Senate majority leader Bill Frist, in a taped statement to be aired Sunday evening, urged conservatives to recognize that judges "deserve respect, not retaliation no matter how they rule," and defended his actions to stop Democrats from blocking conservative judicial nominations. FRC Action , the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council , and Focus [...]

Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees, Human Rights Watch, April 24, 2005 . Excerpt from the executive summary: It has now been one year since the appearance of the first pictures of U.S. soldiers humiliating and torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Shortly after the photos came [...]

Pope Benedict XVI was officially installed as the 265th head of the Catholic Church on Sunday, receiving the symbolic pallium and the Ring of the Fisherman , and celebrating Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. Dignitaries from 131 countries attended, including Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of the Pope's native Germany, Prince Albert II of [...]

Syria, listed by the US since 1979 as a state sponsor of terrorism, has signed on to a UN treaty designed to block funding of terrorist activities, according to a UN official speaking Sunday. Syria becomes the 136th nation to sign on to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism .

Four current leaders and a former European Commission president have this weekend urged French voters to adopt the new European constitution in a May 29 referendum, warning that rejection could have dire consequences, extending even to the "fall of Europe" as a major international player. A poll conducted Wednesday shows that 62% of French citizens [...]

Days after being removed from power by Congress, Ecuador's former president Lucio Gutierrez fled the country aboard a Brazilian air force plane on Sunday. Brazil granted Gutierrez political asylum Thursday; new Ecuadorian president despite Alfredo Palacio said Friday he would allow Gutierrez to leave despite the fact that many Ecuadorians wanted him to remain in [...]

Muhammad v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Supreme Court, Justice Lemons, April 22, 2005 . Excerpt: If society's ultimate penalty should be reserved for the most heinous offenses, accompanied by proof of vileness or future dangerousness, then surely, this case qualifies. Read the full text of the opinion here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Human Rights Watch issued a report Saturday calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the roles of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA director George Tenet in connection with US mistreatment and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and faciltities throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay . The report alleges [...]

Connecticut Superior Court judge Patrick J. Clifford ruled Friday that convicted serial killer Michael Ross is mentally competent to waive his death penalty appeals. Ross, who was convicted of raping and killing eight woman in Connecticut and New York in the 1980s is scheduled to die by lethal injection on May 11. The decision comes [...]

Ousted Ecuador president Lucio Gutierrez said Friday that his removal from office Wednesday by the Ecuadorian Congress violated the country's constitution and that, contrary to its contention, he never abandoned his post. Gutierrez’s remarks come 3 days after the Congress voted 62-0 to remove him from office under the allegation that he had abandoned his [...]