Ellen Podgor, Georgia State University College of Law: "While Martha Stewart remains incarcerated, the world is continuing outside the prison grounds of "camp cupcake." The latest, according to Reuters, is that Martha Stewart will star in a new TV show upon her release. It sounds from the Wall Street Journal article like the new "cooking [...]

Military planners are seeking $25 million to build a state-of-the-art 200-cell permanent detention facilty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be guarded by a special 324-member professional guard force, according to a story running Thursday in the Miami Herald. The permanent building, based on the layout of a medium-security prison in Indiana, would replace cells made [...]

The UK House of Lords ruled Thursday that immigration controls set up by the British government had systematically discriminated against Roma Gypsies trying to enter Britain, largely from the Czech Republic where many faced prosecution. Roma, known for their nomadic lifetsyle, have traditionally been a suspect social group across Europe, and have frequently been victims [...]

Reference re Same-Sex Marriage, Supreme Court of Canada, December 9, 2004 . Read the judgment here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Acting at the instance of President Lucio Gutierrez, the Ecuadorian Congress has narrowly voted to dismiss all 31 members of the country's Supreme Court on grounds that the institution had become too politicized. The mass dismissal, approved by 52 of the Congress's 100 members, is being sharply criticized by opposition politicians as unconstitutional and likely [...]

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has announced that his state will sue the federal government to block enforcement of the so-called Weldon amendment, a provision in a massive federal appropriations bill awaiting signature by President Bush that could deny California federal funds if it is found to discriminate against any health care provider because they [...]

CTV News is reporting that the Supreme Court of Canada has approved a proposed federal law that would make same-sex marriage legal across Canada. Lower courts in six Canadian provinces and one territory have already ruled that the traditional legal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman is unconstitutional under the Canadian [...]

Judge Charles Pickering, named by President Bush to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals through a "recess appointment" in January of this year after his regular nomination stalled in the Senate, has said he is retiring and will make a formal announcement to that effect Thursday. Pickering's nomination was bitterly opposed by Democrats and [...]

A Pentagon spokeman has said that four members of an elite US military special operations team have received administrative punishment for using Tasers – electronic stun guns – on Iraqi prisoners. Taser devices subdue human targets by delivering a shock of up to 50,000 volts that disrupts muscle activity. The Pentagon spokeman said said the [...]

KP Permanent Make-up Inc. v. Lasting Impression, United States Supreme Court per Justice Souter, December 8, 2004 . Read the opinion here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.