JURIST Guest Columnist Brice Biggins, George Mason University School of Law Class of 2014, discusses the rarity of treason charges in the US and argues that Edward Snowden should be charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917…
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The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday urged Nigerian authorities to arrest and surrender Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide allegedly committed in the Darfur conflict. Al-Bashir is currently in Nigeria participating in the Special Summit of the African Union on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Nigeria is a state [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar , Tomas Ojea Quintana, on Tuesday commended the Myanmar government for disbanding the Nasaka , a border patrol force that had been operating in Rakhine state . The Nasaka have been accused of numerous humans rights violations against the local Rohingya population, including extrajudicial [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Monday denied a new trial for former chief executive officer of HealthSouth Richard Scrushy . The decision upheld Scrushy’s 2006 conviction of exchanging $500,000 with former Alabama governor Don Siegelman for a seat on Alabama’s Certificate of Need Review Board . Scrushy was appealing a [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of New Hampshire sentenced Beatrice Munyenyezi to 10 years in prison for her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Judge Steven McAuliffe imposed the maximum sentence for her crimes. Munyenyezi was convicted in February of having gained her US citizenship by hiding her identity and [...]
Three same-sex couples on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging Arkansas’ same-sex marriage ban. The plaintiffs argue that Amendment 83 to the Arkansas Constitution , which reads, “Marriage consists only of the union of one man and one woman,” violates their rights to equal protection and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. [...]
A state judge in North Dakota ruled Monday that a 2011 North Dakota law that restricts drug-induced abortions is unconstitutional. Judge Wickham Corwin of the Cass County District Court had announced his intention to strike down the law following a three-day trial in April, and he issued his 58-page ruling on Monday. Corwin found that [...]
The Supreme Court of California on Tuesday rejected a request from Proposition 8 supporters to halt same-sex marriages. Last week attorneys representing Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Protect Marriage filed a petition emphasizing that the US Supreme Court’s decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry did not directly address the constitutionality of Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage [...]
Lawyers for former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit just before a midnight deadline on Monday, challenging Blagojevich’s conviction and sentencing. Blagojevich was found guilty on 18 charges of corruption in his second trial and ultimately sentenced to a 14-year prison term . He [...]
The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) on Monday granted a motion by Yahoo to declassify a 2008 FISC judgment that required the company to comply with government requests for user information under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) . The FISC also mandated that actual Yahoo metadata collected by the National Security Agency (NSA) [...]
