South Dakota voters Tuesday rejected a controversial law banning most abortions passed by the state legislature earlier this year. With 818 out of 818 precincts reporting Wednesday, the final unofficial results for Referred Law 6 were: NO 185948 56% YES 148666 44% The abortion ban, seen as a direct challenge to the US Supreme Court’s [...]
Five senior judges from Shenzhen, China have been arrested and 20 other judges implicated in a crackdown on corruption during the months of June to October, the China Daily reported Wednesday. The raids begun after prosecutors arrested retired judge Liao Zhaohui and the head of a Shenzhen auction house, accusing Liao of accepting bribes from [...]
Rhode Island on Tuesday granted some convicted felons the right to vote, according to the latest unofficial count of ballots on the state's Question 2 . Question 2 would amend the Rhode Island constitution to grant the voting franchise to those felons who are currently serving parole or a probation sentence. Here are the latest [...]
The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that it would review a lower court decision allowing a class action lawsuit filed against the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program to proceed to trial. The lawsuit, brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation , alleges that AT&T violated US citizens' rights to privacy and several federal [...]
New UK legislation pardoning 306 World War I soldiers who were executed for various offenses, including cowardice, sleeping while on duty, striking a superior officer, disobedience and desertion, received final approval Wednesday after the Armed Forces Act received royal assent . Royal assent came a day after Britain's House of Lords approved an amendment to [...]
India will try the 19 suspects in the July Mumbai train bombings case using special courts to speed up the legal process, the leader of the Mumbai Police anti-terrorism squad told Reuters Wednesday. India's legal system is notoriously slow, and special courts are often used in high-profile cases to focus efforts on ending these trials [...]
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the BBC Wednesday that he expects Saddam Hussein to be executed before the end of the year , pending the conclusion of the appeal process. Al-Maliki seemed undeterred by the predictions of chief prosecutor Jaafar Moussawai, who indicated Monday that he expects that an appeals panel would likely rule [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Peter Shane of Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University, says that Democrats taking over Congress in the wake of the mid-term elections should begin by reasserting constitutional checks and balances in a wide range of critical policy areas… With only their control of the Senate in doubt, Congressional Democrats are presumably [...]
Lisa Madigan : "Evidence at the trial established that from 2000-2004 the state of Illinois and the United States paid Amerigroup Corporation and its Illinois subsidiary over $243 million to set up a Medicaid HMO in Illinois that would provide healthcare services to Medicaid recipients. Amerigroup instead engaged in a systematic scheme to avoid enrolling [...]
In the Matter of Complaints Regarding Various Television Broadcasts, US Federal Communications Commission, November 6, 2006 . Read the full text of the order . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.