Another case from earlier this year was dismissed [opinion] against HSBC Holdings [corporate website] because the trustee had "no personal stake in the outcome of the controversy." Picard also plans to appeal this decision. The first payouts to Madoff's victims were approved [JURIST report] by the court in July. Picard filed almost 60 lawsuits [JURIST report] for victims of Madoff's fraud in December 2010 after being appointed trustee [order] in 2008. Madoff pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to 11 counts of securities fraud stemming from his Ponzi scheme in March 2009, and was sentenced [JURIST report] in June 2009 to 150 years in prison.

In Smith v. Cain [transcript, PDF; JURIST report], formerly Smith v. Louisiana, the court heard the latest of several allegations of prosecutorial misconduct [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] out of the New Orleans District Attorney's office [official website], in this case whether a series of violations of case law violated Juan Smith's due process rights. Smith's attorney opened with an exhaustive list of impropriety in the case:

In Brady v. Maryland, this Court established the now-familiar principle that the prosecution must hand over all favorable material evidence to the defense before trial. This case presents a flagrant violation of that principle. The Orleans Parish district attorney's office produced almost no relevant evidence to the defense before Petitioner's trial, and Petitioner was convicted of first degree murder based solely on the testimony of a single eyewitness. Unbeknownst to the defense, however, that eyewitness had told the police on multiple occasions that he could not identify any of the perpetrators or, as he put it, that he would not know them if he saw them. The suppression of those statements alone justifies a new trial, but the district attorney's office in this case also engaged in the wholesale suppression of statements of numerous other witnesses, statements that further undermined the sole eyewitness identification of Petitioner and, more broadly, cast doubt on Petitioner's involvement and role in the shooting.

[Baldwin] was provided with the premises, the pulpit and the clerical robes. He was directed into the community with that full authority and was given free rein to act as a representative of the Church. ... He had been trained and ordained for the purpose. He had immense power handed to him by the defendants. It was they who appointed him to the position of trust which (if the allegations can be proved) he so abused.

Clergy abuse has become a contentious legal issue in recent years, as the Vatican has come under intense scrutiny related to allegations of sexual abuse of children by local church officials. In September, Amnesty International [advocacy website] claimed [JURIST report] that clergy members' abuse of Irish children amounted to torture. The report, titled In Plain Sight [text, PDF] called special attention to "people in positions of power" who "ignore their responsibility to act." Also in September, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) [advocacy website] filed a complaint [JURIST report] with the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] against Vatican officials, including Pope Benedict XVI, for widespread sexual abuse and subsequent concealment of thousands of incidents. In February 2010, the Vatican unveiled church procedures [JURIST report] for dealing with sexual abuse cases, titled the "Guide to Understanding Basic CDF Procedures concerning Sexual Abuse Allegations", which set up a multi-tiered system of enforcement, including local bishops and the Pope himself. Since 2007, the Church has settled over 500 cases [JURIST news archive] of clergy abuse in the U.S. alone, totaling more than $900 million.

In September, the court ordered [JURIST report] the trials of Ieng Sary and three other alleged Khmer Rouge leaders be split into a series of smaller trials [order, PDF]. The ECCC said that the separation of trials will allow the tribunal to deliberate more quickly [press release] in the case [materials] against the four elderly defendants. The first trial will focus on the beginning two phases of population movement and allegations of crimes against humanity, including murder, persecution not on religious grounds and forced disappearances associated with the first phases of population movement. Subsequent trials will focus on the third phase of population movement, genocide, persecution based on religious grounds and violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Last week, Syria announced that insurgents who have revolted against the government of president Bashar al-Assad [Al Jazeera profile] may qualify for amnesty [JURIST report] if they turn themselves into authorities by November 12. This plea followed what have been some of the deadliest clashes of a movement that began in Syria last March [JURIST report], and left at least 13 people dead over the past few days. In October, the UN and the League of Arab States released statements condemning violence in Syria after an estimated 40 people were killed in protest-related encounters. Earlier in October, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] urged the international community to take steps to protect civilian lives in Syria [JURIST report]. In August, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] reported that 88 Syrians were killed [JURIST report] while in custody as a result of their protest, and the OHCHR reported on several occasions that Syrian forces may be committing crimes against humanity [JURIST report].

In April, a judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] denied a motion to dismiss [JURIST report] a federal suit against former Somali prime minister and defense minister Mohamed Ali Samantar [JURIST news archive]. Lawyers for Samantar had argued that the case should be dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired and because the courts should not interfere in political matters. In February, a federal judge ruled that Samantar was not entitled to legal immunity from civil lawsuits [JURIST report]. This ruling came after the US Supreme Court [official website] handed down a unanimous decision [JURIST report] in June 2010 that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) [28 USC §§ 1330, 1602 et seq. text] does not provide foreign officials immunity from civil lawsuits. The suit has been ongoing since 2004 when the plaintiffs filed a complaint seeking damages from Samantar under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 [28 USC § 1350 text]. Samantar was minister of defense and later prime minister of Somalia from 1980 to 1990. Respondents claim that Samantar authorized torture and the extrajudicial killing of them and members of their family. The Isaaq clan, of which the plaintiffs are members, was subjected to systematic persecution during Samantar's time in office before the collapse of the Somali government in 1991 [DOS backgrounder]. Samantar fled Somalia before the collapse of the government and now resides in Virginia.

We must observe that Greene's predicament is an unusual one of his own creation. Before applying for federal habeas, he missed two opportunities to obtain relief under Gray. ... Having forgone two obvious means of asserting his claim, Greene asks us to provide him relief by interpreting AEDPA in a manner contrary to both its text and our precedents. We decline to do so, and affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Under the AEDPA, a federal court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner with respect to any claim that has been "adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings" unless the state-court adjudication "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." In January, the Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] in Harrington v. Richter [opinion, PDF] that the section of the AEDPA limiting federal review of state court decisions to decisions resulting from an unreasonable application of the law or an unreasonable determination of the facts is applicable to state court orders issued without an accompanying explanation.

In June, more than 3,000 Americans signed a letter [text, PDF] to President Barack Obama urging him to stop deportations to Haiti [JURIST report] on humanitarian grounds. The letter suggested that deported citizens were immediately imprisoned in Haiti, where unsanitary prison conditions carried a high risk of exposure to the cholera epidemic as well as other deadly diseases. In April, the US State Department released [JURIST report] its 2010 Country Report on Human Rights Practices [materials], reporting that Haiti [materials] has faced significant human rights abuses following the breakdown of government control [JURIST report] after the 2010 earthquake. On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake [USGS backgrounder] caused at least 50,000 deaths and massive damage to property and infrastructure in Haiti. The most devastated city was the capital, Port-au-Prince, where MINUSTAH said that up to 50 percent of buildings [statement] have been destroyed or damaged, including the country's presidential palace, the UN Mission headquarters and the country's main prison [JURIST report].

[P]rovides guidance for practitioners in military commissions and ... [t]o the extent that the guidance here differs from that which applies in courts-martial, that difference is necessitated by the unique circumstances of the conduct of military and intelligence operations during hostilities or by other practical need, consistent with Military Commissions Act of 2009.

The regulations were announced just days before the military commission at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] is set to arraign Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri [NYT profile; JURIST news archive]. Last week, US prosecutors argued [JURIST report] that even if suspected USS Cole [JURIST news archive] bomber Al-Nashiri is acquitted by a military tribunal, the US government has the authority to detain him in Guantanamo Bay until the end of the hostilities in the US war on terror [JURIST news archive]. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, Al-Nashiri's defense attorney, argued that Al-Nashiri's inevitable indefinite detention renders his trial merely a show that lacks meaningful reprieve, and that jurors have the right to be informed that they are simply playing a role in a pre-determined political decision. Last month, al-Nashiri filed a motion to challenge [JURIST reports] the method in which Guantanamo Bay military tribunals are conducted.

This comes after a quarter of a century of scientific warnings, 37 Parliamentary inquiries and years of bitter debate and division. ... Today's vote means that the hard work now begins to cut carbon pollution and we will do that, cutting carbon pollution by 160 million tonnes in 2020, the equivalent of taking 45 million cars off the road.

Passage of this law comes as world leaders prepare to attend the Durban Climate Change Conference [official website] next month to discuss global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The Australian Senate rejected a similar bill [JURIST report] right before the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference that would have established a cap-and-trade system and gone into effect in July 2011. Opposition to the 2009 bill claimed it would result in higher energy prices and that it would be useless for Australia to adopt cap-and-trade if the US did not also adopt a similar system. The US has still failed to adopt such a system, but President Barack Obama continues to push for it even as he is met with strong opposition by legislators concerned about negative effects on jobs and the economy.

BOA is among more than two dozen US, Canadian and European lenders named as defendants in the class action lawsuit, which consolidated claims across the country in 2009. In their amended complaint [text, PDF], the plaintiffs claimed that BOA's practices were deceptive in that they did not reasonably notify customers that they had the option of opting out of the overdraft scheme and declining transactions. The complaint also alleged that BOA's excessive fees disproportionately effect low-income customers. BOA has been the target of several lawsuits. In June, BOA announced that it has agreed to pay $8.5 billion [JURIST report] to settle claims that it sold bad securities contributing to the housing market collapse. The securities, called first-lien residential mortgage-backed securitization, were issued by the BOA unit Countrywide Financial Corporation, which it purchased for $4 billion in 2008.

The Armenian genocide remains a contentious issue in US law and politics. In August 2010, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit [official website] unanimously dismissed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging the exclusion of materials questioning the Armenian genocide from a school curriculum. In March 2010, the Obama administration announced its opposition to a resolution [JURIST report] labeling the World War I-era killings as genocide. The announcement came after the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs passed the resolution [JURIST report] by a vote of 23-22. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Teyyip Erdogan condemned the resolution, and the Turkish government recalled its ambassador to the US.

Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 64, which provides for DNA testing, has undergone several changes since its creation, but those changes have never been Skinner reviewed in the particular context of this case. Because the DNA statute has changed, and because some of those changes were because of this case, we find that it would be prudent for this Court to take time to fully review the changes in the statute as they pertain to this case.

Skinner has insisted he is innocent, saying he was not capable of committing the murders because of the amount of drugs and alcohol in his system on the day of the murders. While the prosecutors in the case did rely on some DNA evidence in the case, Skinner's attorneys argue they were selective in the tests they conducted. In March, the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] 6-3 for Skinner in Skinner v. Switzer [Cornell LII backgrounder] that a convicted prisoner seeking access to biological evidence for DNA testing may assert a civil rights claim [JURIST report] under Section 1983 [text]. A year earlier, the Supreme Court granted a temporary stay of execution [JURIST report] just one hour prior to Skinner's scheduled execution so he could pursue his civil rights claim. In District Attorney's Office v. Osborne, the court held that a defendant does not have the right to obtain post-conviction access to the state's biological evidence in order to do DNA testing. The decision involved a claim for access under section 1983, but the majority rejected that approach saying it "would take the development of rules and procedures in this area out of the hands of legislatures and state courts shaping policy in a focused manner and turn it over to federal courts applying the broad parameters of the Due Process Clause."

In 2009, a sharply divided Montana Supreme Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that physician assisted suicide is not banned by state law, making Montana the third state to allow the practice after Oregon and Washington. The court upheld in part and reversed in part a lower court ruling, agreeing with its finding that physician assisted suicide is not illegal under state law, but giving no opinion on the greater constitutional question addressed by the lower court. Instead, it found in a 4-3 decision that physician assisted suicide was not rendered illegal under state statute or by public policy concerns.