Search Results for: Fair Sentencing Act

The US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that an 1890 state constitutional provision permanently preventing people convicted of certain felonies from voting, Section 241, is unconstitutional. Judge James Dennis writing for the majority, discussed the racial history of the Mississippi Constitution that was ratified in 1890, writing, “From the outset, the object of [...]

Amnesty International called on Friday for the government of Bangladesh to indefinitely halt executions and to begin discussions about abolishing the death sentence. The organization stated that the government should evaluate the cases of individuals sentenced to death and commute their sentences. Alternatively, it was suggested that the government should provide a fair retrial without [...]

Law students and law graduates in Pakistan are reporting for JURIST on events in that country impacting its legal system. Hussain Abbas is an LLB student in the University of London External Programme. He files this from Islamabad. Since the first promulgation of Pakistan’s constitution back in 1971 the country still wanders, bewildered by the [...]

The US Department of State released a new travel advisory Friday for US citizens traveling to mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau suggesting travelers “reconsider travel” to the areas due to “arbitrary enforcement of local laws…and the risk of wrongful detentions.” The advisory for mainland China states: U.S. citizens traveling or residing in the PRC [...]

Following global practice — including that of the U.S. military justice system — the Pakistan Army Act builds on maintaining good order and discipline among service members, as no military can effectively function without strict discipline. The court-martial, that is, trial by military officers of breaches of service-connected discipline, including crimes, sits at the heart [...]

The Iranian Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the death sentence of German-Iranian dissident Jamshid Sharmahd. Supreme Court spokesman Masoud Satayshi announced the decision at a press conference, adding that “enforcement actions will be taken subsequently.” Sharmahd was sentenced to death in February for afsad-i fil arz, or “corruption on earth,” which is a broad category of [...]

Following a three-week trial, a French court on Friday convicted Hassian Diab, a sociology professor from the University of Ottawa Canada, to life imprisonment in absentia for the October 3, 1980 Copernic synagogue bombing in Paris, which resulted in four deaths and 46 injuries. Diab is a dual national of Canada and Lebanon. Following  the announcement [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Thursday released its 2023 World Report on the state of human rights. The report made clear that a rising tide of authoritarianism is a major threat to global human rights and that “unchecked authoritarian power leaves behind a sea of human suffering.” Authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jing [...]

The Supreme Court of Illinois Saturday put a hold on the controversial Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act, finding that the pretrial release provisions under the act violated the Illinois Constitution. The SAFE-T Act is a criminal justice reform law impacting many aspects of the criminal justice system such as policing, pretrial, sentencing and [...]

Law students and law graduates in Pakistan are reporting for JURIST on events in that country impacting its legal system. Rabia Shuja holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law from Griffith College, Dublin and is Chief Correspondent for JURIST in Pakistan. She reports from Islamabad. In March of 2013, masked gunmen fatally shot renowned Pakistani [...]