US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter opens hearings Wednesday on the legal rights of detainees held by the US at Guantanamo Bay. Part of the agenda for the hearings is to examine the due process rights of the prisoners and the authority held by Congress to make certain they receive the necessary legal representation. [...]

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld briefing on the military detention center at Guanatanamo Bay and other subjects, June 14, 2005 . Excerpt: Allegations of abuse at Guantanamo, as at any other U.S. military facility, have been thoroughly investigated. Any wrongdoing is — wrongdoers are being held accountable. The U.S. military has instituted numerous reforms [...]

Lewis, et al. v. Harris, et al., Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division, June 14, 2005 . Excerpt: The issue presented by this appeal is whether the New Jersey Constitution compels the State to allow same-sex couples to marry. We conclude that the statutory limitation of the institution of marriage to members of the [...]

Review of the Terrorist Screening Center, US Department of Justice, June 13, 2005 . Read the full text of the report here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

JPMorgan Chase agreed Tuesday to settle with investors by paying $2.2 billion to cover claims that shareholders were misled about Enron Corportation revenue because JPMorgan hid the company's debt. The announcement follows Citigroup's decision to settle an Enron-related class-action lawsuit against them for $2 billion earlier this week. JPMorgan officials refused to say the settlement [...]

Sgt. Kevin Benderman , a US Army soldier from Georgia who faces charges because he refused orders to redeploy to Iraq in January, will also be court-martialed for accepting $2,922 in bonuses and tax breaks typically reserved for soldiers serving in combat. An Army investigator urged that the larceny charges be dropped after he discovered [...]

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a statement Tuesday that 5,000 Rwandan refugees who fled to the Songore camp in Burundi to escape the 1994 genocide had been involuntarily returned to Rwanda on Sunday and Monday. Burundian authorities had declared the refugees "illegal immigrants" over the weekend. UN officials alleged that the government actions [...]

The opening of the Sudanese domestic tribunal created to try 160 alleged Darfur war criminals that was originally set for Tuesday has now been delayed until Wednesday, according to court chairman Mahmud Saeed Abkem. No reasons were given for the delay but Abkem said the hearings would be "public and open." Sudan Justice Minister Ali [...]

Leading Tuesday’s corporations and securities law news, the SEC announced today that it had reached an agreement with Ford Motor Credit Company over illegal marketing of the “Ford Money Market Account.” The agreement includes $700,000 in fines, an agreement to cease and desist the marketing practices, and a series of remedial reforms. The SEC charged [...]

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon news conference Tuesday that the US government had gone to great length and enormous expense to ensure that terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay were well-treated and that there was no reason to consider closing the military detention center despite increasing pressure from some politicians and human [...]