The BBC is reporting that a London court has sentenced Saajid Badat to 13 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in February to conspiring with "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid to blow up an American Airlines flight.

The UN Commission on Human Rights ended its 61st and possibly last session Friday in the wake of UN Secretary Kofi Annan's announced plans to radically overhaul the 53-member body. Annan and others in the international community have criticized the commission's failure to take definite action on human rights violations throughout the world. Most recently, [...]

The trial of 24 suspected members of an al-Quaida cell in Spain began in Madrid Friday. Three of the suspects allegedly used Spain as a staging ground for the September 11, 2001 attacks against targets in the United States. Spain is now the second European country, after Germany, to try suspects involved in the attacks. [...]

Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Stephen Breyer, and Antonin Scalia gave candid reactions to recent criticisms of the "activist" federal judiciary in a rare joint interview-cum-converation moderated by NBC's Tim Russert at the National Archives Thursday. O'Connor and Breyer agreed that such criticism was "nothing new," pointing out that sometimes the issues before federal courts trigger [...]

The National Center for State Courts has asked Congress to earmark 1-3 percent of new homeland security grants to states for use in improving security at courthouses. The request comes in the wake of recent incidents at several courthouses, including last month's murder of Judge Rowland Barnes in Atlanta . The US Department of Homeland [...]

The lower house of the Spanish Parliament has approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriages, a measure sponsored by Spain's ruling Socialist Party. The bill, passed Thursday, now moves to the Senate , where the Socialists have strong support. Adoption of the bill reflects significant changes in Spain, where 80 percent of the population considers [...]

AP is reporting that the Virginia Supreme Court has affirmed the death penalty for DC sniper John Allen Muhammad. 9:47 AM ET – Review the 138-page opinion . Three justices issued a partial dissent.

One day after a Michigan probate court ordered Yahoo! to release the contents of an e-mail account belonging to deceased Marine Justin Ellsworth , the company complied Thursday by delivering a CD of the private documents to Ellsworth's father, John Ellsworth. The case highlighted a conflict between the privacy policies of Internet Service Providers and [...]

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Friday, April 22. The US Senate convenes at 9:30 AM ET today. Watch a live webcast of the session. The US House is not in session today. The Republican National Lawyers Association is holding a national conference to celebrate its [...]

HR 6, Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by the United States House of Representatives on April 21, 2005 . Read the full text of the bill here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.