In February, a federal judge decided Rajaratnam's criminal trial will begin October 25 [JURIST report]. Former Intel Capital [corporate website] executive Rajiv Goel pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to insider trading charges in connection with the Galleon probe earlier in February. Rajaratnam, Chiesi, Goel and Moffat were arrested in October and charged [complaint, PDF] along with two other individuals and two business entities with insider trading. The complaint alleged that the individuals provided Galleon Group and another hedge fund with material nonpublic information about several corporations upon which the funds traded, generating $25 million in illicit gain. Rajaratnam and Chiesi pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] in December after being indicted for insider trading.

The US House of Representatives [official website] voted unanimously [JURIST report] in March to impeach Porteous. After an investigation [report text, PDF] by a special committee, the Judicial Conference found "substantial evidence" that Porteous had signed false financial disclosure forms, falsified statements in a personal bankruptcy proceeding, made false representations to secure a bank loan and violated criminal laws [text] and ethical rules by soliciting and receiving "cash and other things of value" from lawyers in a bench trial over which he was presiding. Porteous' decision in that case, In re Liljeberg enters v. Lifemark Hospitals, was later partially reversed [opinion text] by the Fifth Circuit, which earlier this year reprimanded Porteous [text, PDF]. A House committee began investigating Porteous [JURIST report] in 2008.The US Constitution gives the House the power to impeach [academic backgrounder] "all civil Officers of the United States" on suspicion of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Thirteen federal judges have been impeached, of which seven have been convicted.

The dispute between Russian and Georgia is not limited to the proceedings before the ICJ. In March, representatives from Russia met with prosecutors [JURIST report] from the International Criminal Court to discuss claims of war crimes allegedly committed by Georgian soldiers during the conflict in South Ossetia in August 2008. That conflict occurred when Russia sent its military into Georgia in response to a Georgian bid to strike South Ossetia, an area heavily populated by Russians. The US has taken the position that both nations committed violations of human rights [JURIST report] during that conflict. Georgia initially instituted the case [JURIST report] currently before the ICJ in August 2008, shortly after Russia sent troops into Georgia .

In May, the FBI released its Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report [text; JURIST report] disclosing that violent crime in the nation decreased 5.5 percent and property crime declined 4.9 percent, when compared with data from 2008. The drop in 2009 follows a 1.9 percent decrease for 2008 and a 0.7 percent decrease [JURIST reports] for 2007. That came after two years of increasing rates of similar crimes, including a 2006 increase of 1.3 percent and a 2005 increase of 2.3 percent [JURIST reports].

Ahari was first arrested following the June 2009 presidential elections, which resulted in widespread charges of fraud and nationwide protests. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists [advocacy website], this is the first time that a journalist has been charged with a capital crime in Iran. In May, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) [advocacy website] included Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [BBC profiles] of Iran in a report listing 40 "Predators of Press Freedom" [JURIST report] throughout the world. Pyrabasy previously presided over the trial of Mohammad Nourizad, a prominent Iranian journalist and filmmaker, who was sentenced in April to three-and-a-half years [JURIST report] in prison and 50 lashes for his activities after the 2009 elections. Nourizad was sentenced for "distributing propaganda against the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and desecrating the image of thirty years of the Islamic establishment," and insulting the supreme leader, the president, the head of the judiciary and Ayatollah Elmolhoda of the Assembly of Experts. In December, Iranian economist and journalist Saeed Laylaz was sentenced to a nine-year jail term [JURIST report] for possessing classified information and participating in protests following the 2009 elections. Thousands were arrested during the protests following the contested election.

Amnesty International has frequently called on both the US and Iraqi authorities to release detainees held for long periods unless they are formally charged with a recognizably criminal offence and tried according to international standards of fair trial. The practice of arbitrary detention flouts both Iraqi legislation and international human rights law.

The repeated reports of detainee torture in Iraq have caused concern among several human rights groups. In June, UN Special Representative to Iraq Ad Melkert urged the Iraqi government [JURIST report] to ratify the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [text]. Melkert stated that Iraq had made several advances in recognizing human rights violations, but the government's policy implementation still faces several obstacles. The convention was adopted by the UN in 1984 and has been ratified by 147 countries. Iraq remains one of 45 member-countries that have yet to ratify the treaty. In April, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported on the repeated torture [JURIST report] of Iraqi detainees in a secret prison in Baghdad. HRW reported that detainees held at the secret Muthanna facility, run by Iraqi authorities, were hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks and sodomized during torture sessions that detainees faced every three to four days.

In July, the Constitutional Court annulled those portions of government-approved amendments, but declined to annul all the amendments as requested [JURIST reports] by Turkey's opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) [party website, in Turkish]. Proponents of the reforms have insisted they are necessary in order for Turkey to meet the democratic and human rights standards required for admission to the EU. Opponents, however, have argued the reforms are meant to consolidate power and to bring the traditionally secular judiciary and military under control of the government. Turkey has faced several obstacles as it works toward membership in the EU, including opposition to the constitutional reforms, its human rights record, its stance toward political parties and tension [JURIST news archive] between the AKP and the military.