A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday sentenced a pair of Somali men to life in prison for their involvement in the hijacking of a yacht that resulted in the deaths of four American citizens. This followed another pair of pirates’ sentencing the day before, with a [...]
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The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in three cases on Tuesday. In Maples v. Thomas , the court considered a death penalty appeal where Cory Maples missed his ability to appeal his sentence due to a clerk’s error. An Alabama trial court had dismissed Maples’ petition for post-conviction relief and sent notice of this [...]
JURIST Guest Columnists Micah Berman of New England Law | Boston, Kathleen Dachille of the University of Maryland School of Law, and Julie Ralston Aoki of William Mitchell College of Law say that the opinion in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., while troubling, will have minimal impact on well-drafted public health legislation…
Jury selection began on Tuesday for terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , the Nigerian accused of attempting to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear on Christmas Day, 2009. Abdulmutallab will stand trial for eight felony charges and may face life in prison if he is [...]
Several new US state election laws that become effective in 2012 may make it harder for some qualified voters to cast their ballots, according to a report released Monday by the Brennan Center for Justice . The report indicates that as many as five million voters may be affected by the changes and may find [...]
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday called on authorities to end the hate speech and discrimination against the Roma migrants in Bulgaria. The UN human rights office expressed deep concern over the violence and discrimination accompanying the anti-Roma demonstrations. The demonstrations began when a Bulgarian youth was run [...]
Retired Vice Admiral Bruce MacDonald on Monday notified both prosecution and defense lawyers in the trial of five detainees held at Guantanamo Bay that he will be accepting recommendations until early 2012 on whether the trial should move forward as a death penalty case. MacDonald, who was appointed to oversee the military commissions at Guantanamo [...]
A Bahrain civilian-military court on Tuesday sentenced 26 more protesters to prison terms ranging from 5-15 years, bringing the total number of protesters sentenced in the past 48 hours to 60. Those who were sentenced on Tuesday include prominent members of the Shiite political group who were among hundreds of protesters seeking greater rights for [...]
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak initiated the repeal of Malaysia’s strict security laws in Parliament on Monday. In an effort to protect civil liberties while maintaining a balance of public peace , Razak is expected to repeal the Internal Security Act of 1960 (ISA) , which allowed the prime minister to order the imprisonment of [...]
US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Judge Mark Davis on Monday ruled that two Somali pirates who killed four Americans will spend their lives in prison. Mahdi Jama Mohamed and Muhidin Salad Omar, the two convicted men, apologized to the victims’ families—who did not attend the sentencing—before being taken away. In August, [...]
