Many states have recently passed laws restricting abortions. On Monday, the Idaho State Senate approved a bill [JURIST report] requiring a woman who is seeking an abortion to first receive an ultrasound. Earlier this month, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell [official website] signed a similar ultrasound bill into law [JURIST report]. In February, the US District Court for the Western District of Texas [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that Texas can enforce a state law requiring women to receive a sonogram before obtaining an abortion. In July, the North Carolina state legislature overrode a governor's veto [JURIST report] to pass a law requiring a 24-hour waiting period for a woman seeking an abortion.

[Lawsuits] against States under this provision are barred by the States' immunity as sovereigns in our federal system. ... To abrogate the States' immunity from suits for damages ... Congress must identify a pattern of constitutional violations and tailor a remedy congruent and proportional to the documented violations. It failed to do so when it allowed employees to sue States for violations of the FMLA's self-care provision.

The court heard arguments [JURIST report] in the case in January. Coleman argued that Congress passed the self-care leave provision in an effort to protect women from employment discrimination by giving all employees, men included, equal right to leave. The state of Maryland asserted that the self-care leave provision's purposes are not sufficiently in line with the Equal Protection Clause [Cornell LII backgrounder] to overcome states' sovereign immunity.

In 2007, the Russian parliament approved legislative amendments [JURIST report] to change the prevailing definition of extremist crime in Russian law to include activities taken for "political or ideological hatred." Since its approval, the Russian anti-extremism law has been used to ban allegedly offending materials in the country, including numerous websites. In July 2010, a Russian court made public a ruling banning access to five websites [JURIST report], including the video-sharing network Youtube [website], for what it called extremist elements. The decision came after a video entitled "Russia for Russians," also a Russian extremist slogan, was posted on YouTube. Other sites were blocked [Moscow Times report] for containing excerpts of Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf [Britannica backgrounder], which was banned by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office [official website, in Russian] in March 2010 after it was found in violation of laws against extremism.

This is one of four challenges to Wisconsin's voter ID law. The temporary injunction issued by Flanagan was in a suit filed in December by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) [advocacy website]. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Wisconsin and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty [advocacy websites] filed a federal lawsuit in December, as did the Advancement Project [JURIST reports] in February. There are now 31 US states [NCSL backgrounder] that require voters to present some form of ID at the polls, including 15 states that require photo ID, but the issue remains controversial.

Bouterse's trial has been ongoing since 2008. In April 2008, a military tribunal in Suriname ruled [JURIST report] that all suspects involved in a 1982 massacre must stand trial, including Bouterse. Bouterse's trial began [JURIST report] in July 2008 with former bodyguard Onno Flohr testifying that Bouterse was present at the killings of 15 political opponents, including lawyers, journalists, professors, military officers and businessmen, accused of plotting against the government and that he other members of the firing squad were ordered to fire under the threat of death. In 2009, the trial of the former dictator resumed [JURIST report] with testimony by a former prison warden that he brought a leader of a 1982 military coup to an army barracks for execution.

Our conclusion that the allegations do not amount to being "in connection with" transactions in covered securities is bolstered by the distinction between the present cases and the Madoff feeder fund cases. Therefore, we find that the fraudulent schemes ... are not more than tangentially related to the purchase or sale of covered securities and are therefore not sufficiently connected to such purchases or sales to trigger SLUSA preclusion.

Stanford's trial began in January after a judge ruled in December that he was mentally competent [JURIST report] to stand trial. His lawyers were unsuccessful in arguing that he suffered from retrograde amnesia and diminished mental capacity as a result of head injuries sustained during a 2009 assault while in prison. Last year Stanford filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] accusing federal agents of violating his constitutional rights. The suit named 12 defendants, including members of the FBI, the SEC and the Department of Justice. Stanford alleged that the defendants used "abusive law-enforcement methods" to pursue a frivolous civil suit [JURIST report] against him in order to gather evidence for his criminal prosecution. In June 2009 Stanford pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to 21 charges of fraud, conspiracy and obstruction.

Protests and demonstrations in Bahrain [BBC backgrounder] have been ongoing since February 2011 [JURIST report]. In November, in anticipation of the BICI report, the Bahraini government admitted the use of excessive force [JURIST report] against protesters. Following the the submission of BICI report, Al Khalifa swore that reforms would be made. In January Al Khalifa promised to amend the nation's constitution to allow the National Assembly [official profile] more oversight of ministers and cabinet members. Last month a Bahraini court overturned the death sentences for two protesters convicted of killing two police officers during the demonstrations that took place in the country last year. The original conviction was rendered by a special security court set up as part of last year's three-month state of emergency [JURIST report], implemented while the country's Sunni rulers attempted to silence a Shiite-led to effort bolster civil and political rights in the country.

One of the concerns advanced by the justices regarded the age limit upon which to base a ban against mandatory life sentences. In Miller, Justice Antonin Scalia asked, "What's the distinction between 14 and 15? ... How are we to know where to draw those lines?" Later, Miller's attorney said, "I would hold that children are categorically prohibited from being subjected to [life] sentences," to which Justice Alito questioned, "what's the definition of a child for that purpose?" Miller's attorney called for 18 to be the minimum age needed to impose a life sentence, and pointed out that most of the jurisdictions that have considered the issue in a legislative context have adopted an age 18 minimum for mandatory life sentences. He offered that those jurisdictions that permitted the imposition of mandatory life-sentences did so through a regime that transferred juveniles to the adult criminal justice system where they are exposed to mandatory life sentences, not because of the express will of the people or their legislators to impose mandatory life sentences on juvenile offenders. He indicated that roughly 80 percent of life sentences imposed on juveniles were a result of mandatory sentencing regimes. In Jackson the attorney argued that Jackson had no intent to kill, and thus, that lower level of culpability could be used as a line by which to bar juvenile mandatory life sentences.