Erlinder was hospitalized last week after Rwandan authorities claimed he attempted to commit suicide [JURIST report] while being held in prison. Erlinder was reportedly found semiconscious [New Times report] in his cell Wednesday morning as police attempted to summon him for further questioning. According to Dr. Daniel Nyamaswa, Director of the National Police Hospital at Kacyiru [official website] where Erlinder was initially hospitalized, Erlinder took up to 50 pills of prescription medications intended to treat depression and high blood pressure. Erlinder later explained in a message to his family that he took the overdose in order to be transferred to a hospital to escape the poor conditions of his holding cell [AP report], which he shares with several others. Police officials claimed Erlinder had confirmed that the overdose was a suicide attempt made because the sentence he could face if convicted of genocide denial could be as long as 25 years, effectively "life" for the 62-year-old lawyer. Officials have said they will wait until Erlinder has recovered [allAfrica report] before deciding if they will charge him with attempted suicide, a criminal offense in Rwanda. Rwandan police arrested Erlinder [JURIST report] last week while he was in Rwanda to prepare his defense of opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza [campaign website], who was arrested [JURIST report] last month on similar charges. International groups including the National Lawyers Guild, the International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers [advocacy websites] have called for Erlinder's release [press release], saying that the charges are politically motivated [AP report].

Human rights have long been a major concern in the DRC. In December, HRW urged the UN Organization Mission in DR Congo (MUNOC) [official website] to stop funding military groups [JURIST report] in the country that are committing human rights abuses. In December 2008, AI reported that rape and sexual warfare have been employed [JURIST report] by both the DRC military and by rebel forces. In November 2008, MUNOC head Alan Doss [appointment release] condemned [JURIST report] the killing of civilians by militias in the country as war crimes. MONUC has been operating in DRC since 1999. The conflict in the DRC [Global Security backgrounder] has claimed more than four million lives and has been ongoing since 1983. MONUC has overseen elections and continues to provide armed protection for civilians in certain areas, particularly the North and South Kivus provinces.

When borrowers fall behind on their payments, Defendants obtain a number of default-related services (such as property inspections and foreclosure trustee services) by funneling the work through a panoply of Countrywide subsidiaries. As a matter of practice, Defendants and the subsidiaries add a substantial mark-up to their actual costs for the services and then charge the borrower the marked-up fees. Defendants' marked-up fees violate the mortgage contract because they exceed the actual cost of the services and are not reasonable and appropriate to protect the note holder's interest in the property and rights under the security instrument. Borrowers do not have any choice in who performs default-related services or the cost of those services, and they do not have the option to shop for those services.

In February, a district court judge accepted a $150 million dollar settlement agreement [JURIST report] between BOA and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) [official website]. The SEC had charged [JURIST report] BOA with misleading investors regarding billions of dollars paid to Merrill Lynch [corporate website] executives during the acquisition of the firm. The judge twice rejected a proposed settlement [JURIST report] between the SEC and BOA for $33 million, which did not admit any fault or directly penalize any corporate executives, calling the settlement unfair to the shareholders.

Also Monday, the Supreme Court in a per curiam order [text, PDF] sent a certified question to the Montana Supreme Court [official website] in the case of US v. Juvenile Male, suspending proceedings until the Montana court responds. The question seeks to determine if there is still a live controversy in the case because the challenged federal sex offender registration has expired. The defendant was found delinquent by the US District Court for the District of Montana in 2005 after pleading "true" to engaging in sex acts with a minor under 12, and was later required to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2006 [text]. On appeal, the defendant challenged this registration on ex post facto [Cornell LII backgrounder] grounds in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit ruled [opinion text] in favor of the defendant, finding an ex post facto violation. The certified question asks whether the ongoing sex offender registration required under state law is dependent upon the defendant's former federal sex offender registration, which would indicate a live dispute, or is required independent of federal law, rendering the ex post facto claim moot.

Information in the plaintiff's possession is relevant only if it bears on the defendant understanding of whether the plaintiff made a mistake regarding the proper party identity. For purposes of that inquiry, it would be error to conflate knowledge of a party's existence with the absence of mistake. ... That a plaintiff knows of a party's existence does not preclude her from making a mistake with respect to that party's identity.

The court granted certiorari [JURIST report] in the case to resolve a circuit split over the definition of "mistake" within the rule. The petitioner in the case filed suit after suffering an injury on a cruise ship owned and operated by Costa Crociere S.p.A. (Costa Crociere). The petitioner's attorney originally filed suit against Costa Crociere's booking company Costa Cruise, N.V., LLC. After being notified of the mistake the petitioner filed an amended complaint against the correct party. The statute of limitations had run on Costa Crociere's liability, resulting in the need for rule 15(c)(1)(C).

[R]espondent's argument is supported by the ordinary meaning of the term "projected." ... Here, the term "projected" is not defined, and in ordinary usage future occurrences are not "projected" based on the assumption that the past will necessarily repeat itself. For example, projections concerning a company's future sales or the future cash flow from a license take into account anticipated events that may change past trends. On the night of an election, experts do not "project" the percentage of the votes that a candidate will receive by simply assuming that the candidate will get the same percentage as he or she won in the first few reporting precincts. While a projection takes past events into account, adjustments are often made based on other factors that may affect the final outcome. ... Second, the word "projected" appears in many federal statutes, yet Congress rarely has used it to mean simple multiplication. For example, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 defined "projected national yield," "projected county yield," and "projected farm yield" as entailing historical averages "adjusted for abnormal weather conditions," “trends in yields," and "any significant changes in production practices." By contrast, we need look no further than the Bankruptcy Code to see that when Congress wishes to mandate simple multiplication, it does so unambiguously—most commonly by using the term "multiplied."

Respondent filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2006. During the period preceding this, she had received a buy-out from a former employer, inflating her income for the six month period that was to serve as a basis for calculating her projected disposable income. The court heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF; JURIST report] in the case in March. In November, the court granted certiorari [JURIST report], limiting its grant of certiorari to "[w]hether, in calculating the debtor's 'projected disposable income' during the plan period, the bankruptcy court may consider evidence suggesting that the debtor's income or expenses during that period are likely to be different from her income or expenses during the pre-filing period."

The statute's language and purpose, taken together, support the BOP's method. That method tracks § 3624(b)'s language by providing a prisoner a maximum credit of 54 days for each full year of imprisonment and a proportionally adjusted amount of credit for any additional time served that is less than a full year. The BOP's method also furthers the basic purpose of the statute...[which is] the sentence the judge imposed would be the one the offender actually served, with a sole statutory exception for good time credits. Section 3624(b) states the reason for the exception: to provide an incentive for prisoners to "compl[y] with institutional disciplinary regulations." The exception is limited and tailored to its purpose - credit is earned at the end of the year after compliance with institutional rules is demonstrated and thereby rewards and reinforces a readily identifiable period of good behavior. The BOP's approach furthers § 3624's objectives by tying the award directly to good behavior during the preceding year.

The ruling stemmed from two Ninth Circuit cases that were consolidated under the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari [JURIST report]. Petitioners Michael Barber and Tahir Jihad-Black are serving sentences in federal prison for various gun and drug charges. Under the petitioners' proposed method of awarding credit for "time imposed," federal prisoners would receive good time credits for years they do not end up serving. The petitioners argued that even if the law is ambiguous, the court should apply the rule of leniency, which states that the court should err on the side of the defendant when ruling on an ambiguous statute. The court disagreed stating that the BOP's method was a clear and natural interpretation of the statute and therefore could not be struck by the court.

[T]he Bush administration's legal framework to protect CIA interrogators from violating US statutory and treaty obligations prohibiting torture effectively contravened well-established legal and ethical codes, that, had they been enforced, should have protected prisoners against human experimentation, and should have prevented the "enhanced" interrogation program from being initiated in the first place. There is no evidence that the Office of Legal Counsel ever assessed the lawfulness of the medical monitoring of torture, as it did with the use of the "enhanced" techniques themselves.

This report is the latest incident in a long string of medical condemnations of Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] and the medical professionals working in it. Last April, the International Committee of the Red Cross [official website] released a report [text, PDF] alleging that medical professionals violated codes of medical ethics [JURIST report] by participating in and assisting in ill-treatment of Guantanamo Bay detainees. In September 2007, doctors from 16 countries wrote a letter [JURIST report] condemning the US military for its treatment of detainees, particularly the policy of force-feeding to counteract hunger strikes. A month earlier, a commentary [text] published in the Journal of the American Medical Association [journal website] asserted that force-feeding was a violation of medical ethics [JURIST report].

Israel is a democracy. Israel has the ability and the right to investigate itself, not to be investigated by any international board. I don't think the United States would want an international inquiry into its military activities in Afghanistan, for example. ... We are rejecting the idea of international commission and we're discussing with the Obama administration the way in which our inquiry will take place, but the notion of an international commission coming along and judging Israel's right to defend itself, that's not admissible. ... At the end of the day, Israel has the right, the duty as a democracy to investigate any military activity.

The UN Human Rights Council [official website] on Wednesday condemned [JURIST report] Israel's raid on the ships and initiated an independent investigation into possible violations of international law. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 32 to 3 with 9 abstentions and authorizes the president of the council to appoint members to the panel conducting the investigation. The US government indicated Tuesday that it was opposed to the resolution [press release], but urged the Israeli government to conduct a transparent investigation. Also Tuesday, the UN Security Council [official website] called [JURIST report] for a "prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation" into the raid. The Security Council's statement came one day after Ban and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profiles] both condemned [statement text] the Israeli action and called for an independent inquiry [press release]. The Turkish ship on which the violence occurred [ABC report] was one of six organized [Guardian backgrounder] by the Free Gaza Movement [advocacy website] to carry protesters and humanitarian supplies to the isolated Palestinian enclave. The Gaza naval blockade began in 2007 after Hamas [CFR backgrounder] forcibly expelled [BBC report] their chief rival, Fatah [CFR backgrounder] from Gaza. In 2006, Hamas was elected [JURIST report] as the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority after unbroken rule by Fatah. In January 2008, then-UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Louise Arbour condemned the blockade [JURIST report], describing it as collective punishment.

[I]n terms of privacy, clearly Australians have concerns about what's happening at the moment, on privacy, particularly online. There was a survey in one of today's papers that talks about 73 percent of Australians want better privacy from organizations like Google and Facebook. So what's really important is that these companies, even though they're based overseas, understand that Australia has privacy laws and Australians expect that those privacy laws will be honored.

Australia's investigation follows a similar inquiry by Canada into Google's privacy law violations. Last week, Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart [official website] announced that an investigation has been launched [JURIST report] into unsecured Wi-Fi data collection by Google vehicles, mounted with 360-degree cameras, for the company's Street View service. The investigation will determine whether Google has violated Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) [text, PDF], which applies to private organizations that collect, use, or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. Google is also facing an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official website] after an inquiry into Google's data-harvesting techniques was requested by advocacy group Consumer Watchdog [press release]. Australia also joins Belgium, the UK, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland in asking Google to retain data collected in those respective nations.

The 1984 Bhopal disaster caused an international outcry over the activities of Western chemical manufacturing in India and the developing world. A number of environmental groups, including Greenpeace [advocacy website], have called for Union Carbide and its parent company, Dow Chemicals [corporate website], to be brought to justice [Greenpeace backgrounder] for the after-effects of the disaster. In 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] reinstated a water pollution lawsuit [JURIST report] brought by disaster victims against Union Carbide. In 2004, groups representing Bhopal victims appealed a $330 million award [JURIST report] issued by the Indian Supreme Court, arguing that the award should be quadrupled to provide enough compensation for each of the 572,173 people that the court ruled were eligible.