In January, the Wyoming House of Representatives [official website] approved a bill [text, PDF] that would prevent Wyoming from recognizing [JURIST report] same-sex marriages and civil unions performed out-of-state. However, several states recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages. Earlier that month, New Mexico Attorney General Gary King [official website] issued an opinion stating that gay marriages from out of state would likely be legal [New Mexico Independent report] there. Last year, Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler [official website] declared that the state should recognize [JURIST report] same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington, DC [JURIST reports].

Last month, Berlusconi attended a hearing in Milan [JURIST report] to defend himself against charges of fraud and embezzlement. Prior to that hearing, Berlusconi had not attended a case hearing for more than seven years. In February, an Italian judge ordered Berlusconi to stand trial [JURIST report] on the current charges of paying for sex with a minor and abuse of power. Berlusconi has denied any wrongdoing and has called the charges groundless. In January, the Italian Constitutional Court [official website, in Italian] held hearings and subsequently struck down [JURIST reports] portions of a law [materials, in Italian] backed by Berlusconi that would have granted the premier and other public officials temporary immunity from charges while in office.

A cause of action for injunctive relief . . . may be maintained by the woman upon whom an abortion was performed or attempted to be performed in violation of the provisions of this chapter, by any person who is the spouse, parent, sibling, or guardian of, or a current or former licensed health care provider of the woman . . ., by a prosecuting attorney with appropriate jurisdiction, or by the attorney general.

Since the November elections state legislatures across the country have been implementing measures to restrict abortions. Last week, the Iowa House of Representatives [official website] approved a bill [JURIST report] that would prohibit doctors from performing late-term abortions in the state. Last month, the Kansas Senate [official website] approved legislation restricting late-term abortions, after the House of Representatives approved the measure [JURIST reports] in February. Also last month, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard [official website] signed into law [JURIST report] a bill requiring women to seek counseling at a pregnancy center and wait three days before obtaining an abortion. The Missouri House of Representatives [official website] in March voted in favor of legislation restricting late-term abortions [JURIST report] and imposing penalties on doctors who fail to comply with the new restrictions. The legislation, which is slated to become effective at the end of August, bans abortions of "viable" fetuses. The Oklahoma House of Representatives [official website] also voted in March to approve a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of gestation [JURIST report].

On Tuesday, the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] also urged the Yemeni government [JURIST report] to discontinue using force against peaceful protesters. The Yemeni Parliament enacted several emergency measures [JURIST report] in March at the request of President Ali Abdullah Saleh [official website, in Arabic] in an effort to end anti-government protests. The new laws give the government greater power [AP report] to arrest and detain protesters and to censor the media. Protests, largely organized by the Joint Meeting Party (JMP), have been ongoing in Yemen since February, largely calling for Saleh to step down. Saleh has been in power since 1978 and is considered popular in Yemen and the international community. However, he and his party, the General People's Congress (GPC), have caused mounting political tensions due to attempts to remove presidential term limits [JURIST report] and expand their political power. In December, the parliament stoked outrage among opposition parties and independents when it amended the constitution [AFP report] to eliminate provisions requiring that opposition parties be represented on the high election commission. Although the government has maintained control in urban areas, the northern and southern parts of the country remain unlawful and dangerous, plagued by southern separatists groups and al Qaeda [JURIST news archive]. The protests in Yemen have been analyzed in two recent JURIST op-eds: Constitutional Enforcement in Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt by L. Ali Khan, Professor of Law at Washburn University, and The Middle East protest movements: each with a story, all with uncertainty by Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, Vice President of Research, Foundation for Defense of Democracies [advocacy website].

The assault the officers observed was a new and distinct offense from the previously committed crimes the officers were investigating, and sufficiently independent of any information obtained by them from the GPS tracking device. The officers' focus on appellant, a registered sex offender on probation, as the likely perpetrator of the recent sexual assaults did not begin with the placement of the GPS device on his assigned work van. They knew that appellant resided, worked, and attended probation-related meetings where the recent assaults occurred. They knew that the manner in which the perpetrator of the recent sexual assaults attacked those victims was "amazingly like" that appellant used in previous sexual assaults to which he had previously confessed. The additional information obtained from the GPS tracking of the van's locations near the scene of the latest attack was just one more piece of information to add to the already strong focus on appellant as the person responsible for the assaults. * * * We hold that the officers' observations of that criminal act were sufficiently attenuated from any argued taint arising from the placement and use of the GPS device to track the movements of appellant's assigned work van and that there is no basis in law to exclude the officers' eyewitness testimony of a violent assault being committed in their presence."

The use of GPS technology and other surveillance devices [JURIST news archive] by law enforcement agents has been a controversial issue in the US, with courts across the country coming to divergent conclusions. In December, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] declined to rehear en banc [JURIST report] a bid by the DOJ to overturn a decision that prevents the government from using GPS technology to track suspects without a warrant. A Pennsylvania appeals court allowed use of evidence obtained with GPS technology [JURIST report] in December. In September, a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] that at times the government might need a warrant to obtain cell phone data [JURIST report] to track a person's location. Last year, the US Supreme Court unanimously held that, even if there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in work-issued electronic devices, that an employermsearch of private text messages does not violate [JURIST report] the Fourth Amendment so long as the search is not excessive and is pursuant to a legitimate work-related purpose.

The Ivory Coast is a member of the Rome Statute [text] which established the ICC, and other member states can refer a country's conduct for scrutiny by the court. Moreno-Ocampo said that this would be helpful in allowing his office's investigation to proceed and discussed a possible a referral from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) [official website], which counts the Ivory Coast as a member. ECOWAS issued a statement [text] on Tuesday "to express its horror at the reported massacre" in the Ivory Coast and "the use of unarmed civilians as human shield in areas of conflict." The ICC's profile on the Ivory Coast [ICC profile] does not contain recent allegations, but the Office of the Prosecutor [official website] lists the investigation as pending. It is reported that Gbagbo is attempting to leave the country [Reuters report] and has instructed his forces to quit fighting [UN News Centre report].

Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [official website] reported the deaths of at least 800 civilians [JURIST report] in the Ivory Coast town of Duekoue as a result of intercommunal violence that took place. Earlier, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] urged all parties in the Ivory Coast to show restraint [JURIST report]. A spokesperson acknowledged unconfirmed reports that the Ivory Coast Republican Forces had "engaged in looting and extortion as well as serious human rights violations such as abductions, arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of civilians" during their advance towards the country's capital of Abidjan. Last month, the OHCHR called for an independent investigation into post-election violence [JURIST report]. In January, UN officials expressed "grave concerns" [JURIST report] regarding the post-election violence, cautioning that genocide could be imminent. In February, Gbagbo dissolved [JURIST report] the country's parliament and electoral commission based on allegations of voter fraud in the long delayed presidential elections. On disbanding the government, Gbagbo charged Prime Minister Guillaume Soro [BBC profile] with creation of new government and new election format. The violence stems from Gbagbo's refusal to cede power to president-elect Alassane Ouattara, who won the November 2010 runoff election according to international observers. Gbagbo was elected president in 2000 to serve a five-year term, but he has managed to stay in office, delaying six successive elections.