US District Judge Edward Lodge of the District of Idaho on Wednesday ruled that former US Attorney General John Ashcroft does not have absolute immunity from a lawsuit alleging that the government wrongfully arrested plaintiff Abdullah al Kidd as a material witness in a failed computer terrorism case against a classmate of Kidd. Lodge also [...]

French judge Jean-Claude Kross Wednesday postponed a verdict in the trial of six former Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of attending combat training at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan , saying the court needs more information on French intelligence missions to Guantanamo. Defense lawyers for the six men, all French nationals, accuse the French government [...]

US State Department officials testified Wednesday that the number of refugees admitted to the US has fallen by 23 percent as a result of provisions in the USA Patriot Act and the Real ID Act that deny entry to any person that has provided material support for armed rebel groups, including those that have aided [...]

A writer of the draft constitution for Thailand confirmed Thursday that the country's military rulers, who seized control in a bloodless coup on September 19, will have a continued role in the otherwise-civilian government after a new prime minister is appointed. Meechai Ruchupan, a former Senate speaker and the military's current chief lawyer who helped [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law says that the experience of hurricanes Katrina and Rita highlights the need for a new national corps of trained citizen responders under the direction of an independent and revitalized – and perhaps even renamed – FEMA… As Americans we are always siding with the [...]

A federal judge Wednesday set a 2009 trial date for the lawsuit by computer chip-maker Advanced Micro Designs (AMD) against arch-rival Intel after ruling Tuesday that AMD cannot proceed in US courts with a major portion of its case alleging Intel committed anticompetitive practices outside the United States. US District Judge Joseph Farnan said AMD [...]

The heirs of slaves, who filed federal lawsuits against companies that allegedly profited from slavery before the abolition of the practice in the United States, argued Wednesday in front of the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that their cases should be heard. US District Judge Charles Norgle dismissed the consolidated cases last year, saying [...]

Michael Paranzino : "North Dakota should bring back the death penalty, and it's sad that it took the brutal murder of a young woman, Dru Sjodin, by a convicted sex offender, to wake up the state's lawmakers. A federal jury in North Dakota has sentenced her killer to death under federal law, despite the state's [...]

Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, California State Assembly, signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, September 27, 2006 . Read the full text of the bill. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

State of Connecticut et al. v. Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education, United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, September 27, 2006 . Read the full text of the memorandum of decision . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.