The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Monday reversed and vacated a jury award of $2.5 million in punitive damages awarded to a Mississippi couple who lost their home in Hurricane Katrina and later sued State Farm Insurance for rejecting their homeowner insurance claim. The presiding district judge, US District Judge L. [...]

Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav rejected a controversial plea agreement Tuesday, opting instead to face rape charges first brought against him in 2006. Under the terms of the plea agreement, which was upheld by the Israeli Supreme Court in February, Katsav was permitted to plead guilty to lesser sex charges of indecent assault, sexual harassment, [...]

A court in the Philippines on Tuesday sentenced nine military officers to prison for their participation in a failed 2003 coup against Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo . No shots were fired during the 2003 incident, in which 31 officers commandeered a Manila hotel, threatened to set off explosives, and held off police for 19 [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says the recently released 2003 John Yoo memo on US military interrogation techniques opened up a path to torture and leaves a great number of persons potentially criminally liable for the acts that occurred pursuant to the memo, if only we break [...]

Norman J. Broussard, et al., v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, April 7, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Melissa Goodman : "When Americans hear that the military is conducting domestic surveillance we tend to get a little squeamish. Isn't that the FBI's job? What is the military doing exactly? Who are they investigating and why? Well, here is what we do know, thanks to over 1,000 pages of records released to the ACLU [...]

The US Department of Defense said Monday that charges have been referred against Afghan Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Kamin, who is accused of providing material support to terrorism . If convicted, Kamin faces a maximum life sentence. Kamin is accused of conducting surveillance on US military bases in Afghanistan for al Qaeda and setting explosives [...]

New EU anti-terror laws proposed by the European Commission fail to adequately reconcile human rights concerns and may conflict with the Council of Europe's Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism , Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Rapporteur Dick Marty said Monday in a statement before the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and [...]

Slovakia has signed an enforcement of sentences agreement with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to allow ICTY convicts to be held in Slovakian prisons, the ICTY announced Monday. Under the agreement, ICTY suspects who are held at a detention unit in The Hague during trial may be moved to Slovakian jails [...]

War crimes suspect Vinko Kondic pleaded not guilty Monday in the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide charges allegedly committed during the Bosnian war. A former police deputy for the Prijedor region, Kondic is suspected of overseeing the torture, murder, and forced relocation [...]