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WORLD LAW Yemen: terrorist haven? Yemeni law takes the spotlight as authorities investigate possible terrorism associated with the recent explosion of a oil tanker off Yemen's coast. MORE WORLD LAW
FAMOUS TRIALS OJ revisited From the JURIST archives - Professor Douglas Linder takes a look back at the 1995 trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman [October 2000]. MORE FAMOUS TRIALS
MILOSEVIC TRIAL Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial? "As days pass it appears that spanners are constantly thrown into the works to make life difficult for Slobo. However his tenacity has impressed me and his experience in the legal field has helped him along.
..." - Aleksander Misic, Australia JOIN THE DISCUSSION MORE ON WAR CRIMES
PAPERCHASE
New cases, documents, links and updates...
Saturday, August 31, 2002 NEW ON THE WEB... Germany will withhold Moussaoui evidence
From VOA: "Germany says it will withhold evidence against suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui unless the United States assures it the documents will not be used to secure his execution. In an interview Saturday, Germany's Justice Minister said her country must comply with European Union and German law. The German constitution prohibits supplying evidence to other countries that could help sentence a person to death. The European Union prohibits capital punishment." The United States and European governments have recently clashed over the subject of capital punishment. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MOUSSAOUI TRIAL
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 5:05 PM | #
BREAKING NEWS Six sentenced to death for Pakistan gang rape From The News, Karachi: "A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Sunday sentenced six men to death over the gang rape of a woman in Punjab province, a crime that shocked Pakistan and highlighted abuses against women in rural areas." LEARN MORE ABOUT PAKISTAN LAW
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 4:46 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB EU walks fine line on ICC immunity At the final press conference of the European Foreign Ministers' meeting in Elsinore, Denmark, the Ministers announced their intention to work towards an understanding with the United States regarding immunity for US personnel from the jursidiction of the International Criminal Court, but insisted that the ICC as an institution must not be undermined. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 4:20 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Ancient skeleton goes to scientists, not Native Americans A US federal magistrate in Oregon has ruled [PDF] that the 9000-year-old bones of "Kennewick Man", discovered in 1996, should not be turned over to local Native American tribes as initially ordered by the federal government, but rather can be kept by scientists for study. LEARN MORE ABOUT KENNEWICK MAN
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 9:55 AM | #
Friday, August 30, 2002 NEW ON THE WEB WTO: US tax breaks illegal In an arbitration judgment [PDF] rendered Friday, the World Trade Organization authorized the European Union to levy duties of over $4 billion against the United States as compensation for illegal US tax breaks. The judgment is the largest in WTO history. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WTO
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 9:43 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Government seeks permission to appeal Hamdi ruling The Secretary of Defense has filed an interlocutory appeal [PDF] with the 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals seeking permission to immediately appeal to that Court from an August 16 District Court order which refused to dismiss a habeas corpus petition for Yaser Esam Hamdi on the grounds that he was a "captured enemy combatant." READ MORE ABOUT THE HAMDI CASE
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:59 PM | #
NEW ON JURIST Positions at the University of Cincinnati College of Law The University of Cincinnati College of Law is seeking entry-level and lateral applicants for several tenure track and visiting faculty positions, a Director of their Center for Corporate Law, and an experienced professor to teach Constitutional Law (suitably qualified candidates for this last position will be considered for an endowed professorship). READ MORE AND SEE OTHER LAW TEACHING JOBS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:22 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Support for First Amendment eroding According to a new poll released Thursday by the First Amendment Center as part of a larger study of the state of the First Amendment [PDF] in 2002, almost half of Americans now think that the free speech, free press and other constitutional guarantees in the First Amendment go too far. 49% of those surveyed expressed this opinion, up 10% from those who held the same view a year ago, before the events of September 11. READ AN OVERVIEW OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:18 AM | #
Thursday, August 29, 2002 NEW ON JURIST Groups, individuals and inferences In the latest Tillers on Evidence, Professor Peter Tillers asks "Can or should inferences be drawn about individuals from their membership in a group or groups of people?" READ MORE LAW BLOGS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 10:48 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Law on the road to Baghdad Professor Bruce Ackerman's argument that a US attack on Iraq would require new legal authorizations from Congress has met with a comprehensive counterblast from former Justice Department and White House adviser David B. Rivkin Jr. and his colleague Darin R. Bartram, writing in the National Review. READ MORE ON IRAQ
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 9:56 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Pennsylvania court strikes down "life partner" ordinance A Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court panel Thursday struck down a 1998 Philadelphia ordinance that recognized "life partner" relationships as having "marital status" such that the partners of city employees could obtain benefits. The Court ruled [PDF] that this extension ran counter to the Pennsylvania General Assembly's intended definition of marriage, which pre-empted all others. READ MORE NEWS ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 9:45 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB German terror indictment announced The German Embassy in Washington has issued a press release concerning the indictment, in Germany, of a Moroccan man charged with being an accessory to 3000 murders in the United States on September 11, 2001, and being a member of a terrorist organization. The 90-page indictment itself has not yet been made public. READ MORE NEWS ABOUT TERRORISM
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 9:04 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Moussaoui trial pleadings unsealed Federal District Judge Leonie Brinkema has ordered [PDF] that a number of pleadings (see Docket items 436, 454, 453, 459, and 455 [PDF] ) of the United States and of Standby Counsel in the case of United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui be unsealed. She declined to unseal certain other pro se filings of the Moussaoui himself on the grounds that they were "replete with irrelevant, inflammatory and insulting rhetoric," and were part of an attempt "to use the court as a vehicle through which to communicate with the outside world." She further indicated that any future pro se filings "containing threats, racial slurs, calls to action, or other irrelevant and inappropriate language" would be filed and maintained under seal. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MOUSSAOUI TRIAL
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 5:32 PM | #
NEW ON JURIST Call for Papers - Central States Law Schools Association Papers are to be presented September 27-29 at the CSLSA Annual Meeting, to be held at the University of Kentucky College of Law in Lexington. READ THE FULL CALL FOR PAPERS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 3:14 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Three Supreme Court Justices favor reconsidering law on execution of teenage murderers In dissent, supporting a majority-denied stay of execution for Toronto Patterson, a Texas inmate convicted of murdering his 3-year-old cousin when he was 17, Justices Stevens, Ginsburg and Breyer called [PDF] Tuesday for the Supreme Court to reconsider whether capital punishment should be levied on persons who offended while still minors. Justice Stevens cited the late Justice Brennan's dissent in Stanford v. Kentucky, and what he called an "apparent consensus that exists among the States and in the international community against the execution of a capital sentence imposed on a juvenile offender." Following the denial of stay, Toronto Patterson was executed by lethal injection. READ MORE DEATH PENALTY NEWS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 2:02 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Deportations revisited The US Department of Justice is reviewing the recent federal appeals court ruling that deportation hearings of persons potentially linked to terrorism should be conducted in public, not in secret behind closed doors. The Department has not yet decided whether to appeal. READ THE 6TH CIRCUIT OPINION
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:54 AM | #
Wednesday, August 28, 2002 NEW ON JURIST Evidence and 9/11 In the latest Tillers on Evidence, Professor Peter Tillers considers how the events of 9/11 may have happened not because there was no evidence of danger, but because there was too much. READ MORE LAW BLOGS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:31 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Six charged with supporting terrorism Federal grand juries on Wednesday issued two new indictments against men suspected of aiding or conspiring with terrorists. Seattle resident James Ujaama was charged with recruiting Jihad fighers and providing a training camp for them in Oregon and safe houses around the country; in Detroit, five other men were charged with operating a "covert underground support unit'' and a "sleeper operational combat cell'' for a radical Islamic movement associated with al-Qaida. LEARN MORE ABOUT TERRORISM
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:00 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Lesbians cannot be parents of each others' children A 5-2 majority of the Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a claim [DOC] by a lesbian couple to be considered parents of each others' children, saying that in Ohio law "parent" referred only to biological or adoptive parents. READ MORE LEGAL NEWS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 2:19 PM | #
NEW ON JURIST Deanship at Hamline University School of Law Hamline University seeks applications and nominations for the position of Dean of its Law School. READ MORE AND SEE OTHER JOBS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 2:03 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB Judge demands to know why FBI missed evidence of Moussaoui e-mail In a order [PDF] issued Tuesday, Federal District Judge Leonie Brinkema granted Zacarias Moussaoui's request for information concerning a former personal e-mail account with Hotmail (MSN), and demanded that the FBI explain why it had not secured evidence from that account earlier. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MOUSSAOUI TRIAL
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 1:48 PM | #
BREAKING NEWS WorldCom CFO indicted From MSNBC: "The former chief financial officer for WorldCom Inc. was indicted Wednesday on securities fraud and other charges after an apparent breakdown in plea negotiations." READ MORE WORLDCOM NEWS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 1:04 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB SEC tightens rules on corporate reporting The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved new rules reducing the time corporations get to report quarterly earnings, requiring executives to disclose their stock trading within two days and implementing various other provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. READ MORE SEC NEWS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 12:43 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB A law unto ourselves? The US State Department has announced that the United States has signed a fourth Article 98 agreement with the Government of Tadjikistan, pledging that government to hold American military personnel immune from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Tadjikistan is a close ally of the US in the war in Afghanistan. In a speech Monday a senior State Department official also reasserted American rejection of the draft Biological Weapons Convention Protocol [PDF], arguing that its approach to biological weapons control was old-fashioned and contrary to US national security and commercial interests. READ MORE LEGAL NEWS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:27 AM | #
Tuesday, August 27, 2002 EDITOR'S DESK The Evidence Blog JURIST is pleased to present Tillers on Evidence, the first of a series of new JURIST web logs offering ongoing commentary and perspective from law professors on specific areas of legal doctrine. An acclaimed evidence scholar and lately Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, Peter Tillers is Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, New York. READ MORE LEGAL BLOGS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 3:20 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB US campaigns against International Criminal Court Intensifying US diplomatic efforts to protect US troops from any ICC war crimes prosecution are making headlines on various wires, especially given Monday's announcement of the latest US "Article 98" military immunity agreement with East Timor (Romania and Israel have signed similar accords with the United States). The official US position on the ICC (opposing it) is well-articulated in a May 2002 policy address by Marc Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Sharply opposed to the State Department position is USAforICC.org, which has posted a section-by-section analysis of the new American Servicemembers Protection Act, derided as the "Hague Invasion Act" in reference to the authority given to the President therein to use "all means necessary and appropriate" to free any ICC-detained US personnel from captivity. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 12:17 PM | #
NEW ON THE WEB War powers The President's constitutional authority to launch an attack on Iraq was the subject of repeated questions in yesterday's White House press briefing. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer quoted White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales' view that "A formal declaration of war or other authorization from the Congress is not required to enable the President to undertake the full range of actions that may be necessary to protect our national security." READ US POLICY STATEMENTS ON IRAQ
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:44 AM | #
Monday, August 26, 2002 LAW SCHOOL NEWS About face! While insisting that it has not abandoned its institutional policy of opposing discrimination based on sexual orientation, Harvard Law School has changed its military recruiting policy, allowing the U.S. military access to the facilities and services of the Law School's Office of Career Services. In a memo today to the HLS community Dean Robert Clark explained that in light of a federal statute known as the Solomon Amendment, "our refusal to permit military recruiters access to the services of OCS would make the entire University ineligible for appropriations from the Departments of Defense, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Education and related agencies." READ A 1997 AALS MEMO ON MILITARY RECRUITING
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 3:07 PM | #
WEB EXTRA! Deportation hearing must be public - 6th Circuit A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled today that the deportation hearing of Rahih Haddad, a Lebanese resident of Ann Arbor Michigan suspected of terrorist ties, must be open to the public under the First Amendment, despite government efforts - pursuant to a September 21, 2001 directive from US Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy - to have him judged in secret as a "special interest case." Judge Damon J. Keith wrote:
"Today, the Executive Branch seeks to [place...] its actions beyond public scrutiny. Against non-citizens, it seeks the power to secretly deport a class if it unilaterally calls them "special interest" cases. The Executive Branch seeks to uproot people's lives, outside the public eye, and behind a closed door. Democracies die behind closed doors. The First Amendment, through a free press, protects the people's right to know that their government acts fairly, lawfully, and accurately in deportation proceedings. When government begins closing doors, it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation. The Framers of the First Amendment "did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us." Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 773 (1972) (quoting Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 545 (Jackson, J., concurring)). They protected the people against secret government."
LEGAL VIEWS Embracing confusion At Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, Professor Jeff Cooper is contemplating what to say to his new first-year Civil Procedure students. READ MORE LAW BLOGS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 1:44 PM | #
EDITOR'S DESK First day of law school In celebration of the first day of fall classes at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and many other law schools across the country, JURIST presents this Letter to a Young Law Student, penned by Professor Corinne Cooper of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Good luck everyone! LEARN MORE ABOUT LIFE IN LAW SCHOOL
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 9:21 AM | #
EDITOR'S DESK On entering the blawgosphere Thanks to links from Tennessee law prof Glenn Reynolds, LA lawyer Denise Howell and other hardcore law bloggers, JURIST's official blogging debut has been publicly recognized and duely blessed. But just what is a "law blog," or "blawg"? Denise offers this guide to the genre. READ MORE LAW BLOGS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 9:13 AM | #
WEB EXTRA! Doing time In a report [PDF] released Sunday, the US Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that the adult U.S. correctional population reached a record of almost 6.6 million men and women - about 3.1 percent of the nation's adult population - at the end of 2001, up from over 4 million in 1990. This total includes persons in prison or jail, under probation and on parole. READ NEWS ABOUT PRISONS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:42 AM | #
LEGAL NEWS Would Congressional approval be necessary to attack Iraq? A VOA story reports that lawyers advising the Bush administration have concluded that no such approval would be required, given the President's constitutional status as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, and Congressional resolutions from 1991, authorizing then-President George Bush Sr. to use force against Iraq at his discretion, and more recently from September 14, 2001, approving military action to fight terrorism. But Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman disagrees. LEARN MORE ABOUT IRAQ
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 8:29 AM | #
LEGAL NEWS Milosevic trial resumes After a month-long break, the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic resumed this morning at the Hague. WATCH THE MILOSEVIC TRIAL LIVE LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MILOSEVIC TRIAL
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 7:11 AM | #
WEB EXTRA! Human rights v. public relations In a report [PDF] issued Saturday, Amnesty International claims that efforts by the United States to improve its international image will falter if it does not improve its own human rights record in cases ranging from its harsh detention of foreign nationals at Guantanamo Bay to its failure to support international agreements such as the International Criminal Court treaty and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. GET MORE HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS
Posted by Bernard Hibbitts at 9:11 AM | #
Join Harvard law professor 
of the European Foreign Ministers' meeting in Elsinore, Denmark, the Ministers announced their intention to work towards an understanding with the United States regarding immunity for US personnel from the jursidiction of the International Criminal Court, but insisted that the ICC as an institution must not be undermined. 
