Padilla v. Hanft, Supreme Court of the United States, April 3, 2006 . Excerpt from Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurrence, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice John Paul Stevens joined: Whatever the ultimate merits of the parties' mootness arguments, there are strong prudential considerations disfavoring the exercise of the Court's certiorari power. Even if [...]

Jim McGinty , attorney general of Western Australia , has announced plans to introduce legislation that would allow for regular television broadcast of court proceedings in the state, which would make the state's courts the first in the country to broadcast proceedings regularly. The proposal comes weeks before the completion of a high-tech, high security [...]

Nearly 3.6 million US households – roughly 3 percent of the total – fell victim to identity theft during a six month period in 2004, according to a US Department of Justice report released Sunday. The survey, sent to over 40,000 US households, follows a 2003 Federal Trade Commission report which determined that over 10 [...]

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he's willing to reopen Canada's perenniel constitutional debate. In an interview with CBC radio Sunday ahead of Monday's opening of the 39th Parliament in Ottawa, Harper said, "Ultimately, there will have to be constitutional changes, not just to accommodate Quebec but also to accommodate demands we have from [...]

The US Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of Jose Padilla , who had challenged whether an enemy combatant can be held indefinitely without charge. Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber, was detained in 2002 and had challenged his continued detention with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruling last September [...]

The defense case for former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma opened on Monday with testimony from Zuma about his role in the African National Congress (ANC) . Zuma's motion to dismiss the rape charges that he faces was refused by a High Court Judge Willem van der Merwe last week. Zuma testified about his [...]

Defense lawyers begin their case this week in the trial of former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling . The prosecution's case ended last week with US District Judge Sim Lake dismissing four counts against the two, leaving 28 remaining counts against Skilling and six against Lay. The defense case against the fraud and [...]

Two men who are part of a class-action lawsuit against the US government have claimed that they were abused by dogs while being held in a New Jersey jail after the Sept. 11 attacks . Ibrahim Turkmen and Akhil Sachdeva were arrested after Sept. 11 under terrorism suspicions and detained at the Passaic County Jail [...]

French union leaders and student groups hinted Monday that they might be willing to re-enter negotiations with the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin a day after the law establishing the so-called First Employment Contract (CPE) took effect on its publication in France's official gazette . President Jacques Chirac signed the controversial statute, as [...]

The United Kingdom launched its first non-police law enforcement agency Monday – the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) – modeled after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US. SOCA will have 5,000 employees on staff and its main goals are to tackle organized criminal gangs such as drug traffickers, people-smugglers who exploit illegal [...]