The Malaysian High Court ruled Thursday that non-Muslims can use the word "Allah" as a translation for the word "God", overturning a three-year government ban on the practice. The case was brought by the Herald, a weekly Catholic publication, against the Malaysian government in response to the ban. The newspaper argued that other options such [...]
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A sharply divided Montana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that physician assisted suicide is not banned by state law, making Montana the third state to allow the practice after Oregon and Washington. The Court upheld in part and reversed in part a lower court ruling, agreeing with its finding that physician assisted suicide is not illegal [...]
Judge Richardo M. Urbina of the US District Court for the District of Columbia Thursday dismissed voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges against the five Blackwater guards indicted for their involvement in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in September 2007. Urbina cited statements of the defendants which he said were given under the threat of [...]
US Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. issued an unusually brief year-end report on the federal judiciary Thursday in his capacity as head of the Judicial Conference of the United States , declining to address judiciary needs as done in previous years. On a single page, the 2009 report said the federal courts were "operating [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday ruled that the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are not required to confirm or deny the existence of electronic surveillance records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) . The suit was brought by advocates of former Guantanamo Bay [...]
2009 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, US Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Judicial Conference of the United States, December 31, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here.
United States of America v. Slough, et al., US District Court for the District of Columbia, December 31, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on Blackwater.
A plethora of state laws set to take effect after Friday, New Year's Day, seek to regulate everything from social policy to highway safety. Texting while driving will become illegal in Illinois, Oregon, and New Hampshire, which will join nearly twenty other prohibiting states and the federal government . Georgia will begin administering stiffer fines [...]
Thirteen state attorneys general, all Republicans, demanded in a letter sent Wednesday to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and the Senate Majority Leader that a controversial provision in the health care reform bill approved in the Senate last week should be struck because it unfairly benefits the state of Nebraska. In the [...]
US President Barack Obama effectively issued his first veto of congressional legislation Wednesday, rejecting as "unnecessary legislation" a stopgap spending bill that was drafted in case inclement weather would have interfered with the vote that approved the appropriations for the Department of Defense (DOD) two weeks ago. The stopgap spending bill would have allowed the [...]
