New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced during his State of the State address on Wednesday plans for a medical marijuana pilot program which would permit up to 20 hospitals to distribute medical marijuana to patients with serious illnesses. Cuomo’s plan states that the pilot program “will allow qualified eligible participants to seek relief for their [...]

The office of Utah Governor Gary Herbert on Tuesday sent an e-mail to state Cabinet members, directing them to place legal recognition of same-sex marriages within the state on hold until further notice . This directive comes as a result of Monday’s decision by the US Supreme Court to temporarily block the issuance of same-sex [...]

Chaloka Beyani, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, on Wednesday urged the international community to assist the approximately one million individuals who have been internally displaced by the ongoing violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) , by providing necessary resources to them. Beyani noted that the number of displaced [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Angela Campbell of Dickey & Campbell Law Firm, P.L.C. discusses mandatory minimum sentences, causation, and strict liability in drug crimes…

A Croatian court on Wednesday approved the extradition of a communist-era intelligence chief who is wanted in Germany for the killing of a Yugoslav dissident in the 1980s. Former intelligence chief Josip Perkovic was arrested on January 1 as Croatia acted to comply with EU extradition law. Perkovic, who worked for the Yugoslav federal secret [...]

A French court on Wednesday convicted Cassandra Belin for wearing a burqa in violation of the controversial law banning women from wearing full-face veils in public, rejecting her bid to have the ban declared unconstitutional. Belin was sentenced to one month in prison for insulting and threatening three police officers at the time of her [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Wednesday that children of married couples in Italy must be allowed to carry their mother’s surname. The court found that restricting a child’s surname to that of its father violated Article 8 (right to respect for private and family) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the [...]

Attorneys representing Apple on Wednesday formally sought to disqualify court-appointed “external compliance monitor” Michael Bromwich, who was given the power to review and evaluate the tech company’s compliance with an injunction related to an e-book price fixing scandal. In September a judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York enjoined [...]

German prosecutors on Wednesday charged an 88-year old German man, referred to in court documents as “Werner C,” with involvement in a 1944 massacre that took place in Oradour-sur-Glane in central France. According to the prosecution, Warner C murdered 25 people and aided and abetted fellow Nazi SS troops in the murder of 642 people [...]

A judge for Germany’s Hagen State Court on Wednesday dropped the case against 92-year-old Siert Bruins , a former member of the Nazi Waffen SS. Prosecutors had accused Bruins of executing captured Dutch Nazi-opposition fighter Aldert Klaas Dijkema in September 1944 outside the town of Appingedam. Bruins and an accomplice, who has since died, are [...]