A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri ruled Friday that recent parole hearings violated the constitutional rights of inmates who are serving life without parole for juvenile offenses (JLWOP). The plaintiffs in this case are all people in Missouri prisons for homicide offenses committed when they were less than 18 [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the UK Monday to amend a new counter-terrorism bill, stating that the bill “excessively restrict freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and privacy.” The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill makes it illegal for someone to express support for a terrorist organization if it “reckless” encourages others to support the [...]
French prosecutors have reportedly recommended dismissal of the charges against a group of current and former Rwandan officials suspected of involvement in the assassination of former Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana. Habyarimana, a member of the Hutu ethnic majority, died in April 1994 when the plane in which he was traveling was shot down near the [...]
Earlier this month, Congress sent a sweeping legislative package aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic to President Trump’s desk for signature, and the President has said he intends to sign it. Despite the increasing rancor that has poisoned so much our political discourse, the Substance Use Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) [...]
Several civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit Thursday against Georgia Secretary of State and Republican nominee for governor Brian Kemp to stop enforcement of HB268, an election law that has placed a hold on over 50,000 registered voters. HB268 has a provision that places pending status on any voter that has voter registration information that does not [...]
The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday voted 5-2 to uphold Act 633 of 2017, a voter identification law that requires Arkansas voters to provide ID “that shows the person’s name and photograph” and “is issued by the federal or state government or an accredited postsecondary educational institution in Arkansas.” In 2014 the Arkansas Supreme Court struck [...]
Poland’s Supreme Court announced Thursday that the court had added 27 new judges in a secret ceremony which took place on Wednesday afternoon. This move comes after Poland lowered the retirement age of its Supreme Court justices from 70 to 65 in September, forcing 27 judges of the 72-judge court into retirement. President Andrezj Duda [...]
A federal jury in Madison, Wisconsin, on Thursday awarded two transgender state employees $780,500 in damages after a district court found that a ban on insurance coverage for gender-changing surgery amounts to sexual discrimination. In March 2017 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a complaint on behalf of Alina Boyden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison [...]
Liew Vui Keong, chief minister in the Malaysian Prime Minister’s office, announced Wednesday that Malaysia would abolish the death penalty by the next sitting of Parliament. The move comes after several humanitarian groups, including Amnesty International, called for the death penalty’s abolition as a result of the execution of several minor offenders, including Westerners. Upon [...]
The Washington state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state’s death penalty laws are unconstitutional. The opinion comes out of the case of Allen Eugene Gregory, who had previously been convicted of aggravated first degree murder and sentenced to death. Gregory appealed this conviction, and his case was remanded for resentencing. Another jury then sentenced [...]
