Over 3,000 prison inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses have had their sentences reduced under an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines , according to a study released Thursday by the US Sentencing Commission . Of the 3,647 applications for early release, 3,075 have been granted and 572 denied, but most prisoners denied turned out [...]

US Marine Sgt. Jermaine A. Nelson should face court-martial for the November 2004 murder of an Iraqi detainee in Fallujah , a US Marine hearing officer found following an Article 32 pretrial hearing . Nelson was charged in December with murder and five counts of dereliction of duty after allegedly killing an unarmed captive during [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said Friday that it has transferred a former Bosnian Croat leader who was convicted of war crimes related to the torture and persecutions of Muslims during the Bosnian War to an Italian prison to serve out his sentence. In 2003, the ICTY convicted Mladen Naletilic of [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled that Russia violated the civil rights of 13 men accused of terrorism in Uzbekistan by detaining them without trial for 20 months. In 2006, Russia agreed to extradite the 13 men to Uzbekistan to face charges connected with a 2005 uprising in Andijan that resulted [...]

Argentinean politician and former police chief and mayor Luis Abelardo Patti, wanted by Argentina for allegedly torturing and killing several people during Argentina's 1976-1983 "Dirty War" , was arrested in Buenos Aires Thursday. Patti, who was elected to Argentina's lower Congressional house in 2005, had just this month received approval by the Supreme Court to [...]

The US Senate on Thursday voted 95-0 in favor of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) , legislation aimed at preventing employers and health insurers from discriminating against people who have a genetic predisposition to disease. Employers would be barred from basing hiring and firing decisions on genetic risk or predisposition to disease, [...]

Navy Captain Prescott Prince , the military-appointed lawyer for confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , has expressed concern over the fairness of his client's upcoming military commission trial. In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Prince said that the possibility that the government will introduce as evidence statements made by Mohammed obtained by [...]

The upper house of the Austrian parliament Thursday voted 151-27 to approve the EU reform treaty , formally known as the Treaty of Lisbon . The treaty now goes to Austrian President Heinz Fischer for signature. Also Thursday, the Danish national parliament voted 90-25 to approve the document, while the upper house of the Czech [...]

Myanmar voters will be permitted to observe ballot counting in a scheduled May national referendum on a draft constitution put forth by the country's ruling junta, according to Thursday state media reports. Government officials said that this would ensure that the referendum was fair, but opposition groups like the National League for Democracy (NLD) have [...]

John Roe v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board, et al., US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, April 22, 2008 . Read the full text of the order and reasons . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.