AP is reporting that Democrats will force debate in both the House and Senate on the Ohio election returns before formally certifying President Bush's re-election today. This is only the second time since 1877 that pre-certification debates have been forced. The debates, which will disrupt what would have been a routine joint session of Congress [...]

The Texas 1st Court of Appeals has overturned Andrea Yates' capital murder convictions in the drownings of her children, ruling that false testimony by a state expert witness could have affected the judgment of the jury. Read the full text of the opinion here. The Houston Chronicle has more.

The US Supreme Court announced Wednesday that Chief Justice William Rehnquist has returned to the court to work part-time, but it is as yet uncertain when or if he will actually return to the bench when the Court resumes hearing cases Monday. Rehnquist, 80, is undergoing cancer treatment and has already canceled a two-week course [...]

In an exclusive JURIST op-ed before his testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Admiral John Hutson (Ret. USN), former Navy Judge Advocate General and now President and Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center, says that Judge Alberto Gonzales' reading of the Geneva Conventions on the protection of prisoners has been short-sighted and dangerous, has [...]

Log of (and links to) FBI records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request for documents concerning the treatment and interrogation of detainees in United States custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, released January 5, 2005. Review the log of the documents here, with descriptions of contents. Reported [...]

FBI documents released Wednesday by the ACLU following a Freedom of Information Act request show repeated FBI concern over and disapproval of military interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but also indicate that FBI investigation of the practices was scaled back after July 2004 for reasons as yet unclear. The documents were released one day [...]

UN officials have begun working with Indonesian government authorities to set up a child registration system that will help prevent and forestall illegal child trafficking in the wake of last week's South Asia tsunami that is now estimated to have killed 150,000, leaving tens of thousands of children homeless across the region. A UNICEF spokeman [...]

A draft of Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales' prepared statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee intended for delivery at his confirmation hearing Thursday and obtained late Wednesday notably makes no mention of torture, prisoners, detainees, Guantanamo, Iraq or the Geneva Conventions, taking a speak-no-evil approach to a wide range of issues on which Gonzales is [...]

A US military spokesman said Wednesday that US Southern Command has opened an investigation into allegations of Iraqi prisoner abuse made by FBI personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and made public last month (see this report in JURIST's Paper Chase) after a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU. Read a Southern Command press [...]

TV Azteca, Mexico's second largest broadcaster, said Wednesday that civil fraud charges announced against it and its top executives yesterday by the US Securities and Exchange Commission were false and alleged that the SEC was pursuing it to distract attention from its own failing in policing corporate fraud in the US. The SEC says the [...]