Edgar Ray Killen has been convicted of three counts of manslaughter in connection with the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers. The conviction came on the 41st anniversary of the rights workers disappearance and a day after jurors reported being deadlocked at 6-6. Killen faces upt to 20 years in prison for each of [...]

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urged judges on Tuesday to adhere to federal sentencing guidelines, citing a growing disparity since the US Supreme Court invalidated mandatory guidelines in US v. Booker . Addressing the National Center for Victims of Crime , he said he has seen a "drift toward lesser sentences". A report by the US [...]

In a speech to the Philadelphia Bar Association Monday Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter implied that he does not expect to see the resignation of any Supreme Court Justice by the end of the current term. Specter based his comments on observations of Chief Justice Rehnquist , who is battling thyroid cancer, saying he [...]

People v. Black, Supreme Court of California, June 20, 2005 . Read the full text of the opinion here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Abdel Hussein Shandal, Iraq's Sunni justice minister, accused the US on Tuesday of trying to delay Iraqi efforts to interrogate Saddam Hussein. While he said he expects Saddam's trial for war crimes to be over by the end of the year , he also said the US has been hampering efforts to question him and [...]

Iran's Interior Ministry Tuesday warned of the danger of fraud in Friday's scheduled run-off presidential vote, with a spokesman referring darkly to "some people who are ready to do anything to stay in power." The Ministry spokesman also alluded to fraud in the first round last Friday, blaming "people belonging to institutions whose job is [...]

A federal immigration judge ruled on Monday that John Demjanjuk , who lost his US citizenship for serving as a guard at a concentration camp, can be deported. The case dates back to 1977 , when the Justice Department originally asked for his citizenship to be revoked. That was granted in 1981. In 1983, he [...]

Luxembourg leaders say they will stick to their original plan for a July 10 referendum on the embattled European Union constitution . Following popular rejection of the charter in France and the Netherlands, seven other European countries have thusfar postponed similar votes and the ratification deadline has been extended to at least 2007 . Luxembourg [...]

British Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith Tuesday announced a government plan to abolish jury trials in complicated fraud cases. The move follows the collapse of a fraud trial earlier this year, partly because of jury problems. Goldsmith estimates about 15 to 20 trials each year would be affected by the proposal, and denied that the [...]

According to documents obtained by the Associated Press Monday, the Transportation Security Administration collected private information about commercial airline passengers who flew in June 2004, despite Congressional instructions not to do so. The documents indicate the information was gathered to test Secure Flight , a passenger pre-screening program which, along with its predecessor CAPPS II [...]