

From Los Angeles to London, from Chicago to Cairo - if you're a law student looking for intensive research, writing and editing experience and your own byline on a high-profile, mass-audience, volunteer-driven project dedicated to increasing awareness of important national and international legal issues, we may have a position for you!

In particular, we're looking for good writers, skilled Net surfers and fluent English-speakers with a nose for news who can spare at least 10 hours a week - weekdays, evenings and/or weekends - during the law school term to work online with members of our Pittsburgh-based law student staff who power JURIST's Paper Chase legal news weblog every day. Journalistic experience is helpful, but certainly not a prerequisite. Report on the latest legal news in your geographical area, or in your own area of interest. Learn the latest law that matters, make friends across the country and around the world, and gain valuable career and computer skills, all at the same time.

Interested? To apply for an online audition as a JURIST legal news editor, e-mail JURIST@law.pitt.edu

The limited number of JURIST editorial positions will fill up fast with the start of the fall law school term. Applications are already coming in from law students across the country, so contact us now!

[JURIST] Leading Monday's states brief, the California Supreme Court today extended child support laws and custody rights to estranged gay and lesbian couples who used reproductive science to conceive by ruling that same-sex couples who raise children are the lawful parents and must provide for the children after a break up. The legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights [advocacy website] said the rulings are the first in the nation to grant full parental status to both members of same-sex couples who participated in planning and rearing a child. The three separate rulings apply to couples who never registered as domestic partners. The three cases are Elisa B. vs. Superior Court [PDF text], Kristine H. vs. Lisa R. [PDF text], and K.M v. E.G. The San Francisco Chronicle has local coverage.

In other state legal news ...

• The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled [text] Monday that a jury may decide whether a former state house candidate should be awarded damages in a libel lawsuit against the Augusta Chronicle [newspaper website] as there is sufficient evidence to submit the question of actual malice. Former Democratic candidate Tom Anderson filed a libel lawsuit against the newspaper after a 1997 editorial called him a liar. AP has more.
  
  
• Mississippi Representative Joey Fillingane, president of the Mississippi Legislative Conservative Coalition [advocacy website], says he will push a state bill aimed at "preserv[ing] a person's life" if there is a family disagreement about whether or not to end the life of a vegetative person. The measure is in response to the Terri Shiavo case [JURIST coverage] and Fillingane said, "And where you have a disagreement and you can't find an agreement on that issue, the state's position at the state court level that reaches there would be defaulting toward life." He noted that such a bill would not affect Mississippians with living wills or other documents expressing their wishes. AP has more.
  
  
• The Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled [PDF text] that gas station store owners may be sued for injuries sustained in a drunk driving accident if the store sold gas to an intoxicated driver. The ruling will allow a lawsuit filed by two men injured in a drunk driving accident against East Tennessee Pioneer Oil Company to proceed. The men alleged that the gas station employees knew the driver of the other car was intoxicated and that the car would not have reached the accident location of the driver was not allowed to purchase gas. AP has more.

[JURIST] Glenn Allen Powell, a former employee of Halliburton [official website; JURIST news archive] subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) [official website], has pleaded guilty to charges that he accepted bribes and defrauded the US government when awarding a contract to an Iraqi company in 2004. According to the plea agreement, KBR discovered during an internal investigation that Powell had accepted more than $110,000 in exchange for a $609,000 contract to renovate a warehouse in Iraq. Powell will be sentenced November 18 and could face up to 20 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine. In March, Jeff Alex Mazon, another an ex-KBR employee, was indicted on fraud charges [JURIST report]. It is alleged that Mazon cost the federal government $3.5 million by inflating subcontractor bids and taking kickbacks on contracts awarded. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Iraqi constitutional negotiators who submitted a draft constitution to Iraq's National Assembly [JURIST report] shortly before the deadline at midnight local time Monday have withdrawn it in the face of continued Sunni opposition, and the Assembly has adjourned without voting in a bid to avoid its own dissolution in the absense of an accepted charter. A senior Sunni negotiator said some 20 issues remained unresolved. Shiite and Kurdish framers maintain, however, that full agreement might still be possible in a few days, and are hoping that time and perhaps more pressure from the United States will win over Sunnis opposed to the draft's stance on federalism, the division of powers, and other central issues. Before adjourment the parliament's speaker said that the Assembly would vote on a revised draft in three days, but it is unclear as yet whether such a vote will be politically feasible. AP has more.

6:55 PM ET - The White House has issued a statement by President Bush welcoming the submission of "a draft constitution, thereby meeting the requirements of the Transitional Administrative Law" and saying that the American people "look forward to seeing the constitutional draft finalized on Thursday." Read the full text of the statement.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court refused to rehear the Kelo v. New London [text] eminent domain case Monday, without comment. In June the justices held by a 5-4 margin that the local authority in New London, Connecticut could expropriate private land, homes and businesses for private redevelopment [JURIST report] confering economic benefits on the community such as more jobs and tax revenue as well as for the more traditional purposes of roads, schools, or renewal of urban blight. The decision immediately ignited a firestorm of public protest [JURIST report] for its apparent disregard for private property rights, and prompted legislatures in more than 25 states to consider measures that could limit the ability of city and county governments [JURIST report] to invoke eminent domain to take property for retail, office or residential development. Kelo was just one of 44 high court cases denied rehearings Onday, which are rare in US Supreme Court practice. Review the Court's full order list [PDF]. AP has more.

[JURIST] AP is reporting that the speaker of Iraq's National Assembly has said that the draft constitution [JURIST news archive] has been submitted ahead of the midnight deadline, but that there remain "pending points" that parties will try to resolve within the next three days. Earlier Monday, there were reports that Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni Arab negotiators continued to disagree about the best way to handle the issue of federalism [JURIST report] and the role of Islam [JURIST report].

4:07 PM ET - From Baghdad, the Iraq the Model weblog has updates on the parliamentary session as broadcast on Iraqi TV. The speaker noted that a draft was received from Iraq's constitutional committee [official website], and postponed a vote on the charter for an additional three days under Article 61(f) of the Transitional Administrative Law [text].

4:35 PM ET - AP now has more.

[JURIST] AP is reporting that a Shiite member of the committee writing the Iraqi constitution [JURIST news archive] has said that a draft has been completed and will be submitted to the National Assembly shortly, despite ongoing Sunni reservations about federalism.

3:23 PM ET - Sunni negotiators are denying that an agreement has been reached on the draft constitution. Meanwhile, a Shiite committee member has said that his group would oppose a Sunni request for an additional extension of the deadline to submit the draft to parliament. Under the current deadline, a draft must be presented to the National Assembly by midnight local time (4 PM ET) Monday.

3:30 PM ET - From Baghdad, the Iraq the Model weblog reports that the National Assembly convened at 11:20 PM local time.

3:49 PM ET - CNN is reporting that Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi has said that a final draft constitution is ready to be submitted to parliament. According to Iraq the Model monitoring of Iraqi television, the Iraqi prime minister and president have joined the National Assembly session and have received copies of the draft.

[JURIST] Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced [press release] Monday that the state has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) [PDF text; executive summary; US Dept. Ed. fact sheet]. The complaint [PDF text] alleges that the NCLB is illegal because it requires states to provide programs and expensive testing without furnishing adequate funding and asks that the judge declare that states and local school districts are not required to spend their funds to comply with NCLB mandates. Blumenthal first announced Connecticut's intention to file suit [JURIST report] in April and the Connecticut legislature later approved a bill authorizing the suit [PDF text; JURIST report]. AP has more.

Previously on JURIST's Paper Chase...

• NEA, school districts file No Child Left Behind lawsuit
• Utah passes education bill challenging No Child Left Behind
• Connecticut to challenge constitutionality of No Child Left Behind Act
• State legislatures attack constitutionality of Bush education plan

[JURIST] Eric Rudolph [Wikipedia profile], who pleaded guilty [JURIST report] in April to the 1996 Olympic Park bombing and later bombings at an abortion clinic and gay nightclub in Atlanta, Monday was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences plus 120 years for the bombings. In July, Rudolph was sentenced [JURIST report] to life without parole for the 1998 bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham [Court TV backgrounder]. AP has more. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has local coverage.

[JURIST] Egypt's Supreme Committee of Presidential Elections has rejected any international assistance in monitoring the upcoming presidential elections, the first multi-candidate election [JURIST report] in Egypt's history. Committee spokesperson Osama Attawiya told the Kuwait News Agency Monday that under Egypt's constitution, only the judiciary had the ability to monitor the elections and that international monitoring would compromise the dignity of the Egyptian judiciary system. KUNA has more. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood [Wikipedia backgrounder; official party website, in Arabic], Egypt's largest Islamic group, issued a statement Sunday calling for judicial supervision of the September 7 election and urging supporters not to vote for President Hosni Mubarek [Wikipedia profile]. The group has also called for the release of political prisoners and the abolition of emergency laws, enacted following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat [Wikipedia profile] in 1981. AP has more.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [official website; JURIST news archive] Monday rejected a request by prosecutors to speed up the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive]. Milosevic's trial on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity [ICTY case backgrounder] began in February 2002 and ICTY prosecutors had requested that the UN war crimes tribunal work four or five days a week on the trial, rather than its current three-day-a-week pace. The court denied this request Monday saying that Milosevic's doctors warned that an increased pace would worsen Milosevic's heart condition. The three-year trial has been repeatedly delayed due to Milosevic's health issues. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] AP is reporting that a Sunni member of Iraq's constitutional committee [official website] has said that he doubts that a deal can be reached on an Iraqi constitution [JURIST news archive] "in the next few hours." As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, Shiite and Kurdish negotiators have indicated that they have agreed on a draft, but Sunni negotiators have not yet signed on to that agreement. The committee faces a midnight deadline to submit the draft constitution to Iraq's National Assembly.

12:04 PM ET -- According to coverage of Al-Iraqia TV reports from the Baghdad-based Iraq the Model weblog, Iraqi politicians have said that they expect the draft constitution to be easily approved by the National Assembly, despite Sunni reservations about the role of federalism [JURIST report] in the charter. Al-Iraqia TV is also reporting that there has been an agreement about the role of Islam - no laws that are against widely agreed upon Islamic values may be issued.

[JURIST] Reuters is reporting Monday that a draft of Iraq's constitution [JURIST news archive] calls the country a "republican, parliamentarian, democratic and federal" state, but fails to detail the extent of the federalism. The vague language may indicate a compromise between various ethnic groups, with Kurds and some Shiites pushing for a more federal form of government and Sunnis opposed to federalism [JURIST report] and vowing to mobilize against it. The draft must be approved by a majority of 275-member National Assembly before it is voted on in a October 15 national referendum. If any three of Iraq's 18 provinces reject the constitution by a 2/3 majority, the document will be rejected. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Iranian political prisoner, dissident journalist Akbar Ganji [Wikipedia profile; advocacy website], has ended the hunger strike he began on June 11 to protest the conditions of his confinement, his wife confirmed Monday. The confirmation follows an earlier announcement from the Iranian judiciary [JURIST report] that Ganji had called off his protest. Ganji was sentenced in 2001 to six years in prison for implicating Iranian officials in the murders of opposition intellectuals and writers. The White House has called for Ganji's release [press release], saying that his calls for freedom in Iran deserve to be heard and on Friday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged [BBC News report] that Ganji be released on humanitarian grounds. Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi called the hunger strike "play acting," saying "one day, he eats and then for several days he refuses to do so." Ganji remains in the hospital, but has been removed from intensive care and is said to be in "fair" health. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The Arab Regional Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) [official website] has issued a report saying the Yemen [JURIST news archive] judiciary system and employment in the country's monitoring and control bodies is "infested with corruption." The report points to problems with the "fragile" judiciary, including lack of coordination between the government and law implementation, ineffectiveness of the judiciary's authority, lack of accountability, and the inability to expose and check corruption. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, with insufficient health and education systems and a per capita income of $564. The Khaleej Times has more.

[JURIST] Statistics from a new US Department of Justice report, Suicide and Homicide in State Prisons and Local Jails [PDF text; press release], reveal that prisoner death rates for homicide, suicide and AIDS have declined substantially in corrections facilities since 1980. Homicide rates in state prisons dropped by more than 90 percent, from 54 per 100,000 in 1980 to just four per 100,000 in 2002, the last year for which data was used. Suicide rates showed a 60 percent decline and death rates from AIDS dropped by more than 50 percent. Civil rights groups say the figures are a result of improvements in mental health care and medical treatment in prisons as well as better separation of violent and non-violent prisoners. AP has more.

[JURIST] As Israeli forces work Monday to wrap-up the Gaza pullout [PA MOFA backgrounder; JURIST news archive], Israeli police [official website] commander Hagai Dotan announced the arrest of three young extremists who had come to Netzarim, one of Gaza's first settlements, to disrupt the evacuation. The three were detained after being found with metal spikes, oil, barbed wire and paint. Though the forcible evacuations in Gaza have moved at a much faster pace than expected, and with relatively little violence, officials and security forces worry evacuations in the West Bank may not proceed as smoothly. Most residents have exited two of the four settlements to be emptied, but as many as 2,000 right-wing extremists are prepared to put up a fight in Sanur and Homesh. More than 5,000 troops are en route to those settlements to carry out the evacuations, scheduled to begin Tuesday. AP has more. The Israel Defense Forces' official disengagement website has the latest updates on the evacuation process.

[JURIST] A Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry official announced Monday that Kyrgyzstan will not return refugees who fled Uzbekistan after an uprising in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan [JURIST report] in May. Zafar Hakimov, director of the Foreign Ministry's migration service department, said that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees [official website] has granted asylum status [JURIST report] to 439 of the 455 refugees. The remaining 15, who are considered criminals by Uzbekistan, are being detained in Kyrgyzstan. Four have been denied asylum status because they have been charged with the murder of Andijan's prosecutor general and are awaiting trial. Deputy director of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry's consular department, Sergei Ivanchenko, called for the return of the 15 detainees saying, "They are criminals... according to international law, we are waiting for Kyrgyzstan to return them." RIA Novosti has more.

[JURIST] US officials have dropped their objections to Islam playing a role in Iraq's legal system, according to members of Iraq's constitutional committee [official website]. Shiite and Kurdish negotiators have said that US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has proposed that the Iraqi constitution [JURIST news archive] name Islam as "a primary source" of law, which would give clerics authority over divorce, marriage and other civil issues. The role of Islam [JURIST report] has proved to be a difficult issue to resolve, with many of Iraq's minority groups pushing for Islam to be named one of many sources of law, rather than the main source of law. Critics say that naming Islam as a primary source will lead to the erosion of women's rights and are calling the US backing of Islamic law out of line with American values. Monday's Guardian has more.

[JURIST] With just a few hours remaining before Monday's midnight deadline [JURIST report], drafters of the Iraqi constitution [JURIST news archive] have settled some crucial issues, but are still struggling with the role that Islam should play in the nation's law, as well aa with questions of Shiite autonomy. A meeting of the Iraqi National Assembly is scheduled for Monday evening, where members hope to present a completed constitution for approval. Other critical questions such as whether clerics may sit on the Supreme Court and how much influence clerics should have on family disputes also remain unresolved. With the help of US officials, including US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad [official profile], drafters have reached an agreement on the contentious issue of oil wealth sharing, however Sunni leaders have complained of being excluded from the drafting process. Sunni leaders on Sunday expressed frustration with the process saying, "There is still no active and serious coordination so far. . . This constitution needs to be written by consensus, not simply a majority vote." The New York Times has more.

10:25 AM ET - Wire services are reporting that Shiite and Kurdish members Iraq's constitutional committee [official website] have reached an agreement on a draft constitution but that Sunni Arabs have not yet agreed to the draft. The National Assembly is scheduled to convene at 7 PM local time Monday to hear the committee's proposals. AP has more.

[JURIST] According to a report [DMN article] published Sunday in the Dallas Morning News [media website], eligible black jurors were being excluded from Dallas County juries by prosecutors more than twice as frequently as whites were turned away as recently as 2002. Earlier this year the US Supreme Court overturned the 1986 murder conviction of a black man [JURIST report; PDF opinion] accused of killing a white motel employee, saying the Dallas County jury was unfairly overloaded with whites. The Court noted that a manual, used by prosecutors for more than ten years, until 1980, instructed prosecutors on how to exclude minorities from Texas juries. Bill Hill, Dallas district attorney since 1999, said his prosecutors don't exclude based on race but rather because they don't think certain jurors will be "fair and impartial." Because defense attorneys rejected potential white jurors at three times the rate they excluded blacks, the report also found blacks served on Dallas juries in proportion to their population. The report, the first of a three-part series on jury selection, involved analysis of more than 6,500 juror information cards, transcripts of juror questioning, and lawyers' strike patterns. Reuters has more.