[JURIST] The US Election Assistance Commission [official website] has found little evidence to support claims of voter fraud [status report, PDF] that have been driving the recent push for more stringent voter registration and voter ID policies [JURIST report], USA Today reported Wednesday. The report, released in May but just made public Wednesday, evaluated claims of fraud and voter intimidation and concluded:

There is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud, or at least much less than is claimed, including voter impersonation, "dead" voters, noncitizen voting and felon voters. Those few who believe it occurs often enough to be a concern say that is impossible to show the extent to which it happens, but do point to instance in the press of such incidents. Most people believe that false registration forms have not resulted in polling place fraud, although it may create the perception that vote fraud is possible. ...

Abuse of challenger laws and abusive challengers seem to be the biggest intimidation/suppression concerns, and many of those interviewed assert that the new identification requirements are the modern version of voter intimidation and suppression.

[JURIST] Former Enron [corporate website; JURIST news archive] CEO Jeffrey Skilling [Houston Chronicle profile] has asked a federal judge to overturn his conviction, citing a recent federal appeals court ruling overturning the convictions [JURIST report] of four former Merrill Lynch executives found guilty in connection with an Enron Nigerian barge scam. Skilling was convicted [JURIST report] in May of 19 counts of insider trading, securities fraud, and conspiracy and is scheduled to be sentenced [JURIST report] later this month.

In August, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled [PDF text] that the "government's theory of fraud relating to the deprivation of honest services ... is flawed" and overturned the Merrill Lynch convictions. In a motion filed Tuesday, Skilling argued his conviction should be overturned because the jury may have relied on a similar theory. The US Justice Department has asked the Fifth Circuit to reconsider the Merrill Lynch decision en banc and reinstate the convictions. Bloomberg News has more.

[JURIST] Lawmakers in the Turkish parliament [official website] Wednesday discussed a bill that would label the killings of Algerians by France during the colonial period as genocide [JURIST report] and make it illegal to deny that the French were responsible for the killings. The parliament's Justice Committee nonetheless concluded that there was little support for the bill and deferred it to a subcommittee for further review.

The Turkish bill was offered as retaliation against a controversial French parliamentary proposal, scheduled for a vote in Paris on Thursday, that would make it illegal to deny that Turkey is responsible for committing genocide against Armenians [ANI backgrounder] during World War I. French legislators postponed a debate on that measure in May when Turkey threatened trade sanctions [JURIST report] against France. On Monday, Turkey urged [JURIST report] the European Union [official website] to oppose the French law. The Daily Star has more.

[JURIST] A nephew of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat [CNN profile] who is now an Egyptian opposition MP associated with the Ahrar party [Wikipedia backgrounder] appeared before an Egyptian military court Wednesday on charges of making defamatory remarks regarding the 1981 assassination of his uncle. Last week, Talaat Sadat remarked that senior military officials and the president's bodyguards were involved in the 1981 slaying. Several human rights organizations have decried [AFP report] a decision by Parliament Speaker Fathi Sorour [offical website] to strip Sadat of his parliamentary immunity in the case, since Sorour belongs to the majority National Democratic Party that Sadat has recently and publicly criticized. Questions have also been raised as to why the military is handling the prosecution rather than the public prosecutor.

According to Sadat, the tribunal, which is closed to the public, has been adjourned until Sunday while he prepares his defense and the court watches the televised comments that prompted the case. Sadat pleaded not guilty to the charges and faces up to three years' imprisonment. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted [press release] Adam Gadahn [ABC profile], a US citizen accused of aiding al Qaeda, on charges of treason and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The indictment [PDF text] marks the first treason charges to be brought against a US citizen in over half a century. The DOJ alleges that Gadahn attended al Qaeda-run terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and that he threatened attacks on the US while appearing in multiple videos distributed by al Qaeda between October 2004 and September 2006. At this time Gadahn is not in US custody and his location remains unknown.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [official website] has been seeking information [FBI listing] on Gadahn since May 2004. Last month, he appeared in a video with al Qaeda second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri [CNN profile], in which Gadahn said that the US should "enter into the light of Islam." AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of India [offical website] Wednesday ruled that the power of the country's president to pardon a person convicted of a capital offense in Article 72 of the Indian Constitution [text] is subject to judicial review in the face of "extraneous consideration[s]" such as caste or religious or political affiliation. The decision stems from the case of Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri Muslim who received the death penalty for participating in the 2001 attack on India's parliament [BBC report]. Human rights groups and Kashmiris have recently applied pressure on current president Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam [official website] to grant clemency to Guru, who is scheduled to be executed on October 20. Wednesday's ruling all but assures that the execution will be postponed, since any pardon decisions typically take months or even years, and are now subject to judicial review.

In 2005, the Court affirmed [JURIST report] Guru's sentence and ordered that he be hanged. Kalam has recently made headlines for pushing a more liberal and compassionate approach [Indian Express report] to his office's pardon power. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] Wednesday in Cunningham v. California [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs], 05-6551, a case that asks justices to decide whether judges can exercise discretion to tack on additional years to prison sentences beyond that determined by a jury without violating a defendant's right to a jury trial. Cunningham, a former California police officer, was sentenced to 12 years for child abuse, but the trial judge added four years to the sentence, extending it to the maximum, based on a balancing of mitigating and aggravating factors that the jury did not hear. Under California law, judges are permitted to add or subtract time from a defendant's prison sentence within a statutory range. The case will be considered in light of two recent Supreme Court decisions, Blakely v. Washington and US v. Booker [Duke Law case backgrounders], which ruled unconstitutional sentencing guidelines that allowed terms to be increased without jury consideration in the Washington and federal court systems, respectively. The justices discussed the potential burdening effect on the California penal system if the guidelines are ruled unconstitutional.

Also Wednesday, the high court heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] in Carey v. Musladin [Duke Law case backgrounder, merit briefs], 05-785, where justices will decide whether the donning of buttons depicting the victim's face by family members during the trial constituted a proper basis for overturning a conviction. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] vacated Mathew Musladin's 32-year prison sentence for first-degree murder, asserting that the buttons deprived Musladin, who pleaded self-defense, of a fair trial by tacitly indicating that he acted as the instigator in the underlying shooting. During trial, Musladin's lawyer requested the judge ban the buttons, which family members wore in plain sight of the jury, and the Ninth Circuit ruled [text, PDF] that the buttons created an outside influence that impermissibly affected the jury and his right to a fair trial. AP has more.

[JURIST] Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] returned to court Wednesday and questioned the chief judge presiding over his genocide trial [BBC timeline] as to why he has not been allowed to speak and defend himself during prior court sessions, saying it was a judge's "duty" to listen. Chief Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa cut off Hussein's microphone and subsequently threw him out of the courtroom [JURIST report] for the fourth time Tuesday when the former dictator attempted to recite a verse from the Koran. Khalifa responded to Hussein's questions by saying it was necessary to turn off his microphone to bring order to the courtroom and explained to Hussein that he would be allowed to defend himself but political speeches would not be tolerated. AP has more.

Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti [Trial Watch profile], one of Hussein's co-defendants, also accused a bailiff of hitting and insulting him Tuesday after Hussein's eviction. Tikriti, a former army commander, had first punched a bailiff Tuesday during the brawl that broke out when Khalifa announced Hussein's eviction from court. Khalifa told Tikriti that he must remain seated during the trial. After the judge responded to Hussein and Tikriti, he called witnesses to provide accounts of their experiences in the so-called "Anfal" campaign [HRW backgrounder], for which Hussein faces genocide charges [JURIST report] in the 1988 deaths of 180,000 Kurdish villagers. Khalifa then adjourned further court proceedings until October 17. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The Iraqi National Assembly [official website] Wednesday approved a measure [JURIST report] that outlines how federalism could be implemented to divide Iraq into separate regions. The law is backed by Shiite majority leaders, but opposed [JURIST report] by Sunnis who fear that splitting areas of Iraq [JURIST news archive] would cause a civil war by increasing the sectarian and ethnic violence already troubling the country. The law was passed in a session of parliament which was boycotted by the Sunni-led Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) [Wikipedia backgrounder] political party. Shiite parties were not united in the push for federalism, however, as the Fadhila Party [Wikipedia backgrounder] and supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr [BBC profile] also refrained from voting.

Leaders from both the Shiite and Sunni factions agreed last month to delay any implementation of federalism until 2008. Under the law, for a province to become an autonomous region, one-third of provincial legislators must request the shift and the move would have to be approved by a popular referendum in the province. Members of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) [party website], the largest Shiite political party, have proposed merging 18 Iraqi provinces into one massive area [JURIST report], but Sunnis fear the Shiites will use federalism to grant the areas ripe with oilfields to ethnic Kurds and Shiites, leaving only the poor, desert areas to the Sunnis. Sunnis are pushing for amendments [JURIST report] to the Iraqi constitution [JURIST news archive] which would mandate the equal sharing of oil revenues on that land. Reuters has more. The Daily Star has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] Wednesday denied a request [JURIST report] by the Croatian government to intervene as amicus curiae in the trial of six former political and military Bosnian Croat leaders [ICTY backgrounder] who are accused [JURIST report] of torturing, killing, imprisoning, and expelling Muslims in Bosnia during 1991-94. The Croatian government had sought permission to refute "unacceptable allegations" about the military's activities, but the three-judge ICTY panel said it would "not be in the interest of justice" to allow Croatia to intervene. The court noted that former Croatian President Franjo Tudjman [BBC profile] was named in the indictment as the mastermind behind the plan to oust the Muslims which was allegedly implemented by the six men on trial.

All six of the men have pleaded not guilty to the charges [indictment, PDF] against them, which include war crimes and crimes against humanity. Croatia [JURIST news archive] had also requested amicus curiae status in the upcoming trial of three Croatian generals who are charged with planning the 1995 offensive known as Operation Storm, forcing some 90,000 other Serbs from their homes. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Law Lords [official website], the judicial panel of the UK House of Lords that is Britain's highest court, ruled [opinion] Wednesday that media in Britain should not be subject to libel charges if they publish allegations against public figures as long as they act responsibly and in the public interest. The case was an appeal brought by the Wall Street Journal Europe [media website] challenging a decision by the High Court which was upheld [judgment text] on appeal, ordering the newspaper to pay £40,000 ($74,230) to Mohammed Jameel, a billionaire Saudi Arabian car dealer. The paper had published information in 2002 that the US requested Saudi authorities to monitor Jameel's personal and business bank accounts to ensure no funds were being routed to suspected terrorists. The House of Lords disagreed with the High Court decision, saying it was a perfect situation for the newspaper to use the public interest defense.

The judges further said that even if the published information later turned out to be false, the media outlet should not be subject to libel charges, noting that judges should not evaluate in hindsight editing decisions made in busy newsrooms. The test offered by the court to determine whether libel damages should be available was whether the media organization acted fairly and responsibly in receiving and publishing the information. From the UK, the Times has more.

[JURIST] Thai Defense Minister Boonrawd Somtas said Wednesday that Thailand will remain under martial law for at least a month as a safeguard against political turmoil, while Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, who led the Sept. 19 bloodless coup [JURIST report], defended martial law as unintrusive on the daily lives of Thai citizens. The comments from the military follow Tuesday's declaration from newly installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont [official website; BBC profile], who promised that his government will lift martial law "as soon as we can and when the situation is suitable." Human rights groups and the US government [JURIST reports] have urged Thailand to revoke the martial law imposed [JURIST report] on the country by military leaders after the coup, calling the emergency provisions and the new military-sponsored government a threat to democracy in Thailand [JURIST news archive]. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

Boonyaratkalin also said that the Council for National Security [Bangkok Post backgrounder], a policy-setting body controlled by the Thai military, has appointed 250 Thai citizens from the public and private sectors to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA). The NLA is responsible for drafting an permanent constitution that will replace a 39-article interim constitution [text] drawn up by the military leadership and approved [JURIST report] by King Adulyadej earlier this month. The permanent constitution is expected to be ready in time for national elections scheduled for October 2007. PTI has more.

[JURIST] A South Carolina Senate [official website] committee is contemplating state immigration reform laws [JURIST news archive] that would regulate the hiring practices of businesses who contract with the state, state Sen. Jim Ritchie [official profile] said Tuesday. The committee is considering a mandatory program for state agencies, their contractors, and subcontractors where the citizenship of all employees would be checked through a federal database program. Other proposals include expanding a voluntary federal program in South Carolina that allows businesses to check the immigration status of workers; checking the immigration status of prisoners for possible deportation; and urging local law enforcement agencies to participate in a Homeland Security Department program to receive illegal immigration detection and response training.

At the federal level, Congress passed [JURIST report] the Secure Borders Act [PDF text; HR 6061 summary] last month, though the legislation, which authorizes the construction of a 700-mile fence along the US-Mexico border to curb illegal immigration, has yet to be signed by President Bush. Congress initially attempted to pass a more comprehensive immigration reform bill, but legislators were unable to resolve differences between the House and Senate bills and US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said in September that negotiations would be postponed [JURIST report] while Congress worked on border security and worksite enforcement measures. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US House Ethics Committee [official website] will hold hearings Thursday on the Mark Foley scandal [JURIST news archive]. Former Foley chief of staff Kirk Fordham is set to testify about when he notified the staff of US House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) [official website] about Foley's inappropriate behavior. Fordham has maintained he notified Hastert in either 2002 or 2003, while Hastert's chief of staff Scott Palmer claims that he did not receive warnings about Foley until the fall of 2005, when US Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) [official website] told the Speaker's office about a questionable, but not sexually explicit, Foley email.

Hastert has come under fire [BBC report] after allegations that he had prior knowledge of the sexually explicit e-mails sent from Foley to teenage males in the House Page program [PDF backgrounder]. Hastert disputes claims by Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) [official websites], the House Republican campaign chairman, that Boehner and Reynolds warned Hastert of Foley months before Foley resigned [Reuters report]. The ethics committee has not yet scheduled Hastert to testify, though Hastert has said he will provide full testimony if subpoenaed. The committee issued four dozen subpoenas [JURIST report] last week. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Tuesday upheld a $10,000 fine levied by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) [official website] against a US man who willfully violated the 1990-2003 international embargo [UNESCO backgrounder] against Iraq to deliver medicine and other humanitarian supplies. Bertram Sacks sued OFAC [complaint text], challenging the OFAC's ability to penalize the donation of food or medicine to relieve human suffering, activities he argued were protected by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act [text].

In the Ninth Circuit's opinion [PDF text], Judge Wardlaw found that Sacks did not have standing to challenge the OFAC ban on delivering medicine because OFAC only fined him for violating the travel ban. The court also found that the OFAC fine against Sacks for violating the travel ban was authorized by the United Nations Participation Act (UNPA) [PDF text]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A new child labor law [MOL press release], which criminalizes the hiring of children under the age of 14 as house servants or restaurant workers [MOL notice, PDF], took effect in India [JURIST news archive] on Tuesday. Offending employers are eligible for a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $217 fine. Proponents of the law say it will encourage children to stay in school [PM press release], while opponents say the law does not address the root causes of child labor, namely, poverty, and that the poorest children will continue to work.

According to a report [text] prepared by the Embassy of India in Washington, DC, 3.6 percent of the total labor force is under the age of 14, 85 percent of which work on family farms. AP has more.