The Trump administration executed Corey Johnson by lethal injection on Thursday. Johnson was convicted for a series of seven murders committed in 1992 and became the twelfth federal inmate put to death since July. The execution followed two separate appeals by Johnson’s attorneys for a stay of execution. In the first appeal they argued that Johnson [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski to determine whether a plaintiff may recover nominal damages for an unconstitutional government policy when the government has changed the policy since the plaintiff originally filed the suit. In 2016 Chike Uzuegbunam, a student at Georgia Gwinnett College and an evangelical Christian, had [...]
In response to Wednesday’s attack on the US Capitol by pro-Trump rioters the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement Thursday condemning the “deliberate distortion of facts” by American politicians, especially concerning the presidential election and allegations of voter fraud. The statement also voiced support for a “thorough investigation” into [...]
The outgoing chief justice of Hong Kong’s highest court addressed criticisms of the city’s judicial system and stressed the importance of the rule of law in a final press conference on Tuesday. Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma, who will retire Sunday, discussed both the role of the judiciary and his own hopes for the future of [...]
The Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe on Monday ruled that the country’s national pledge was an unconstitutional violation of school children’s right to freedom of conscience and parental rights. The court’s decision comes four years after Mathew Sogolani applied to the court on the basis of the national pledge’s unconstitutionality. The father of three argued that [...]
The Danish parliament passed legislation Thursday that will strengthen the nation’s rape laws by criminalizing all sexual acts without consent. Denmark will become the twelfth European country to legally adopt this definition of rape when the law takes effect on 1 January, joining Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, and others. Under the old Danish law, sex [...]
Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Monday that it had detained four soldiers accused of war crimes against Armenians in the recent Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. The Prosecutor General’s Office denounced the actions of the soldiers, calling them “unacceptable” and contradictory to “the mentality of the Azerbaijani people.” The Prosecutor General’s report was careful to exonerate Azerbaijani officials, [...]
A federal judge has concluded that California’s ban on vanity license plates considered “offensive to good taste and decency” violated the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. California law requires that the state DMV approves vanity license plates before issuing them. The approval process allowed the DMV to deny vanity plates that might “carry connotations offensive [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Friday denied a motion to separate Pennsylvania mail-in ballots received after 8 PM on Election Day. The decision affirmed a ruling from the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania and the validity of more than 9,300 mail-in ballots. The court based its decision [...]
