The Supreme Court of Iowa  held Friday that a statute banning same-sex marriage violates the state's constitution . In the ruling, the court affirmed a lower court's decision that the statute's limitation of civil marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the equal protection rights of same-sex couples. The case was brought by advocacy group Lambda Legal , which argued [...]

The Vermont House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill approving same-sex marriage . The bill, aimed at "promot legal equality in the civil marriage laws and … protect the religious freedom of clergy and religious societies authorized to solemnize civil marriages," was approved by a margin of 95-52 , which falls short of the [...]

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich , his brother Robert Blagojevich, and four associates were indicted on corruption charges Thursday by a federal grand jury. Rod Blagojevich was charged with 16 felonies including wire fraud, attempted extortion, racketeering conspiracy, extortion conspiracy, and making false statements. Others indicted include Blagojevich's former chief of staff John Harris, former [...]

A group of immigrants being detained in a Los Angles facility on Wednesday filed a complaint against the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for allegedly violating the constitutional rights of immigrants detained at the facility. The suit was filed in the US District Court Southern District of California   by the National Lawyers Guild  and the American Civil Liberties Union of [...]

Warren E. Agin : "The Travelers Indemnity v. Bailey case addresses a difficult question faced in numerous large Chapter 11 cases, whether a bankruptcy court has the power to issue a channeling injunction as part of a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization and, if it does, how do practitioners structure effective channeling injunctions. From a [...]

The US House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would give the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the market for tobacco products. The bill, entitled the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, passed in the House by a vote of 298-112 . The Act would amend the Food, [...]

Kent Scheidegger : "The rule against racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges is one of the very few constitutional rules of criminal procedure that applies equally to the defense and prosecution. See Georgia v. McCollum. So what happens on appeal when a trial judge denies a defense challenge of a juror under McCollum, but the [...]

Judge John Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Thursday that three detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan can proceed with habeas corpus challenges to their detention. The court's order rejects three of four motions brought by the US government to dismiss the habeas petitions of four [...]

China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS)  announced  Wednesday that it would conduct a review of its prison system in response to the deaths of at least five inmates since February. The suspicious deaths include  the death of two minors, the death on an inmate which guards attributed to a "nightmare," and the fatal beating of an inmate [...]

The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has asked Lebanese authorities to turn over documents related to the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , according to a court order released Wednesday. The STL, established under UN Security Council Resolution 1757 to investigate and try suspects in Hariri's killing, said that Lebanese authorities [...]