Tuesday's brief adds to the three that were filed [JURIST report] last week, including one filed by the Obama administration arguing that DOMA is unconstitutional and one filed by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (DOMA) defending the law's constitutionality. After the Obama administration announced [JURIST report] in 2011 that it would no longer defend DOMA's constitutionality in court, Republicans in the US House of Representatives formed [JURIST report] the BLAG to take up the mantle of defending the law. DOMA was struck down [JURIST report] by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official websites], prompting the petition [text, PDF] to the US Supreme Court. This term, the US Supreme Court will also be ruling on the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 [JURIST news archive], which banned same-sex marriage [JURIST backgrounder] throughout the state.

Tuesday's decision by The Hague District Court affirms a decision made by the Rotterdam District Court in October 2011 approving the extradition. A federal indictment [AP report] against Khan was issued by US Attorney Loretta Lynch of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York [official website] in June 2011, shortly after he was originally extradited from Pakistan to the Netherlands. In addition to the alleged plotting of the suicide attack in Afghanistan, Khan was arrested in Pakistan for possessing "destructive material and for allegedly aiding al Qaeda between 2004 and 2010.

Earlier this month Gbagbo appeared before [JURIST report] the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] to determine whether the case against him, including charges of numerous crimes against humanity, will proceed to trial. In December the ICC Appeals Chamber [official website] dismissed a challenge by Gbagbo [JURIST report] alleging that the court lacks jurisdiction over him. A month earlier the ICC had unsealed an indictment [JURIST report] for Gbagbo's wife, Simone, marking the first time that the court has brought charges against a female. That same month Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] released a report stating that Ivory Coast's military committed widespread human rights abuses [JURIST report] in August and September. The ICC in October also denied Gbagbo's motion asking the court for allowance to leave the Netherlands while he recovered from alleged maltreatment received while detained by national authorities in the Ivory Coast before being surrendered to the ICC almost a year earlier [JURIST reports].

Sixteen Hungarian churches called for the law to be repealed [JURIST report] in August 2011. Freedom House [advocacy website] sent a letter [text] to the Human Rights Commissioners of the European Commission and the Council of Europe [official websites] asking the international authorities to initiate action against Hungary, claiming the law violates Article 10 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights [texts]. Freedom House also said the law is inconsistent with Hungary's constitution [press release] and condemned Hungary for passing the law.

In January the Honduran National Congress [official website, in Spanish] approved controversial amendments to the police law [JURIST report] designed to eliminate corruption. Approval came after the congress voted to dismiss four justices [JURIST report] of the country's Supreme Court [official websites, in Spanish] a week earlier, after the justices ruled that the police reform bill supported by President Porfirio Lobo [NYT profile] was unconstitutional. Tension between the three branches of government in Honduras has risen recently, and Lobo has expressed concern that he may be forced out of office like his predecessor, who was removed during the 2009 military coup [JURIST report]. In June 2011 the Honduran Truth and Reconciliation Commission declared that the coup was unconstitutional [JURIST report] but stated that former president Manuel Zelaya was culpable when he ignored orders of the Supreme Court. Zelaya signed an agreement [JURIST report] in May 2011 allowing his return to the country after nearly two years in exile.

The human rights violations that plagued Sri Lanka during its nearly three-decade-long civil war have reportedly continued since the war's end in 2009. Almost a year ago, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] reported unlawful detentions [JURIST report], torture and extrajudicial executions, often under laws designed to combat terrorism. Months earlier, AI accused [JURIST report] Sri Lankan leadership of failing to investigate the issues of torture and impunity for past human rights violations in the country. Citing the Asian Human Rights Commission [advocacy website], AI reported approximately 323 cases of torture by the Sri Lankan police force from 1998 to 2011. These reports came on the heels of a five-year government initiative [JURIST report] known as the National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, which took effect immediately after its adoption in October 2011.

The Cooper-Harris lawsuit was brought [JURIST report] in February of last year. A similar suit was appealed [JURIST report] to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims [official website] in October 2011 year by a disabled Navy veteran contesting the VA's refusal to allow her same-sex partner to collect a portion of her disability benefits. The veteran, Carmen Cardona, filed the suit after her claim for veterans' spousal benefits was denied under DOMA on the basis that she was in a same-sex marriage. The outcome of these cases is uncertain after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced in February of last year that it would no longer defend the constitutionality [JURIST report] of DOMA in court cases challenging the provision. A challenge to DOMA is currently pending [JURIST report] before the US Supreme Court [official website].

In Kansas v. Cheever [cert. petition, PDF; docket] the court will consider whether it violates the Fifth Amendment [text] right against self-incrimination if a defendant offers expert testimony to show he/she lacked a requisite mental state at the time of the crime due to drug use and the prosecution offers the court-ordered mental evaluation of the defendant to rebut the testimony.

The court also denied Calhoun v. United States [cert. petition, PDF; docket], with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer releasing a comment [text, PDF] with respect to the denial of certiorari. The case concerned the constitutionality of racially-tinged remarks by the prosecution at the trial level, including the prosecutor asking Bongani Calhoun, "You've got African-Americans, you've got Hispanics, you've got a bag full of money. Does that tell you—a light bulb doesn't go off in your head and say, This is a drug deal?" Further, in his rebuttal to the defense's closing, the prosecutor argued: "Okay, you got African-American[s] and Hispanics, do you think it's a drug deal? But there's one element that's missing. The money. So what are they doing in this room with a bag full of money? What does your common sense tell you that these people are doing in a hotel room with a bag full of money, cash? None of these people are Bill Gates or computer [magnates]? None of them are real estate investors." Sotomayor wrote separately condemning the remarks:

By suggesting that race should play a role in establishing a defendant's criminal intent, the prosecutor here tapped a deep and sorry vein of racial prejudice that has run through the history of criminal justice in our Nation. There was a time when appeals to race were not uncommon, when a prosecutor might direct a jury to "consider the fact that Mary Sue Rowe is a young white woman and that this defendant is a black man for the purpose of determining his intent at the time he entered Mrs. Rowe's home," ... or assure a jury that "I am well enough acquainted with this class of niggers to know that they have got it in for the [white] race in their heart," ... The prosecutor's comment here was surely less extreme. But it too was pernicious in its attempt to substitute racial stereotype for evidence, and racial prejudice for reason.

First, with respect to the timing issue, the Court had applied the miscarriage-of-justice exception to abusive petitions, so there is a timing concern invoked there because you're filing a second petition when you could have raised issues earlier, and the Court has said even in that timing context, not a statute of limitations, but it certainly invokes timing concerns, that even in that instance the miscarriage of justice would still overcome the rule.

The court also heard arguments in Trevino v. Thaler [transcript, PDF] on a defense lawyer not putting forward mitigating factors in defense of his client analyzed under last term's decision in Martinez v. Ryan [JURIST report]. In particular, the court considered if a plaintiff can bring up ineffective counsel at the appellate level, although the plaintiff might not have brought it up before due to the alleged ineffective counsel. The attorney for Carlos Trevino argued that the time limits imposed on the new attorney in a habeas claim in Texas make the claims impracticable:

But the bottom line in our situation in Texas is that we have a scheme. We have a set of laws and rules that channel these type of claims. ... [T]he Rules of Appellate Procedure 21.8 talk about the limitations of—the number of days that you have to expand the record in a motion for new trial. 75 days, the district court loses jurisdiction, they cannot hear anything else on this case. The record in this case wasn't even available for 7 months after the date of the trial.
So even with a new attorney that's appointed—first of all, that new attorney is a stranger to the case. He doesn't know anything about the case. He's not in a position to talk to the client. The client is not the best person to understand the Rules of Appellate Procedure. So he's got to wait on that trial record, first of all, to see what's there.