Doe v. Ashcroft [Patriot Act ruling]

Doe v. Ashcroft [Patriot Act ruling]

September 29, 2004 08:56:00 pm

Bernard Hibbitts

Judge Victor Marrero, United States Distrcit Court, Southern District of New York, September 29, 2004 [ruling that the section of the USA Patriot Act allowing authorities to demand financial records from companies in terrorism investigations is unconstitutional]. Read the opinion here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Maurice Papon convicted of war crimes

On April 2, 1998, Maurice Papon was convicted of war crimes for his role in deporting French Jews to concentration camps during the Nazi occupation of France. Under German occupation, Papon served as the supervisor of the Service for Jewish Questions in Bordeaux from which he collaborated with the Nazi S.S. and oversaw the deportation of 1,560 Jewish men, women, and children to concentration camps.

Read an biography of Maurice Papon from the BBC.

Massachusetts enacted Vietnam antiwar bill

On April 2, 1970, the Governor of Massachusetts signed into law an anti-Vietnam War bill providing that no inhabitant of Massachusetts inducted into or serving in the armed forces "shall be required to serve" abroad in an armed hostility that had not been declared a war by Congress under Article I, Section 8, clause 11 of the United States Constitution.

Supporters of the legislation hoped that the US Supreme Court would seize on the obvious conflict that the bill created between state and federal law and would rule on the constitutionality of the Vietnam War itself, but the Court refused to exercise original jurisdiction, forcing the case into the lower federal courts. See Anthony D'Amato, Massachusetts In The Federal Courts: The Constitutionality Of The Vietnam War [PDF], 4 Journal of Law Reform (1970).

More This Day @ Law... ▸