A spokesperson for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said Wednesday that the DOJ will limit prison restrictions on John Walker Lindh , a California man known as the "American Taliban." Lindh is serving a 20-year sentence in an Indiana federal prison after pleading guilty in 2002 to supplying services to the Taliban. DOJ spokesman [...]

The UK will publish the guidance it gives to intelligence officers for questioning suspects overseas, Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament in a written statement Wednesday. Restating the UK's unequivocal condemnation of torture, Brown said that making the applicable interrogation standards public will "protect the reputation of security and intelligence services and … reassure ourselves [...]

Israeli forces arrested 12 Hamas leaders during raids in the West Bank Thursday. Among those seized were former Palestine deputy prime minister Nasseredin al-Shaer and Hamas officials Adnan Asfur and Raafat Nassif. The seizures came after Israel and Hamas failed to reach an agreement on a prisoner exchange on Tuesday. Israel did not obtain the [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will no longer prosecute owners of medical marijuana facilities that do not violate state law, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday. Although the use of medical marijuana violates federal law, thirteen states have legalized its use. Holder warned, however, that the federal government would continue to prosecute dispensers that [...]

The US Judicial Conference has published a revised Code of Conduct for federal judges in the country. The revision, published Tuesday, updates the code from its last revision in 1992, and the conference said the changes were intended to simplify and clarify the code by condensing its sections and using plain language. The revised version [...]

The Italian judge presiding over the kidnapping trail of 26 Americans and seven Italians on Wednesday postponed the trial until April 22. Judge Oscar Magi suspended the case in order to allow Italy's Constitutional Court to explain its ruling last week excluding certain evidence from the case on the grounds of national security . The [...]

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) on Wednesday signed a bill which repealed the use of the death penalty in the state. The bill replaces the use of capital punishment with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for capital felony convictions. Richardson spoke about his reasons for signing the bill, [...]

Timothy Sandefur : "Thirty years ago, in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution is not offended by state laws that take money directly from workers' paychecks to subsidize the activities of unions. This is even true when the subsidies are taken from workers who have chosen not to [...]

Frida Berrigan : "Hidden amidst news of the global financial meltdown, the Bernie Madoff guilty pleas and spring's slow approach in the last week, was the story of global gun violence. A German rampager killed 16, an Alabama man killed 10 people, a man killed five people at a birthday party in Miami, in the [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law says that while newly-reinstated Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry must continue to hold his country's Establishment accountable for breaches of the constitutional rights and freedoms of Pakistani citizens, he and his Supreme Court should henceforward steer of political questions" arising out of disputes between [...]