Updating a story reported earlier today in JURIST's Paper Chase, the Washington Supreme Court ruled Wednesday afternoon that 735 disputed ballots should be counted in the state gubernatorial race recount. The contested absentee ballots in the extremely close statewide race were from Seattle's King County, where hand recount totals announced later in the day gave [...]

A federal judge Wednesday lifted a interim hold on Proposition 200, the voter-approved initiative that would deny illegal immigrants certain government benefits. The temporary restraining order was orginally placed by US District Judge David Burry to determine the constitutionality of the proposition. AP has more. JURIST's Paper Chase has background on the challenges to Proposition [...]

A Florida appeals court Wednesday upheld a $500,000 lower court verdict in favor of a former TWA flight attendant who had sued tobacco companies for health damage caused by secondhand smoke on airplanes. The case turned on interpretation of a 1997 settlement between the tobacco industry and nonsmoking flight attendants under which the industry agreed [...]

Microsoft v. Commission of the European Communities, European Court of First Instance, President Judge Bo Vesterdorf, December 22, 2004 . Read the full text of the judgment here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Chile's Supreme Court Wednesday heard an appeal by lawyers for former president General Augusto Pinochet against a lower appeals court ruling Monday that had upheld a house arrest order against him and had found him fit to stand trial on human rights charges. Pinochet, 89, has been quietly released from Santiago's Hospital Militar where he [...]

Homemaking diva Martha Stewart called Wednesday for US sentencing reform in a Christmas message posted on her defense website. Stewart, currently imprisoned for securities-related crimes at the Alderson West Virginia federal correctional facility for women, said she herself was "fine, really", but directed her readers' attention to "the women here in Alderson will never have [...]

Troubled Russian oil firm Yukos will seek a ruling by a US court Wednesday against Baikal Finance Group, which purchased Yukos' primary subsidiary in a Sunday auction. Yukos said it would seek $20 billion in damages from those involved in the auction and to have Baikal's assets frozen, after the Russian government sold the Yuganskneftegas [...]

The WA Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday on disputed King County ballots in the still-undecided governor's race. The court's decision on the 730 ballots could decide the race, which Republican state Sen. Dino Rossi currently leads by 51 votes over Democratic state Attorney General Christine Gregoire according to the recount. The Seattle [...]

President Bush has granted four more pardons, bringing his total to 31 since taking office, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Bush has issued far fewer clemency orders than either President Clinton or his father, George H.W. Bush, who issued 77 during his term in office. Modern presidents have typically granted hundreds to thousands of [...]

Douglas Berman, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University: "According to this AP story, President George Bush granted four pardons today, which gives him a total of just 31 pardons and commutations during his first term.  As the AP story notes, this total is "far off the pace of most modern presidents and less than [...]