The US Supreme Court Friday granted certiorari in seven cases , including a capital case, an endangered species case, and two labor-related cases among others. In the Texas death row case Panetti v. Quarterman (06-6407) , the Court will determine whether it is unconstitutional to execute an mentally ill individual who has a delusion about [...]

Umran Javed, a British Muslim, was convicted of incitement to murder and race hatred Friday after leading a February 2006 protest against the publication of satirical Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad outside the Danish Embassy in London. Javed was taped leading the chant, "Bomb, bomb, Denmark, bomb, bomb USA." He testified that it was just a [...]

Revised charges against a group of Guantanamo Bay prisoners will be drawn up by the US military by February, with first evidence to be presented by this summer according to the chief prosecutor for the commissions speaking to Reuters Friday. US Air Force Colonel Moe Davis cautioned that the timetable could change as the judicial [...]

FBI records released Thursday shed light upon late US Chief Justice William Rehnquist's public battle with prescription drug dependency in the early 1980s. The records reveal that he was prescribed a powerful sleeping aid when he was an associate justice, which he took for over a decade. Rehnquist also took Placidyl to alleviate chronic back [...]

The Death Penalty in 2006: Year-End Report, Death Penalty Information Center, December 29, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Presidency of the European Union , currently held by Germany, reiterated the EU's opposition to the death penalty "under all circumstances" in a statement released Friday, as two Saddam Hussein co-defendants in Iraq continued to face possible hanging. Former chief judge of Iraq's Hussein-era Revolutionary Court Awad Hamed al-Bandar and former Iraqi intelligence chief [...]

Imam Fawaz Damra, former leader of Ohio's largest mosque, the Islamic Center of Cleveland , has been deported to the West Bank via Jordan, US immigration officials announced Friday. Born in the Palestinian Authority, Damra was indicted in 2003 on charges of concealing ties to alleged terrorist groups when he applied for US citizenship; he [...]

The number of death sentences issued in 2006 reached the lowest level in 30 years, according to a 2006 year-end report issued by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) . The DPIC reported that there were at most 114 death sentences issued in 2006, as opposed to 128 in 2005 and the 1996 high of [...]

The government of Southern Sudan, an autonomous region in Sudan , will join the United Nations in probing alleged sex crimes committed by international peacekeepers against at least twenty Sudanese children in Juba, according to a statement from the Southern Sudanese minister for presidential affairs Thursday. The statement promised a thorough inquiry, emphasizing: "If any [...]

The Catholic Diocese of Spokane has agreed to settle molestation claims against priests on Thursday for $48 million as part of a Chapter 11 reorganization plan . Victims and a federal bankruptcy judge must still approve the deal, however, Judge Gregg W. Zive of the Nevada Bankruptcy Court, who is mediating the settlement, said he [...]