[JURIST] A military jury Friday cleared a US Army sergeant of all charges related to his alleged abuse of a prisoner [JURIST report] at the US-run Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan [JURIST news archive]. Sgt. Duane Grubb had been charged [JURIST report] with assault, maltreatment and making a false official statement, but testified that he had never hit prisoner Zarif Khan. Prosecutors said Grubb repeatedly used his knees to strike Khan, who was released and could not be found to testify, but was described during the court-martial as being mentally retarded. Six soldiers from Grubb's Cincinnati-based military police company were charged with abuse after two other detainees died at the prison in 2002 [Army press release], but three of the charged soldiers have since been acquitted. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Vermont Supreme Court Friday ruled [opinion] that a decision made by former state governor Howard Dean [official profile] and Vermont's secretary of state to seal 93 boxes of sensitive papers collected during his term was legal. When he left office in 2003 Dean decided to seal the papers for ten years and joked with reporters that he "didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor." During his 2004 presidential campaign, Washington-based group Judicial Watch [advocacy website] sued to have the documents revealed and a state trial judge ruled that Dean and the secretary of state did not have the authority to seal the documents [JURIST report], but the Vermont high court disagreed. Dean is currently chairman of the Democratic National Committee [official website]. AP has more.

[JURIST] US Senators Friday confirmed their support for an anti-torture amendment [JURIST document] sponsored by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) [official website] and attached to the 2006 defense spending bill by unanimously re-passing the amendment by voice vote after approving it 90-9 [JURIST report] last month. President Bush has threatened to veto [JURIST report] the defense spending budget if it contains the anti-torture amendment. McCain on his part has specifically ruled out any plans to accept a Bush-backed exemption [JURIST report] favoring the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website]. US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) [official website] agreed with McCain Friday, saying, "I will not entertain a retreat, I will not entertain an exception that washes away what we've been fighting for." The US House of Representatives began its own review of the amendment on Thursday and although the House GOP leadership has delayed a House vote [JURIST report] on the measure, McCain said the bill had an "overwhelming majority" of support by US representatives. AFP has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Perjury, Lies and Degrading Treatment: The Case for the McCain Amendment

[JURIST] A US Senate subcommittee referred British MP George Galloway [BBC profile] Thursday evening to the US Department of Justice [official website] for potential prosecution because the committee said they found "probable cause" that Galloway lied to Congress regarding his role in the UN oil-for-food [official website; JURIST news archive] scandal. The Senate panel uncovered a payment of $150,000 in Iraqi oil sales [PSI report, PDF] to Galloway's soon to be ex-wife and a separate investigation by the UN's Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) [official website] alleges that the British MP also received an allocation for 18 million barrels of oil [JURIST report] from Saddam Hussein in exchange for assistance in getting UN sanctions lifted against the former regime. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations [official website] said the evidence collected called "into question the veracity of sworn testimony" given by Galloway at his questioning by senators earlier this year [JURIST report] when he denied any involvement in Iraqi oil sales. Congressional aides said he could be charged with perjury, making false statements, and/or obstructing a congressional proceeding. A spokesman for Galloway said Thursday that he "welcomes this" and that he "has demanded it and is glad to know something is happening." From the UK, the Times has more.

[JURIST] A Syrian judicial committee has begun its own investigation into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive]. Syrian Attorney General Ghada Mourad [SANA profile], who is heading the committee, has said that Syria will coordinate with the UN and Lebanese judicial authorities who are also investigating the murder. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called for the special investigation committee [JURIST report] after a UN resolution [text] was passed last week ordering Syria to cooperate [JURIST report] with the UN Hariri investigation committee [UN materials] or face possible sanctions. A report [text] presented to the UN Security Council in October by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, head of the UN investigation, showed "converging evidence" of Syrian and Lebanese involvement in Hariri's killing. Mourad has called on citizens to come forward with any information on Hariri's death. Xinhuanet has more; from Syria, state-owned SANA has local coverage.

[JURIST] Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock [official profile] has spoken out to disagree with assertions that the government's anti-terrorism bill violates human rights. The proposed anti-terrorism legislation [JURIST report; initial draft, PDF], which Australian Prime Minister John Howard [official website] claims will be enacted by Christmas [JURIST report], was tabled in Parliament Thursday after Howard won support earlier this week from several state and territory leaders. Alastair Nicholson, the former Chief Justice of the Family Court, has said that the laws would breach Australia's international treaty obligations, but Ruddock disagreed during an interview with ABC Australia's Lateline by saying, "Let me just make it very clear we have examined each and every one of these measures against our international obligations and they do not breach our international obligations." Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has also rejected the proposals [JURIST report] out of concern that some provisions would breach the country's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [text]. Stanhope's opposition is based in part on advice [PDF text; JURIST report] from several international law experts. Australia's ABC News has local coverage.

[JURIST] Republican legislators have proposed a bill to build a 2,000 mile wall at the border between US and Mexico in order to keep illegal immigrants out. The True Enforcement and Border Security Act [bill summary] also calls for thousands of new border patrol officers, immigration investigators, immigration judges, and attorneys, according to a joint statement [text] released by US Representatives Virgil Goode (R-VA) and Duncan Hunter (R-CA) [official websites]. It is not yet certain whether the fence-building legislation will receive enough backing to pass in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate. The proposal comes the day after US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff outlined plans to increase security [JURIST report] along US borders. Chertoff's plan [fact sheet] includes the construction of a 14-mile wall near San Diego and the hiring of more federal agents. Additionally, a group of Republican lawmakers who want to end the constitutional right of birthright citizenship, or jus soli [Wikipedia backgrounder], are researching whether it can be done by a congressional statute or if it would require a constitutional amendment. An amendment would be more difficult to attain since approval by three-fourths of the US states is necessary. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Paul Volcker [UN profile], chairman of the UN Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) [official website] investigating the now-defunct UN oil-for-food program [JURIST news archive], on Friday laughed off news that the Indian government [JURIST report] was investigating a possible lawsuit against the IIC for concluding that Foreign Minister Natwar Singh [official profile], as well as India's ruling Congress party, were a part of an oil kickbacks scandal. "We didn't say what is right or wrong. We only said what was there in the Iraqi records, whether there was denial, acceptance, if there was something in between or no answers," Volcker said. He laughed and added that "numerous" immunity clauses would make a libel suit against the UN virtually impossible. South African oil company Imvume has also said that it plans to file a lawsuit over allegations in the IIC report [text; JURIST report]; Imvume has called statements in the report defamatory and damaging to the company. Express India has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Putting Oil-for-Food in Perspective | Text: UN Oil-for-Food manipulation report

[JURIST] US Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald [official website] announced Thursday that he was narrowing the focus of his investigation into the role of senior White House advisor Karl Rove [official profile] in the CIA leak case [JURIST news archive]. At issue now is whether Rove tried to conceal his conversation with a TIME magazine reporter a week before the CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity was revealed. The investigation originally focused on much more serious allegations, including whether Rove misrepresented his role in the case to President Bush. Rove has not been indicted [JURIST report], although the Washington Post reported on Thursday that his future in the White House may be uncertain [Washington Post report]. The inquiry into Rove appears to be wrapping up, and his lawyers says Rove is confident investigators will conclude that there was no wrongdoing. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) [official website] delayed a vote on a proposed torture ban on Thursday, while Democrats accused him of holding off in order to protect Vice President Dick Cheney. Democrats had planned on offering a motion with instructions to adopt the language of the McCain amendment, but a procedural move by Hastert has no one in place to follow the instructions. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wrote an amendment [JURIST document] to a military spending bill [JURIST report] that would ban "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" of detainees by US personnel. The White House wants the CIA excused from the rules [JURIST report] and has threatened a veto [JURIST report]. The amendment passed the Senate 90-9 and the spending bill as a whole was also approved [JURIST report]. House Republicans have previously joined the White House in opposing the bill [JURIST report]. A former state department official has accused Cheney of encouraging abuse [JURIST report], and the indictment of Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [JURIST news archive] in connection with the CIA leak case [JURIST news archive] have led some Democrats to call the stall tactic a face-saving move. The New York Times has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Perjury, Lies and Degrading Teatment: The Case for the McCain Amendment

[JURIST] Two friends of jailed ex-ImClone CEO Sam Waksal have settled insider trading charges [press release] brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission [official website] by agreeing to pay $2.77 million to cover their avoided losses. Zvi Fuks and Sabina Ben-Yehuda sold their ImClone [corporate website; JURIST news archive] shares after Waksal told them the company's new drug was likely to be rejected by federal regulators. Fuks will pay $2.66 million and Ben-Yehuda will pay $110,000, the amounts they avoided losing by selling the stock before its value dropped. Criminal complaints against the two were dropped in August, but the new settlement must still be approved by a judge. Bloomberg has more.

[JURIST] Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle [official website] on Thursday vetoed a ban on human cloning [PDF bill text]. Doyle promised a veto [JURIST report] in September after the bill passed in the state assembly [JURIST report] and senate. In a statement [text] Thursday, Doyle said "The real purpose of this bill is to restrict stem cell research, which holds enormous potential for our state as well as the promise of curing juvenile diabetes, spinal cord injuries, and Parkinson’s disease." He pointed out that the US Food and Drug Administration has already prohibited human cloning. The University of Wisconsin-Madison [biotech research homepage] is a world leader in stem cell research, and Doyle promised that "Wisconsin will remain at the forefront of stem cell research." The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has more; UW-Madison's Daily Cardinal has additional coverage.

[JURIST] United Kingdom Home Secretary Charles Clarke [official profile] continues to be pressed for information on the advice given by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith [official profile] regarding the proposed new anti-terror laws [JURIST document] after Clarke had to apologize Thursday for telling MPs that he already had Lord Goldsmith's approval on a provision allowing the detentions of uncharged terror suspects for up to 90 days. During a heated debate [JURIST report] in the House of Commons [official website] Wednesday, Clarke told MPs on three occasions that the Attorney General said the proposed provisions would comply with Great Britain's human rights obligations. But on Thursday, Clarke stood before the Commons and admitted [debate transcript]:

I should clarify that the clear legal advice I received as to the Bill's [European Convention on Human Rights] compliance . . . did not come from the Attorney personally. Further, in making that statement, I inadvertently breached the long-standing convention that the fact that the law officers have or have not advised on any matter - long-standing over many governments - and the content of their advice should not be disclosed. And for breaching that long-standing convention I want to apologise to the House.

[JURIST] President Bush Thursday reinstated fair wage laws, suspended [JURIST report] after Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive], which mandate that employers awarded government contracts must pay local prevailing wages to workers. Last week, after a pro-labor Republican caucus met with the administration to voice their complaints over the act's suspension, Bush said he would restore the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act [text; DOL backgrounder] on November 8 [JURIST report], but he signed the proclamation [text] revoking his earlier order five days ahead of schedule. The wage act was suspended in an attempt to reduce rebuilding costs in the New Orleans area, but US Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) [official website], a co-founder of the pro-labor caucus, said the administration realized that the suspended wage law was not resulting in the government savings that were originally anticipated. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia [official website] Thursday denied [PDF opinion] a petition for a new hearing brought by four journalists who were held in contempt of court [JURIST report] for refusing to reveal their sources as part of a civil lawsuit. Dr. Wen Ho Lee [advocacy website], an atomic scientist suspected of espionage who later pleaded to a lesser charge, filed a civil suit claiming that government agencies violated his privacy by disclosing information about him to reporters. The group of reporters have refused to disclose who their government sources were and in 2004, a federal district judge held them in contempt. That decision was affirmed [PDF opinion; JURIST report] in June by a three-judge panel of the appellate court. The full court met to determine whether to hear arguments by the journalists, ultimately declining to hear their case in a 4-4 split decision with two judges not participating. Two judges wrote strong dissents on the importance of hearing the First Amendment questions raised by the reporters, including Judge Tatel who wrote:

The outcome here illustrates the risk of limiting our inquiry to only need and exhaustion. Without slighting Lee's private interest in receiving compensation for governmental malfeasance, his claim pales in comparison to the public's interest in avoiding the chilling of disclosures about what the government then believed to be nuclear espionage. This case is thus very different from In re Grand Jury. Not only was that a criminal case, but there we held that the grand jury's interest in securing the name of a source suspected of committing a felony outweighed any applicable privilege. In re Grand Jury, 397 F.3d at 973. Lee's private interest in this civil suit implicates no similarly critical concerns, and it's hard to imagine how his interest could outweigh the public's interest in protecting journalists' ability to report without reservation on sensitive issues of national security. Instead of explaining why he believes his private litigation interest is sufficiently weighty to tip the scale in his favor, Lee asserts only that "[t]here is simply no countervailing interest to 'balance.'" Respondent's Br. 14. Lee is wrong. As Zerilli holds, the countervailing interest is the value, rooted in the First Amendment, of an "unfettered press" that ensures that citizens are "able to make informed political, social, and economic choices." Zerilli, 656 F.2d at 711.

[JURIST] A Missouri circuit court judge ruled Thursday that the state's child abuse registry is unconstitutional because it does not allow alleged abusers a due-process hearing before being placed on the list. The registry is not available to the general public, but child care facilities and other employers can use the list to screen current and potential employees. Judge Richard Callahan said the current process caused damage to suspected offenders' reputations and careers, and said these individuals are entitled to a hearing with witnesses before being put on the list. The judge also said that the hearings must use a "preponderance of the evidence" standard rather than "probable cause," which has already been changed by a 2004 law. The Missouri Department of Social Services [official website] said it is considering appealing the decision to the Missouri Supreme Court [official website] and Judge Callahan's ruling will not go into effect until the appeals process is complete. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled [PDF opinion] Thursday to strike down a California law making it a criminal offense for individuals to knowingly make false accusations against police officers. The law, which carried a potential jail sentence of up to six months for guilty parties, was implemented in 1995 after the 1991 taped beating of Rodney King [BBC backgrounder] prompted a barrage of hostile complaints against the police. The appeals court, however, determined that the law was an unconstitutional infringement on speech since false statements supporting officers were not also made unlawful:

a formal complaint of peace officer misconduct triggers a mandatory investigation conducted by the peace officer’s employing agency. Within the limited context of that investigation, section 148.6 criminalizes knowingly false speech critical of peace officer conduct, but leaves unregulated knowingly false speech supportive of peace officer conduct. Because we conclude that the statute impermissibly discriminates on the basis of a speaker’s viewpoint in violation of the First Amendment, we reverse the district court and grant the petition.