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 [...]

A CA judge will hear arguments Wednesday in San Francisco's challenge to a state law banning same-sex marriage. San Francisco drew the national spotlight when it issued about 4,000 same-sex marriage licenses in February and March, but the CA Supreme Court halted the practice, although it did not rule on the constitutionality of the state [...]

The European Court of First Instance ruled Wednesday that antitrust penalties against Microsoft should be upheld as the computer giant appeals the European Commission's ruling from March. According to the ruling by Judge Bo Vesterdorf, Microsoft did not demonstrate that "it might suffer serious and irreparable damage as a result of the implementation of the [...]

Judge Alvin Hellerstein of Manhattan federal court refused Tuesday to accept an ex-AOL employee's plea of guilty to charges of conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property, saying that he wasn't sure the man had actually committed a crime under the new federal can-spam legislation. Jason Smathers, fired by AOL in June, used another employee's [...]

Updating a continuing story on JURIST's Paper Chase, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Baikal Finance Group, the little-known company that bought the production arm of oil giant Yukos at auction from the Russian authorities over the weekend, had a long history in the energy sector and that the sale, which took place in [...]

Mark Godsey, University of Cincinnati College of Law: "Handing a major victory to the Bush Administration, the Ninth Circuit on Monday in U.S. v. Afshari overturned a lower court decision and held Title 18 U.S. C. 2339B(a)(1) constitutional. This statute provides criminal penalties for providing "material support" to a designated terrorist organization.  The statute provides [...]

The French Foreign Ministry has announced that two French journalists held hostage in Iraq since August and whose release was initially made contingent upon the French government not allowing its ban on religious headscarves and regalia in public schools to go into force have been released and handed over to French authorities in Baghdad. The [...]

Los Angeles defense lawyer Mark Geragos, attorney for Scott Peterson, has launched a website to solicit donations for continuing the investigation into their deaths, insisting that "Scott Peterson has been unjustly convicted" of the murders of his wife Laci and unborn son Connor. Peterson is currently awaiting formal sentenecing after a jury recommended the death [...]

An anonymous donor has posted a $100,000 reward for information leading to charges in the unsolved "Freedom Summer" slayings of 3 civil rights workers in Mississippi in June, 1964 (read this background news report on the 40th anniversary opf the murders from WBLT in Jackson). The three volunteers, in the state to help to register [...]