US District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. halted all executions in Missouri Monday until Missouri can ensure that inmates do not suffer when given a lethal injection. Gaitan gave the Missouri Department of Corrections until July 15 to find a new way to execute inmates, ruling in the case of death row inmate Michael Taylor. The [...]

Lawyers for two of the seven men indicted last week on terrorism charges for allegedly conspiring to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI headquarters in Miami said Monday that their clients were entrapped by an FBI informant posing as an al Qaeda operative. Albert Levin, the court-appointed attorney for Patrick Abraham, told [...]

Saddam Hussein and at least six co-defendants will face a second trial beginning August 21 for allegedly killing 100,000 Kurds during the so-called "Anfal" operation in northern Iraq in the 1980s, the Iraqi High Tribunal said Tuesday. The tribunal filed genocide and crimes against humanity charges against Hussein and his co-defendants in April, though reports [...]

John Bellinger , the top legal adviser for the US State Department , said Monday that the US would like to close its detention camp at Guantanamo Bay , but must first make sure that detainees will not pose a security risk or face torture when returned to their native countries. Bellinger added that several [...]

Iraq's council of ministers on Monday took the first steps to elaborate on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's national reconciliation initiative , which he unveiled to parliament Sunday. In a statement, the council said that government employees who had been detained would be reinstated to their positions and for purposes of promotion and retirement, their [...]

Opening arguments began Tuesday in the fraud trial of Tongsun Park , who has been charged with money laundering, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and acting as an unregistered agent of the government of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in connection with the now-defunct UN oil-for-food program . The prosecutor in the trial, the first [...]

Kansas v. Marsh, Supreme Court of the United States, June 26, 2006 . Read the Court's majority opinion per Justice Thomas, along with a concurrence from Justice Scalia, a dissent from Justice Stevens and a second dissent from Justice Souter, joined by Justices Stevens, Ginsburg and Breyer. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Randall v. Sorrell, Supreme Court of the United States, June 26, 2006 . Read the court's opinion per Justice Breyer, along with a concurrence in part from Justice Alito, a concurrence in the judgment from Justice Kennedy, a second concurrence in the judgment from Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, a dissent from Justice Stevens, [...]

A same-sex couple argued in court in Boston Monday that a 1913 Massachusetts law should not prevent them from marrying in the state because statutes in their home state of Rhode Island do not explicitly ban gay marriage. Mary Norton and Mary Becker , represented by an attorney with the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & [...]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued 50% fewer warning letters to companies violating federal drug and safety regulations in the past five years under the Bush administration, according to a report released Monday by US Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) . In 2000, the FDA issued 1,154 warning letters , while in 2005, only [...]