Muhammad v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Supreme Court, Justice Lemons, April 22, 2005 . Excerpt:If society's ultimate penalty should be reserved for the most heinous offenses, accompanied by proof of vileness...

Human Rights Watch issued a report Saturday calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the roles of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA director George Tenet in connection with US mistreatment and torture of...

Connecticut Superior Court judge Patrick J. Clifford ruled Friday that convicted serial killer Michael Ross is mentally competent to waive his death penalty appeals. Ross, who was convicted of raping and killing eight woman...

Ousted Ecuador president Lucio Gutierrez said Friday that his removal from office Wednesday by the Ecuadorian Congress violated the country's constitution and that, contrary to its contention, he never abandoned his post....

US Department of Health and Human Services head Mike Leavitt announced Friday that the agency will actively enforce the little-used Born-Alive Infant Protection Act . President Bush signed the bill into law in 2002 requiring health...

In an effort to implement a peace deal between Khartoum and southern rebels that formally ended a 21-year civil war, Sudan has formed a committee to draft an interim constitution. The constitution would clear the...

US government officials disclosed Friday that a German citizen originally detained as a terror suspect was released in May of 2004, on direct orders from then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice after he had spent five months in...

Following the recommendation of a 10-member investigative team whose findings clearing four other top officers were preliminarily disclosed Friday , the US Army has relieved Brigadier General Jani Karpinski of her command for dereliction of duty...

District of Columbia v. Beretta, U.S.A., Corp., et al.; Lawson, et al. v. Beretta, U.S.A., Corp., et al., District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Associate Judge Farrell, April 21, 2005 [allowing individuals, but not the government, to sue gun manufacturers...

A new Army investigative report has cleared four top US military officers - including former Iraq commander Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez - of wrongdoing in the Iraq prison abuse scandal, according to officials speaking Friday. The as-yet-unreleased report conducted...