The filing of the NCAA lawsuit is merely the latest in the ongoing dispute between Corbett and the NCAA over the sanctions imposed on PSU. Last month Corbett filed a lawsuit [NY Times report] against the NCAA in federal court on behalf of the people of Pennsylvania for the "overreaching and unlawful" sanctions imposed on PSU. The NCAA filed a motion to dismiss [Patriot News report] Governor Corbett's lawsuit on the grounds that he lacks standing to challenge the sanctions, which PSU voluntarily accepted.

In December 2009 the US Supreme Court [official website] dismissed a challenge [JURIST report] to the sale of Chrysler [corporate website] to Fiat. The decision came one day after the Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that the transaction between Chrsler and Fiat could proceed. The sale was challenged [JURIST report] by consumer groups and three Indiana pension construction funds, among others, on the grounds that the use of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) [materials] funds to finance the bankruptcy was unconstitutional.

The Southern Movement and its followers have a right to protest peacefully, and the Yemeni authorities must allow them this right ... That means that security forces deployed to police these demonstrations must refrain from using excessive, lethal force against peaceful protesters, something they have failed to do in the recent past.

Yemen has received criticism from the international community and human rights groups for its flawed investigations of deaths that occurred during the nations yearlong pro-democracy protests. In June 2011 the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] announced plans [JURIST report] to send a panel to investigate the human rights situation in Yemen [OHCHR backgrounder]. Amid fervent protests in April 2011, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down from power [JURIST report], ending his 32-year reign as the nation's leader, in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Earlier that month AI released a report urging the international community [JURIST report] to pressure Yemeni authorities to investigate the deaths of protesters. Earlier in 2011 L. Ali Khan, Professor of Law at Washburn University wrote that the people's revolutions of Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt are in response to sham democracies [JURIST op-ed] and their peoples' desire to enforce their rights and liberties. Also that year Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, Vice President of Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies [advocacy website] noted that for all his problems, Saleh had kept Yemen stable [JURIST op-ed] by placating its influential tribal patriarchs and paying them patronage.

The Court also heard arguments in PPL Corporation v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue [transcript, PDF; JURIST report] on how to analyze foreign taxes. PPL Corporation is attempting to qualify for a foreign tax credit for paying a "windfall tax" in the United Kingdom, where they own a 25 percent stake in a utilities company. It's attorney, Paul Clement, argued for a traditional, formalistic approach to evaluate the windfall tax, which the he argued imposed double taxation on PPL as the windfall tax was evaluated as a tax on "value" rather than a tax on profits, although it determined value solely by surveying profits.

But again, that is classic excess profits tax. So let me try to come at it this way, which is to say, suppose you had a country that had a tax that said, we are going to tax your value and we are going to measure your value based on the income you made in the last year or the last 2 years.
Now, I would say that that is clearly a creditable income tax. If they said the same thing—we are going to tax your value and we are going to calculate your value based on your income over the last 2 years, but we are going to subtract 10 percent of your market cap—that would be an excess profits tax.
The market cap would be different for every company, so there would be another thing that was different for each company, and the effective rate might be different but that's okay because that's how an excessive profits tax works.

Tuesday's amicus brief is the most recent development in the challenge of the Green family in its fight against the PPACA. Last December the US Supreme Court [official website] said it would not intervene [JURIST report] in issuing an injunction while an appeal was still pending with the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit [official website], the Greens have said they will not comply [JURIST report] with the mandate even without a protective injunction. Justice Sonya Sotomayor ruled that the Oklahoma City family's religiously oriented business did not meet the requirements to allow an injunction against the PPACA's mandate. The opinion stated that the Hobby Lobby family did not meet the standard of showing that they have an "indisputably clear" legal right to an injunction while appeal is pending. The organizations are appealing an order by the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma that ruled [opinion, PDF] that despite the family's religious values, the businesses do not qualify for an injunction. "However, Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious organizations. Plaintiffs have not cited, and the court has not found, any case concluding that secular, for-profit corporations such as Hobby Lobby and Mardel have a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion."

The United States has recently dealt with its own legal issues regarding facial hair. In April 2011, a judge in Virginia ruled that the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) [official website] did not violate the rights of a Muslim inmate when corrections officials barred him from growing a beard [JURIST report]. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] previously upheld [opinion, PDF] VDOC's grooming policy prohibiting the growing of beards and stressed that "due deference" should be given to the judgments of prison officials. In March 2011, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] sued [JURIST report] the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation [official website] for ordering a Sikh inmate to trim his beard in violation of his religious beliefs.

Environment issues have been viewed to be closely interconnected with human rights issues. Earlier this week UN Independent Expert on human rights and the environment John Knox [official profile] stated that international governments must acknowledge and account for human rights when formulating environmental regulations [JURIST report]. In January more than 140 nations gathered at a UN forum agreed [JURIST report] to a legally binding treaty addressing the use of mercury, a metal that is infamous for its detrimental effects on health and the environment. In June the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] and UNEP issued a joint report [JURIST report] highlighting the need for the implementation of integrative human rights and environmental protection laws and policies to achieve sustainable development. The report stated that the "protection of the environment and the promotion of human rights are increasingly seen as intertwined" and that individuals from poor countries are more vulnerable to diseases and other basic need insecurities as a direct result of the ecosystem.

Lockheed has faced limited legal scrutiny within the last ten years. In 2005, sixteen firms including Lockheed agreed to pay a $14.9 million [JURIST report] for polluting groundwater in California. There, the settlement was used to reimburse federal and state agencies for investigating and cleaning up a plume of polluted groundwater discovered under Baldwin Park [official website] in 1979. In an espionage case a year earlier, Boeing Corp. [official website] counter-claimed against Lockheed [JURIST report] for making false and misleading statements to the government that went on to hurt Boeing financially.

Israel's administrative detention and the resulting hunger strikes have been criticized by the international community. Last week UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] expressed concern [JURIST report] over reports that three Palestinians being held in Israeli custody are in poor health. She also noted that "[p]ersons detained must be charged and face trial with judicial guarantees in accordance with international standards, or be promptly released." In June UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk called on Israel to release two Palestinian detainees [JURIST report] who have been on hunger strike for 82 and 58 days to protest their administrative detention. Earlier in that month Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] urged Israel to release all prisoners [JURIST report] of conscience and administrative detainees or immediately try them under international fair trial standards. In May UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to try or release more than 1,000 prisoners [JURIST report] who had been on hunger strike. Earlier that same month the Israeli Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] against two detainees who had been on hunger strike in their appeal seeking release from detention.

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit granted the say hours after the US Supreme Court [official website] denied [JURIST report] his petition for certiorari. Hill's appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court [official website] was denied early this month. In July the Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously granted a stay of execution [JURIST report] 90 minutes before Hill was scheduled to be executed, in order to consider the state's new single-dose lethal injection protocol. In a separate order the court also denied Hill's request to hear his appeal of a Butts County Superior Court ruling, which held that Hill had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt [JURIST report] that he is mentally disabled, and that the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard itself is constitutional. The US Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia [opinion; Cornell LII backgrounder] that the execution of mentally retarded individuals is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment [text].

Egypt has been plagued by continuing protests and violence since the beginning of its revolution. Earlier this month the Supreme Constitutional Court postponed ruling [JURIST report] on whether the legislative constitutional assembly that recently drafted a new charter was legitimate. The judges claimed a crowd of protestors outside the courthouse had intimidated the judges and blocked the entrance. Last month UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] voiced concern [JURIST report] over the growing violence and rising death toll in Egypt stemming from ongoing protests throughout the country. Also in January Morsi declared a state of emergency in an attempt to quell growing unrest and violent political protests in cities a day after nationwide unrest compounded following an Egyptian court ruling handing down 21 death sentences [JURIST reports] for a 2012 soccer riot that resulted in 74 deaths and thousands of injuries.

Nigerian citizens are still confronted with threats of violence over a decade after the military raid of Odi. In November 2012 the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) [official website] of the International Criminal Court (ICC) [JURIST backgrounder] accused a group of Islamist radicals [JURIST report] of committing crimes against humanity in Nigeria. Boko Haram, which means "Western education is a sin," has publicly claimed responsibility for several attacks, including church bombings [AFP report] on December 25 that killed approximately 40 people in 2011. In January UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] urged Nigerian leaders from all sectors of society to make a concerted effort to stop the sectarian violence [JURIST report]. Additionally, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] has previously expressed concern [JURIST report] over acts of ethnic violence by Boko Haram. Specifically the OHCHR described the group's bombing of a UN building in Nigeria [VOA report] in August 2011 as "cowardly." At least 18 people were killed in the attack.

Although Richter itself concerned a state-court order that did not address any of the defendant's claims, we see no reason why the Richter presumption should not also apply when a state-court opinion addresses some but not all of a plaintiff's claims. There would be a reason for drawing a distinction between these two situations if opinions issued by state appellate courts always separately addressed every single claim that is mentioned in a defendant's papers. If there were such a uniform practice, then federal habeas courts could assume that any unaddressed federal claim was simply overlooked.

Justice Antonin Scalia concurred in the judgment but not the reasoning, suggesting the Court does not need to engage in analysis over whether a lower court "overlooked" a claim a plaintiff raised. "Only after conducting its own detective work does the Court conclude that the federal claim was not overlooked in this case. This complex exercise is unnecessary. A judgment that denies relief necessarily denies—and thus adjudicates—all the claims a petitioner has raised."

Concern over Myanmar's human rights record has been growing recently, as the country has attempted to normalize relationships with the US. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) [official website] reported last month that more than 2,000 people have fled the growing violence [JURIST report] in the northern Myanmar state of Rakhine and Bangladesh, leaving aboard boats operated by smugglers in the Bay of Bengal. In October Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] called for an end to the sectarian violence in Myanmar [JURIST report] between the Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, calling on the government to do more to end the violence and protect the rights of the Rohingya, whose civil rights were effectively taken away with their citizenship in 1982. In August Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) [advocacy website] reported that Myanmar's army is still committing human rights abuses [JURIST report] against ethnic minorities in Karen state. Earlier that month HRW accused [JURIST report] Myanmar security forces of human rights abuses against a minority religious community. In July UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also expressed concern [JURIST report] about both the continued violence in Myanmar and the country's human rights abuses committed in dealing with it.

Imagine three virtually identical defendants, each from a different circuit, each sentenced in January to identical long prison terms, and each given those long sentences for the same reason, namely to obtain rehabilitative treatment. Imagine that none of them raises an objection. In June, the Supreme Court holds this form of sentencing unlawful. And, in December, each of the three different circuits considers the claim that the trial judge's January imposed prison term constituted a legal error. Imagine further that in the first circuit the law in January made the trial court's decision clearly lawful as of the time when the judge made it; in the second circuit, the law in January made the trial court's decision clearly unlawful as of the time when the judge made it; and in the third circuit, the law in January was unsettled.

To apply Rule 52(b)'s words "plain error" as of the time of appellate review would treat all three defendants alike. It would permit all three to go on to argue to the appellate court that the trial court error affected their "substantial rights" and "seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings." To interpret "plain error" differently, however, would treat these three virtually identical defendants differently, allowing only the first two defendants, but not the third defendant, potentially to qualify for Rule 52(b) relief.

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito, dissented from the holding. "Since a plain-error doctrine of this sort cannot possibly induce counsel to make contemporaneous objection, it seemingly has no purpose whatever except to create the above described anomaly. No, that is not quite true. It does serve the purpose of enabling today's opinion to say that the plain-error rule has been 'preserved,' and has not been entirely converted to a simple-error rule. Of course a simple-error rule—all trial-court mistakes affecting substantial rights can be corrected on appeal—would better serve the Court's mistaken understanding that the only purpose of Rule 52(b) is fairness combined with its erroneous perception that all defendants who fail to make a timely objection to misapplication of the law stand in the same boat. But a simple-error rule would be contrary to the clear text of Rule 52(b), which tempers Rule 51(b) with 'fairness' only when the error is plain. The Court must find some application for the plainness requirement, even if it be one that is utterly pointless. It has done so."