[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments [day call, PDF; merit briefs] Tuesday in two cases. In Kucana v. Holder [oral arguments transcript, PDF; JURIST report], the Court heard arguments on whether a federal statute [8 USC § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) text] gives federal courts jurisdiction to review rulings on motions to reopen decisions by the Board of Immigration Appeals [DOJ backgrounder]. The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that it lacked jurisdiction to review petitioner Agron Kucana's claim. Counsel for the petitioner argued:

Congress did not express any intent to remove the Court's jurisdiction to review discretionary decisions, the authority for which is specified under any other subchapter or in regulations, nor did Congress express any intent to delegate its constitutional responsibility to determine Federal jurisdiction to the Attorney General.

The better reading of the statute, in our view, is that it points to the location of the corporation's headquarters, the site from which a corporation directs and controls all the company's operations throughout all of its locations. And that is particularly the correct reading when the statutory language is considered in light of two considerations.

For 50 years every circuit save the - save the Seventh had agreed - has agreed on one overriding principle: That courts must perform a balancing in determining the principal place of business of a corporation, and that balancing must include a determination of where the corporation's people and property are.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Kansas [official website] has announced that it may have to shut down state courts for one week every month as a result of an $8 million judiciary budget deficit created by a legislative oversight. The shortfall resulted from the state senate cutting $11 million from the judiciary budget under the mistaken assumption [press release] that the difference would be made up in surcharges on court fees. This never came to fruition because of previous legislation that capped court fees at $10. Chief Justice Robert Davis [official profile] stated Friday that unless the budget is restored, the Supreme Court will be forced [Wichita Eagle report] to order the courts to close starting in February, resulting in involuntary unpaid leave for judicial staff. Judges would be granted exceptions for mandatory deadlines such as a speedy trial or issuance of search warrants. The state legislature intends to restore the budget as soon as possible in the 2010 session, which begins in January.

Kansas is not the only state to face court closures recently in an effort to decrease budget deficits. The Supreme Court of Hawaii announced [JURIST report] in October that state courts will be closed two Fridays each month beginning in November 2009 due to the financial conditions that currently exist in Hawaii. In September, the California court system instated [JURIST report] monthly court closures, which will take place the third Wednesday of each month until June 2010. The closures are expected to save the state approximately $84 million.

[JURIST] President of Italy's Chamber of Deputies [official website, in Italian] Gianfranco Fini [official profile, in Italian; BBC profile] said Tuesday that he would support legislation to limit the length of trials in the country. The reforms were proposed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi [official profile, in Italian; BBC profile], with Fini voicing his support after meeting with the prime minister. If passed, the bill would place a six-year cap on the total duration of a trial, including appeals. Critics have argued that Berlusconi, scheduled to stand trial [JURIST report] later this month on corruption charges from 1997, has pushed for the measure in an effort to avoid his own prosecution. The bill is expected to be introduced in the next few days.

Berlusconi is accused of bribing his former lawyer David Mills [JURIST news archive] in exchange for false testimony at two trials in 1997 and 1998 involving Berlusconi’s broadcasting company, Mediaset [corporate website, in Italian]. The trials began in 2007, though Berlusconi was removed as a defendant in July 2008 after a now-overturned law granted immunity to top Italian lawmakers [JURIST reports]. In February, Mills was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for accepting a $600,000 bribe, and that conviction was upheld [JURIST reports] last month. Berlusconi has faced trial on at least six occasions involving charges of false accounting, tax fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, and giving false testimony [JURIST reports]. In October 2007, Berlusconi's April 2007 acquittal on bribery charges was upheld [JURIST reports]. In 2005, Berlusconi was acquitted of corruption charges despite testimony accusing him of giving kickbacks to the late Socialist premier Bettino Craxi [JURIST report].

[JURIST] More than 350 Taliban [JURIST news archive] inmates began a hunger strike on Sunday at the Sarposa prison in Kandahar [JURIST news archive] province in Afghanistan. The protest [Global and Mail report] is in response to the allegedly poor conditions within the prison, including the quality of the food and abuse by guards. The Afghan Ministry of Justice [official website] has sent a delegation to the prison to investigate. The Ministry of Justice fears the hungry strike could be a sign of a potential prison break attempt, after authorities learned that trucks loaded with explosives were instructed to destroy the prison walls. Millions of dollars have been spent [CTV report] in the last year in an effort to bolster security at the prison. The Afghan government has also increased the armed presence at the facility in recent days.

Security concerns are nothing new at the notorious prison. Last June, at least 870 inmates, with some reports estimating the number as being closer to 1,100, escaped [JURIST report] the prison after members of the Taliban conducted a bomb and rocket attack. The current heightened level of security is understandable as last year's prison break came just a month after an estimated 200-300 prisoners had ended [JURIST report] a similar hunger strike. The detainees were then protesting the slow nature of the Afghanistan judicial system and complaints that judicial rulings were being made based on allegations by US authorities. The hunger strike lasted for approximately one week.

[JURIST] The US Senate official website] on Monday confirmed Judge Andre Davis, President Barack Obama's nominee to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website], by a vote of 72-16 [roll call vote]. Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official website], the Davis confirmation was delayed [press release] by Republicans for five months after the committee reported the nomination to the Senate by a vote of 16 to 3. Davis was nominated to the court by then-president Bill Clinton in October 2000, and renominated by Obama in April 2009. Davis was the sixth of Obama's judicial nominees to be confirmed by the Senate. The other confirmations [materials] include Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor [JURIST news archive], Second Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch, and three federal district court judges. Immediately after Davis's confirmation, the Senate confirmed the seventh Obama nominee, federal district Judge Charlene Honeywell.

The Fourth Circuit encompasses West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Before the Davis confirmation, five of the 15 seats on the court remained vacant. Of the 10 sitting judges, five were appointed by Democrats and five were appointed by Republicans. Davis is the sixth Democratic nominee, which could shift the balance of the court [AP report]. In recent years, the Fourth Circuit has ruled [JURIST news archive] on controversial issues. The court upheld the death sentence for DC sniper John Allen Muhammad, who is scheduled to be executed Tuesday [JURIST reports]. During the Bush administration, the court upheld the indefinite detention [JURIST report] of those labeled "enemy combatants."

[JURIST] Mexican President Felipe Calderon [official website, in Spanish] on Monday made a public call for greater adherence to the rule of law, more transparent elections, and increased business competition in Mexico, during a speech [text, in Spanish] at the annual Mexico Business Summit [summit website]. Calderon criticized monopolistic business practices in Mexico, and said transparency was sorely lacking in elections conducted in the country. He also emphasized that only with rule of law can the economy flourish and orderly social life can exist. "The most important task of the state, friends, is this: to respect and enforce the law," he said. "It's the first thing that we commit to rules. And here the Federal Government is absolutely clear: enforce the law only by way of the law itself, which is the source of all legitimacy." Earlier in the summit, Mexico's Secretary of Public Security Genaro Garcia Luna [official profile, in Spanish] said that media had overemphasized drug violence [Xinhua report], claiming that theft is a bigger concern to public safety.

In August, Mexico qualified for $1.4 million in aid [JURIST report] from the US within the framework of the Merida Initiative [DOS materials], after the US State Department [official website] sent a report [text, PDF] to Congress indicating that Mexico was making progress in addressing human rights issues. report finds that Mexico is making progress in promoting police transparency, engaging civil society groups, investigating allegations of human rights abuses by police and military personnel, and prohibiting the use of coerced evidence in trial proceedings.

[JURIST] President of the Honduran National Congress [official website, in Spanish] Jose Alfredo Saavedra said Monday that lawmakers will most likely not make a decision about whether to restore ousted president Manuel Zelaya [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] before the country's presidential elections take place later this month. Saavedra said that congress is awaiting an opinion from the Honduran Supreme Court [official website, in Spanish], and there is no indication when the court might rule. An agreement, known as the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accord [Honduras News materials], reached last month would allow Zelaya to return to power conditioned on Supreme Court approval with a subsequent affirmative vote from the Honduran legislature. The US, which has refused to recognize the existence of the interim government headed by Roberto Micheletti [BBC profile], has warned that it will not support the elections if there is no adherence to the agreement that it helped broker. The accord calls for a unified government and leaves the decision to reinstate Zelaya in the hands of congress. It also called for Zelaya to propose members of the reconciliation government by November 5. Both Zelaya and Micheletti declared the agreement void last week after Zelaya did not submit names and Micheletti unilaterally announced a unity government.

In July, the Honduran Supreme Court refused [JURIST report] a petition by Organization of American States (OAS) [official website] Secretary General calling for the reinstatement of Zelaya as the country's head of state. Zelaya was ousted [JURIST report] in June, following a judicial order [press release, in Spanish] asserting that he had broken Honduran law by attempting to conduct a controversial referendum on constitutional reform [JURIST report], contrary to a Honduran Supreme Court ruling. Zelaya has made several failed attempts to return to office, including attempting to fly into the country accompanied by international leaders.

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] on Monday extended a deadline for filing an amended settlement agreement [Authors Guild backgrounder] between Google [corporate website] and groups of authors and publishers over Google's book-scanning initiative [Google Book Search website]. Judge Denny Chin granted the delay after Google and other parties to the settlement submitted a letter [text, PDF] requesting that the original Monday deadline be extended to Friday, November 13. According to that letter, the groups had been meeting with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] in order to address concerns the DOJ had over the initial agreement [JURIST reports] developed last October. Chin is expected to hold a hearing [AFP report] in December or January on whether to approve the amended settlement.

In September, the DOJ filed a statement of interest [text, PDF; press release] urging Chin to reject a class action settlement in the copyright suit [case materials] against Google. In its statement, which came after an investigation [JURIST report] into the agreement, the DOJ said that the proposed settlement raises concerns over class action, copyright, and antitrust law. Under the terms of the initial agreement, Google would pay $125 million to authors and publishers of copyrighted works. In return, Google would be allowed to display online up to 20 percent of the total pages of a copyrighted book, and would offer users an opportunity to purchase the remainder of any viewed book.

[JURIST] Former Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) [official website] lawyer Robert Miller pleaded guilty [plea agreement, PDF] in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] to one count [criminal information, PDF] of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy in connection with the Marc Dreier [NYT backgrounder] fraud case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced [press release, PDF] Monday. According to the DOJ, Miller impersonated the manager of a Canadian pension plan in phone conversations in 2008 to help Dreier sell a fictitious promissory note Dreier claimed was worth $44.7 million to a New York hedge fund. As part of the plea agreement, Miller promised to cooperate with investigators and agreed to forfeit the $100,000 Dreier paid him for his role in the scheme. Miller faces a maximum jail sentence of 20 years and over $5 million in fines when he is sentenced February 5.

Last week, Dreier's former broker Kosta Kovachev pleaded guilty [NYT report] to conspiracy to commit wire securities fraud and wire fraud and to wire fraud for his role in the scheme. Dreier, the founder and managing partner of New York-based law firm Dreier LLP, was sentenced in July to 20 years in prison for selling $700 million in false promissory notes. In May, Dreier pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to one count of money laundering and numerous fraud and conspiracy counts. Dreier was arrested [DOJ press release, PDF] in New York in December after being arrested and then released in Canada. He was charged with one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud. A superseding indictment [DOJ press release, PDF] filed in March charged him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, five counts of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering.