The US Senate Judiciary Committee concluded its four days of confirmation hearings for Chief Justice nominee John Roberts late Thursday, with closing remarks from committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) and ranking Democrat Pat Leahy (D-VT). Following the conclusion of Roberts' own testimony earlier in the day, the committee heard from a wide range of other [...]

In a JURIST Forum special, JURIST Contributing Editor William G. Ross, Professor of Law at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in Alabama, reviews the fourth day of the Senate confirmation hearings for US Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, and suggests that although the hearings may have provided few key insights into the nominee, they [...]

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed legislation Thursday authorizing lawsuits against anyone who helps teenagers get abortions in violation of Missouri's parental consent law. The law is aimed partly at preventing teens from getting abortions in neighboring Illinois, which does not have a parental consent law. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri has already filed a [...]

Robert Parton, a former investigator for the Independent Inquiry Committee into the now defunct UN Oil-for-Food program , has reached a deal with the United Nations and the US Congress under which Congress will retain thousands of pages of UN documents for review in its own examination of the humanitarian program. Parton resigned from the [...]

The latest Guantanamo Bay hunger strike has expanded to include 131 participants and is now at its largest point since the protest began a month ago, a military official said Thursday. According to the military, the latest strike began on August 8 with 76 detainees protesting poor conditions and abusive treatment at the detention facility. [...]

US soldiers serving in Iraq relied on techniques they remembered from movies to interrogate prisoners, according to documents released Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of its ongoing Freedom of Information Act requests regarding treatment of US-held detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. The newly-released documents , reports made during the [...]

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced Thursday that his office had filed a civil suit against five national insurance companies – Mutual Insurance Co., State Farm Fire and Casualty Co., Allstate Property and Casualty Co., the United Services Automobile Association and Mississippi Farm Bureau Insurance – seeking a declaration that provisions in their insurance contracts [...]

Terrorism Bill, UK Home Office, September 13, 2005 . Review the full text of the draft legislation . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

US Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) said Thursday that an unnamed Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohammed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 9/11 attacks , and was prepared to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week and reveal the identity of who directed the documents' destruction. Mastermind Atta [...]

The US Department of Justice and the special counsel investigating the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame advised Congress earlier this week to block legislation that would force the adminstration to turn over documents related to the case. The DOJ said in a Wednesday letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra [...]