Judges who serve on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) met with officials from the Department of Justice Monday for a closed-door briefing on the president's decision to allow warrantless domestic eavesdropping . While members of the court declined to comment on the meeting, the judges were expected to voice strong concerns about the [...]

Mehmet Ali Agca , the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, may face new charges in Turkey of draft dodging and escaping military custody after he is released from prison on Thursday , an official said Monday. Agca shot the Pope after escaping from a Turkish military prison in 1979, where he [...]

Transcript of Day 1 of confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., nominated to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, US Senate Judiciary Committee, January 9, 2006. Read the full text transcript as provided to AP by CQ Transcriptions, LLC .

General Sir Michael Rose , a retired British military leader and the former UN military commander in Bosnia, has said that UK Prime Minister Tony Blair should be impeached for making the decision to go to war in Iraq based on flawed claims that the regime there possessed weapons of mass destruction. In a BBC [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Wermiel of American University Washington College of Law says that it is important to watch not only the posturing that began yesterday inside the hearing room for Judge Samuel Alito, but also to monitor the spin, polling and strategy that occurs outside… The political ritual that Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) has [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Wendy J. Keefer, former senior counsel and chief of staff in the US Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy and now with Bancroft Associates in Washington DC, says that on the second day of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito senators spent too much time trying to [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Nora Demleitner, former law clerk to Judge Samuel Alito and currently professor of law at Hofstra University School of Law, says that comments by senators on the first day of Judge Samuel Alito's Supreme Court confirmation hearings foreshadow a range of challenges the nominee will face in questioning on coming days… Yesterday’s [...]

An Act creating a study commission on the death penalty 1and imposing a moratorium on executions, passed by the New Jersey Legislature January 9, 2006 . Read the draft text of the bill. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The New Jersey Legislature passed a bill Monday to suspend executions and create a New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission to examine all aspects of the death penalty , including its fairness and costs. The 13-member commission will report back to the legislature in November on whether the death penalty is consistent with evolving standards [...]

US Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito used his 11-minute opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee late Monday afternoon to describe his family background, his education, and his professional career, and to highlight key points of his judicial philosophy. He spoke after 18 senators made their own opening statements on the first day of [...]