Last month, the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] allowed Khadr to amend [JURIST report] his 2004 habeas corpus petition, but refused to lift the stay on the petition pending the conclusion of his military commission. Also in July, Khadr rejected a plea deal [JURIST report] offered by the US government, which would have resulted in a five-year prison sentence. Khadr is facing murder and terrorism charges [JURIST report] for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed one US soldier and injured another. If he is found guilty, he could face a life sentence. Khadr's defense lawyers have repeatedly sought his repatriation [JURIST report] to Canada on the basis that the Canadian government's refusal to request repatriation from the US violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text].

Defendant-Intervenors' argument [in support of] their request for a stay pending appeal ignores the fact that there has now been a trial on the merits that conclusively demonstrated that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. ... [W]hile there is still the potential for limited administrative burdens should future marriages of same-sex couples be later declared invalid, these potential burdens are outweighed by this Court's conclusion, based on the overwhelming evidence, that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional

The Wednesday ruling found that Proposition 8 violated the 14th Amendment's guarantees to Equal Protection and Due Process. The case began in January and culminated with closing arguments [JURIST reports] in June.

Society recognizes Jones's expectation of privacy in his movements over the course of a month as reasonable, and the use of the GPS device to monitor those movements defeated that reasonable expectation. As we have discussed, prolonged GPS monitoring reveals an intimate picture of the subject's life that he expects no one to have — short perhaps of his spouse.

In June, the US Supreme Court unanimously held [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that, even if there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in work-issued electronic devices, that an employer's search of private text messages does not violate the Fourth Amendment so long as the search is not excessive and is pursuant to a legitimate work-related purpose. In February, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that strip searching all incoming inmates does not violate the Fourth Amendment because it is necessary in order to prevent illegal substances from entering prisons.

Only two states, Alabama [JURIST report] and South Carolina, still have a policy of discriminating HIV-positive prisoners. In April, HRW and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] jointly produced a report [text, PDF] concluding that the prisoners face fundamental discrimination, which amounts to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners." In March, Mississippi ended [AP report] its segregation program, after extending [ACLU press release] educational and vocational training to HIV-positive inmates in 2001. In 1990, the ACLU, on behalf of HIV-positive prisoners, sued to force Mississippi to provide proper medical care. HRW has also accused the federal Department of Homeland Security [official website] of providing inadequate medical care [JURIST report] to HIV-positive immigration detainees.