The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday in Millbrook v. US that the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and exceptions to it, waive the immunity of prison guards who commit intentional torts that are within the scope of their authority. The text of 28 USC § 2680 lists exceptions for which the FTCA will not [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Serge Diaz, University of Edinburgh School of Law Class of 2015, discusses the effects of a recent ruling by the UK Court of Appeal on UK criminal record disclosures laws… On January 29, 2013, the UK Court of Appeal handed down a disappointing judgment for the UK government in the case of [...]

Bahrain lawyer Jassim Sarhan confirmed Tuesday that 13 pro-democracy activists were sentenced to 10 years in jail. The sentences arise from attacks by the activists on police officers during recent protests. The activists are among dozens convicted of playing a role in the uprising. This sentence comes in the middle of a hunger strike commenced [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in Comcast v. Behrend that judges can reach the merits of an underlying claim in determining whether to certify a class under Rule 23(b) . In doing so, the court reversed the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which refused to decide the plaintiffs’ class status based [...]

Judges for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Wednesday sentenced two former Bosnian Serb police officers each to 22 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war that spanned from 1992-95. Former interior minister, Mico Stanisic, and Stojan Zupljanin , his subordinate, faced charges of persecution, [...]

Displaced people in Somalia face the risk of physical abuse and rape, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released Wednesday. HRW noted that the threat of beatings and rape from internal security forces was significant and called for the practices to end. According to HRW, “Instead of finding a safe haven from fighting [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in United States v. Windsor , the second of two cases the court heard this week on same-sex marriage . In Wednesday’s argument, the court considered the validity of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) , a federal law that recognizes only opposite-sex marriages [...]

Apple on Tuesday requested that the US District Court for the Northern District of California grant a new trial on damages in its ongoing patent infringement dispute against Samsung Electronics . Judge Lucy Koh earlier this month reduced the jury’s damages award by $450 million because she found that the jury calculated damages for 14 [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of a Florida city commission’s pre-meeting prayers, in turn rejecting an atheist group’s argument that such a public forum practice illegally promoted Christianity. Although the group, Atheists of Florida, Inc. (AOF) , argued that opening the meetings of the Lakeland City [...]

Son of ousted Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Maxim Bakiyev, was sentenced to 25 years on Wednesday by a Kyrgyz court. He was convicted of entering into several energy agreements that cost Kyrgyzstan hundreds of millions of dollars and found guilty of illegally privatizing public land surrounding a resort. Maxim Bakiyev is currently being held in [...]