Recommended readings from the latest legal news:

• Hawkish lawyer to oversee Iraqi ministries | Guardian
• Law-and-order challenge for US as it takes Iraqi city | Christian Science Monitor
• N.C. Senate votes to drop sterilization law | AP
• Appeals Court Orders OSHA to Set New Exposure Limits for Industrial Chemical | AP
• Key Witness in Terror Trial Pleads Guilty on 10 Counts | AP
• Former Texas Attorney General Pleads Innocent to Mail Fraud and Conspiracy Charges | AP
• Rethinking 'safe havens' for legal desertion of babies | Christian Science Monitor
• North Dakota state Senate rejects repeal of law making cohabitation a crime | AP
• Swaziland's Chief Justice Resigns Amid Row with Monarch | VOA
• European judicial network goes on line | Creditman
• Afghanistan's future being written, debated in new constitution | AP
• Ariz. Court to Review Death Penalty Cases | AP
• UN spells out limits of US post-conflict rights | Financial Times

See JURIST's Legal News for updates.

US News & World Report has just posted online a free basic edition of its 2004 law school rankings, a few hours in advance of their officially-announced April 4 release date. Tier 1 and Tier 2 schools have been combined in a "Top 100" list. More information is available online for payment, or in the print edition.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday that it would review the death sentences of 27 inmates to determine whether the men should be resentenced. The Court declined to throw out their convictions in the wake of a US Supreme Court ruling from 2002 [Ring v. Arizona] that found Arizona's death sentencing law unconstitutional because judges, not jurors, decided the sentence. Review State v. Ring[PDF]; more State v. Ring documents are available from the Arizona Supreme Court website.

Recommended readings from the latest legal news:

• Former US Hostage in First Gulf War Gets $1.75 Million in Compensation From Frozen Iraqi Funds | AP
• Elena Kagan named next Dean of Harvard Law School | Harvard Gazette
• NAACP President Testifies Against Gun Industry | AP
• DNA frees man from rape convictions | UPI
• Lawyers for Microsoft, Sun Argue Appeal of Java Injunction | AP

See JURIST's Legal News for updates.

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers announced Thursday afternoon that the next Dean of Harvard Law School will be HLS professor and administrative law scholar Elena Kagan. Read the Harvard Law School press release.

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, former President of the University of Michigan and defendant in the Grutter and Gratz affirmative action admissions cases, spoke to the National Press Club in Washington on Wednesday. Recorded audio is now available from NPR.

Recorded video of the Second Annual Duke Magazine Forum, featuring Duke Law School professor James Boyle in conversation with University of North Carolina Law School professor Adrienne Davis, is now available online from Duke Law. The Forum took place on March 28.

Recorded video of a panel discussion on the war in Iraq held Tuesday at the Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University, is now available online. Among the panelists is international law scholar Mary Ellen O'Connell, a JURIST Forum guest columnist whose November op-ed Resolution 1441: Compelling Saddam, Restraining Bush is still available online.

The FBI has launched a new website on counterterrorism. In addition to numerous links regarding the 9/11 hijackers, the Anthrax investigation, and the Bureau's reports on terrorism in the U.S., the site also contains descriptions of the State Department's 35 designated foreign terrorist organizations.

In a rapid come-back to the 2002 US State Department Human Rights Reports released March 31 which contained, among other things, a critical report on the current state of human rights in China, the Chinese government has released its own report on human rights in the United States in 2002. The report concludes:

The United States has been releasing annually Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, censuring other countries for their human rights situations, but it has turned a blind eye to serious violations of human rights on its own soil. This double standard on human rights issues cannot but meet with strong rejection and opposition worldwide, leaving the United States more and more isolated in the international community.

Read The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2002, now online from China's Xinhua news agency.

Human Rights Watch issued a statement Tuesday condemning the storing and placement of mines inside and around a mosque in Kadir Karam, nothern Iraq, as violations of international law:

Iraq is not among the 132 countries that are party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty that outlaws any use, production, stockpiling or trade in antipersonnel mines. However, Human Rights Watch believes that any use of antipersonnel mines by any armed force is prohibited by customary international humanitarian law since they are inherently indiscriminate weapons. International humanitarian law also prohibits using places of worship in support of the military effort.

Read the HRW statement, and a background HRW briefing on landmines in Iraq. The mines in the Kadir Karam mosque were discovered, and about 150 made safe, by the British Mines Advisory Group organization, which has posted a field report with photos on its website. The International Committee of the Red Cross offers a general backgrounder on landmines and international humanitarian law.

In a letter Tuesday to the Securities and Exchange Commission, American Bar Association President Alfred P. Carleton Jr. cited attoney-client privilege and reiterated the ABA's opposition to proposed "noisy withdrawal" rules that would require lawyers representing corporate clients to notify the SEC if they were withdrawing from representation due to material violation of securities laws, breach of fiduciary duties, or similar violations by their clients or their agents. Read his letter to the SEC[PDF].

The 2004 US News & World Report law school rankings are coming! US News will make a premium online (pay) edition available on their website April 4, with a print edition shipping April 7. Meanwhile, Lawschool.com says that the most interesting movers in the top tier for 2004 are Cornell (up) and Boalt (down).... And in Tuesday's Wall St. Journal, John O. McGinnis and Matthew Schwartz report on a study of law faculty and federal campaign contributions that suggests ideological imbalance at elite law schools.

Recommended readings from the latest legal news:

• U.S. appeals court halts Oklahoma execution | CNN
• Justices Appear Split Over Intel E-Mail Case | Los Angeles Times
• Views Differ on System for Tracking Foreign Students | Washington Post
• Judiciary Committee Votes For Porn Filters At Libraries | AP
• Ruling on Endangered Species Upheld | Washington Post
• House Judiciary Committee Questions Use of PATRIOT Act | CNS
• Federal judge rules for stadium seating for wheelchairs | Newsday
• China slams US rights record | SA
• Senate OKs Outside Scrutiny of Air Force Academy Scandal | Los Angeles Times
• House panel nears OK on gun lawsuit bill | AP
• Afghan Chief Justice Under Scrutiny | PNS
• EU Official Says Balkans Court Systems Need Help | VOA
• Milosevic seeks a vacation | B92
• Call for Chechen war crimes trial | BBC

See JURIST's Legal News for updates.

On April 3, 1936, Bruno Hauptmann was electrocuted for the kidnapping and murder of the Charles Lindbergh baby. Read more about the trial of Bruno Hauptmann in JURIST's Famous Trials series.